Govt. shouldn’t tolerate racial and religious hatred: Siri Amarasuriya

FT PROFILE

U.W. (Siri) Amarasuriya is a second-generation Ceylonese Singaporean, whose father is a goldsmith who migrated from Beddegama to Malaya in the early 1940s. He started a small jewellery business in Seremban, Malaya but lost his business during the Japanese occupation of Malaya and migrated to Singapore with his family in 1947.

Amarasuriya, who had started working at age 17 as an accounts clerk to support the family, rose to the post of Assistant Manager/Accountant in a reputed jewellery store. Being a Fellow of the Institute of Administrative Accountants, UK, he later held the post of an Authoriser of the Credit Card Unit of the Bank of America and later joined the Fraud Control Unit of the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS).

He handled cases including detection and investigation of fraudulent activities of credit card accounts, use of stolen identity and use of falsified documents to apply for bank credit facilities, money laundering, and merchant fraud etc.

After working with DBS for 22 years, working closely with the Singaporean financial institutions and law enforcement agencies to combat white collar crimes, today he is the Vice President of the Singapore Sinhala Buddhist Association.

Sri Lankan politicians, who make sensitive remarks on race and religion to get political mileage, would badly affect the reconciliation process and stability, a Singaporean Sri Lankan Siri Amarasuriya said.

He said that when politicians use race and religion for their own survival; the mistrust developed between different ethnic groups would make them more distant.

In an interview with the Daily FT, a former analyst of the DBS Bank, who handled credit card frauds, said that the Singaporean government didn’t leave a space for anyone to arouse racial and religious tensions and it would take prompt and stern actions against those who hurt the feelings of another ethnic community.

“This is an important factor that the Sri Lankan Government should study and adopt in the reconciliation process to get all communities together,” he said. Following are excerpts of the interview:

Q: Can you share your experience in living in Singapore which respects all ethnic groups?

A: Singapore is a country of many nationalities and religious beliefs, each with their own traditions and culture. Singaporeans are more opened minded, tolerant, and respect the beliefs, traditions, and culture of other nationalities. Hence, there are no racial or religious tensions. The government is often reminding people that they belonged to one nation. Most importantly, the Singaporean government doesn’t tolerate or encourage any racial discussions or activities that create unrest among people. If anyone makes a statement over a racial remark deemed disrespectful, he will be questioned and appropriate action will be taken against him. They can privately have feelings or unhappiness over racial differences but they do not openly express them as those views will hurt the feelings of other ethnic groups. This also covers unwarranted comments against the government.

Since the government is monitoring, Singaporeans are more careful and vigilant, especially the social media networks likes Facebook and Twitter, when posting their views. A good recent example is when the relevant government authority issued a warning to Singapore’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew’s grandson Li Shengwu for posting a comment linked to a family issue, which the government said was a baseless attack on Singapore’s judiciary.

People are free to make comments on anything but if they make any accusation or an allegation, then they need to prove the allegations. The government is very firm and this is how it created stability and has guaranteed safety of all ethnic groups. This is the main reason we all feel safe in Singapore and we are not hurt by any remarks against ethnicity or religion. The Singapore government is strongly committed to have racial harmony and this is being supported not only by the law but also by the people.

Q: How do you see the Sinhalese and Tamils living together in Singapore?

A: Yes, we are living here peacefully. No one talks about racial or religious differences and we enjoy each others’ company and we are friends. For example, the children of our Sri Lanka Buddhist Temple performed for an event organised by the Tamil and Hindu community. We have the Singapore Sinhala Association and they have been working very closely with the Ceylon Sports Club, which belongs to Sri Lankan Tamils in Singapore.

Q: What are the lessons that Sri Lanka can learn from Singapore with regards to racial harmony?

A: The main lesson that Sri Lanka can learn from Singapore is the strong commitment of the country’s top leadership to maintain harmony. You can’t change the perception of the people who are in the bottom layer of the country unless the top leadership is committed to a genuine change.

At the beginning, the then Singapore government led the change and strong commitment came from our founding father Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. In the early days there were some ministers in the Lee Kuan Yew government that were caught for having taken bribes and receiving benefits. He took tough actions against them. He gave the leadership by setting these as examples to ordinary people to understand that nobody was above the law. When the government took action against those who were in the government and also very close to the Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, this inflicted a fear among ordinary Singaporeans not to engage in corrupt practices or to mess or belittle the government. When the commitment comes from the top level it will flow down to the bottom layer of the society. 

