Closing Remarks by Mr Edwin Tong, Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs, at the International Conference on Cohesive Societies 2025

26 June 2025

Good afternoon, everyone, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. An especially warm welcome to all our friends, visitors from overseas. I hope you had a good stay in Singapore.

We are so thrilled and honoured that you are back here again joining us for ICCS 2025. I think we should give our overseas friends a warm round of applause.

And so here we are. Three fruitful days have just flown by, and today now, all too soon, we are at the close of the third edition of the International Conference on Cohesive Societies (ICCS).

It’s a little bit bittersweet, because we’ve had a great three days, but as with all things, it has to come to an end.

But actually, it is not the end. It is just the beginning. It is the beginning of building on the friendships and the networks that you form here – the knowledge and exchange – of what you can do when you bring it back to your home countries, in your own communities, what you can do to expand on the learning and the thought leadership that we developed here, and how much more we can impact community and touch people’s lives.

All of that, I believe, starts at ICCS, in the conversations that you’ve had, in the plenary sessions that you’ve enjoyed, and in the thoughtful speeches that you’ve heard. So I hope that we can go back and make this the start of impact on all our communities, wherever we come from.

Since the last conference just three years ago, I think the world has become a more uncertain place and, dare I say, a more fragile place.

We have seen the rise of conflicts — sometimes they are simmering conflicts, sometimes erupting violently – sadly.
- Trade tensions have disrupted economies.
- Digital disinformation spreads rapidly across borders at breakneck speed. And even faster with each iteration of social media and technology
- And social fissures deepen within and between nations. Sometimes people take very emotive fault lines, because they are the weakest link in society, and they press them hard, and use those as weapons.
- So the challenge to peace and harmony is real — and pressing.

Yet, despite all of this, standing up here and seeing all of you present at ICCS, with a strong showing this year – with the many thought-provoking speeches, the lively plenary sessions, and more importantly, with all the networks that you built, all of these demonstrate our collective determination.

All of this demonstrates our collective determination. Despite what is happening around the world, despite all the conflicts that we see, despite the tensions and fault lines that people take advantage of – we are here not just to talk about the difficulties, but find ways to act on them. Not merely to coexist, or even just to be content with being tolerant of differences, but to build genuine bonds across these differences, and to seek to celebrate diversity as a virtue amongst all of us.

It shows indeed that we are committed to nurturing cohesive societies as the foundation of resilient futures.

One theme that has reverberated throughout almost every keynote, plenary, workshop, and informal conversation and as I heard that earlier in the lively exchange is that
- Cohesion does not happen by chance. It will not and it cannot. And I think we have to assume that we have to work really hard at it
- Which means that cohesion demands intentionality. It must be deliberate. It must be front of mind, something we are conscious of – that we must organise ourselves around it – and it requires what I call “intentional multiculturalism”, something that is not left to chance – cannot be built by chance.

Let me explain what I mean by sketching out what social cohesion means to me, personally sharing some of the Singapore experience and also drawing on the many thoughtful speeches that I’ve heard over the last few days.

“Social cohesion” — we’ve heard that word so many times. To me it means something that knits a diverse society into a shared community. And as I said, it doesn’t exist as a natural state.
- In fact, our primal instincts tell us to look for people who are similar to us. We hang out with people who look like us, speak like us, share our beliefs, and basically are a reflection of ourselves in identity and fundamentally in our thought process.

Therefore, you can’t assume that when you leave a country alone, you leave a society alone, leave a community to chance, that cohesion will materialise, especially when you have a diverse group of people with different interests, different faiths, different backgrounds.

We must work very hard at it, and this is painstaking work. And I think we all know there can be no substitute.

But if we get it right, we can build shared norms with common hopes and aspirations, and be in a position to create an environment where people don’t just tolerate one another, but we embrace one another.

Where we truly live, interact, and deepen friendships across communities in everyday life.

And I want to emphasise the key is in everyday life. It is actually quite easy to do this on special occasions, at festivals, on New Year occasions, when things are fun, where you get to dress up in baju, with nice clothes, where you visit. That’s the easy part. But can we do it and sustain it every day – whether there is a special occasion or otherwise?