I do not say that Singapore is 100% corruption free as there may be very few black sheep in the country but as a whole I can say Singapore is a clean and corruption-free country.

This is similar to how Singapore is maintaining racial and religious harmony. The top is committed to having a harmonious country and now it has flown down to the ordinary people. When comparing Singapore to some of our neighbors, where ethnicity is often raised mainly to gain political mileage, Singapore can be a model for racial and religious harmony for many countries in the Asian region and also to the world.

In Singapore, as I said before, people or politicians or political parties are free to comment but if they fail to prove their allegations, the government will take legal action against them. This has prevented false accusations, slander, and mud-slinging.

Q: Do you think that the education standard of politicians plays a major role in Singapore’s success story?

A: Yes, Singapore has achieved developed status and has to match up with other developed countries. In this respect, education is a key to Singapore’s success story, where the government ensures every child received basic education, academic or vocational, and assists those in need of financial help. Sri Lanka also needs to have a system and an environment to elect highly educated politicians to represent people in the Parliament.

In Singapore, before political parties select a candidate, his/her background, including education, will be checked to determine suitability before being selected as a candidate for the party in an election. The same applies if a person intends to contest in an election as an independent candidate. There is a system that checks the person’s background and suitability.

If the person has a bad track record it will be publicised by his opponents. This will allow the voters to decide whether they want him or her to represent them. The same system should be implemented gradually in Sri Lanka to negate corrupt politicians being elected to the Parliament.

Sri Lanka also needs to elect credible people and also those who put the country first. In Sri Lanka, mostly from the top most down, the politicians first think about their own pocket and then the country whereas Singaporeans look for their education, integrity and status of the candidates before selecting them to contest. This practice has helped to avoid corrupt politicians get into the parliament.

In Singapore, the prime minister has the executive powers whereas the president has no say in the governing of the country. However, the president is the custodian and holds the key to the reserves of the country. The government cannot touch the reserves without the consent of the president. One of the criteria to be elected as the president is that the person must have a certain number of years of experience in managing the finances of an establishment with a certain amount of paid up capital and with a certain number of employees.

I think Sri Lankans needs to stop re-electing the candidates who have been rejected by the people and also those who tend to crossover to the winning party, just to be in the Parliament should not be accepted by any other political parties because they are opportunists and looking out for their interest. They crossover to another party not because they want to serve the people but to serve themselves and get more perks.

Q: You said you had visited Sri Lanka several times after the war ended. Do you see any progress towards reconciliation?

A: Yes, we often visited Sri Lanka during the past few years to see our relatives and friends. I have seen that things have changed and the country is developing. No more garbage along roadsides, potholes on the roads have been covered resulting in improved roads, highways etc. These improvements to the infrastructure contribute to the development of the country but they still have a long way to go. 

You can say some parts of the country are almost like Singapore. All these developments were started during the Rajapaksa regime. Before that, the roads were narrow, lined with garbage, unclean, people were in fear of terrorist attacks and there was no stability.

For a country to develop it needs improved infrastructure facilities and Sri Lanka was progressing towards that direction gradually. I hope the current government will continue these good works.

I have also seen that people who belong to different ethnic groups are trying to live together peacefully in post-war Sri Lanka. I saw even during the war time, the ordinary people were not ethnically divided and they are still living together by ironing out their differences.

But what I have noticed during my visits is that still the politicians are creating ethnic disharmony for their political survival. The Government should stop this behaviour by taking stern action against those who arouse tensions between Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims.

Q: Can you explain how the SBA and also the Sri Lanka Buddhist Temple – Lankaramaya – promote religious harmony in Singapore and what is the response from the Singaporean people?

A: SBA works closely with our constituency’s Community Centre and its Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO). The IRO is comprised of a representative from each religious faith in Singapore. Every constituency in Singapore has its own IRO. An official of SSBA is in the Community Centre’s management committee and is also in the IRO.

The officials of SSBA and children of the SLBT participate in the activities organised by the Community Centre, like during their festive celebrations, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Deepavali, moon cake festival and lantern festival. Our participation is not only in our own constituency but in some activities organised by other constituencies.

Annually we organise a blessing service on the eve of Chinese New Year for the Chinese Buddhist Devotees, a dinner treat in our premises for the senior folks from the different races in our community as part of our National Day Celebration, and we allow the Myanmar Buddhist Community use of our temple facilities for some of their Buddhist activities.

Our participation and the cultural performances by children of the SLBT were well received by the various organisations and people. They have shown their appreciation by awarding plaques and certificates of appreciation to SSBA, SLBT, and children of the SLBT.