I believe this year’s theme, “Cohesive Societies, Resilient Futures,” really captures this essence very aptly. Because it’s in a cohesive society that we will find a resilient future.

At the same time, true cohesion and societal harmony cannot be the product of a single silver bullet. Why not? Well, very simply put, we are dealing with individuals. We are dealing with emotions, with beliefs, with sentiments. We are dealing with people who come from different heritage, a different set of cultural norms and a lot of deep history. It is also multifaceted, because no two communities can ever be alike.

It is also constantly evolving across different generations. Earlier, we heard one of the speakers speak about intergenerational communication. I think that’s really important as a foundational touchpoint of building true cohesion.

Cohesion also touches on the deepest identities and beliefs that people hold dear. And this is very visceral, very personal, something that we hold deep and true to the very second nature of our identity.

Indeed, many speakers over the last three days have reminded us that managing this diversity and being able to stitch it into a cohesive unit is very complicated.

It involves navigating differences that are often deeply rooted in history, culture, and faith. We are also reminded that at the core of a cohesive society or community – (we speak of society as a collective plural) – is the individual. What we are talking about is the individual.

At the core of every society, who we want to bring together in every community – are people like you and I: individuals with their own hopes, fears and dreams and aspirations.
- So even as we address macro issues, which are important, policies and platforms that promote cohesion, we can ill afford to neglect the micro, the thoughts, the sentiments, and the individuality behind what we want to do.
- We have to try and learn to see issues through the lens of the other person. And importantly, in a diverse society, through the lens of the minority community. It is easy to see it through the lens of the majority community. But can we ask ourselves every once in a while, to look at a perspective, an issue, from the lens of someone with a minority profile of any particular community?
- And I would say that if we can do that, then we have the best possible chance of shaping the lived experience of an individual, which matters a great deal: what they feel, how they see, how they feel value in the community, the role they play, the role they can play, how they’re looked up to.

All of these are important constituent elements in building a socially cohesive society.

Therefore, spaces and daily rituals, things that we do on a daily basis that can sit outside of special occasions, that foster interaction and build understanding are very important, as are community programmes deliberately bring people together through platforms that are otherwise very innocuous looking, such as the arts, heritage, culture, sports – all of these are platforms that bring people together with no other agenda, but through the natural formation of friendships. You learn to bridge gaps, to see across divides using these platforms.

Or even if you ignore these platforms, what about the spontaneous occasions, the shared coffee breaks (which I’m sure you’ve had many of in the neighbourhood), festivals, or just bumping into someone while you’re walking the dog in the park, or bringing your children to the playground? All these micro-interactions are really important and cannot be ignored as we strive to build a socially cohesive society.

And the point I want to leave you with is: there is no one-size-fits-all. There are differences, we must respect the differences, see through the collective whole and identify the individual, in order to build a socially cohesive community.

This year’s conference takes place in a special year for Singapore. We are celebrating our sixtieth year of independence. It is a real milestone in our nation’s journey to build a cohesive, multicultural society.

But at the same time, it is also an opportunity for all of us in Singapore to reflect on that journey, and to ask ourselves how we have come here, how far we have come, what more we can do to make it to SG100 and beyond, and what steps we need to take as a society, collectively, to be on that path.

I believe that multiculturalism lies at the heart of Singapore story. 60 years ago, as a newly independent nation with a highly diverse population, we were very conscious of our differences, but we decided to form a country that embraced the differences – not in spite of, but because of, the differences – to make ourselves stronger.

We consciously adopted multiculturalism as a key value we would live by. Some of our rules, our laws, our Constitution, our provisions, deal with how we treat a minority population in our country.

And so, we became an independent nation of people with very different ethnicities, religions and cultural practices. We decided that we would not build a national identity by assimilating all of these into one, but we wanted to keep those individual intrinsic qualities of diversity (different communities and having different characteristics), and we layer on top of that, our national identity.

So, it is a Singaporean identity, but below that, we respect, we embrace, and we have learnt to truly appreciate the differences that exist below the surface as fellow Singaporeans.

We grow that thinking throughout what we have done in our policies and our practices. We integrate groups, to help them live closer together. And as a result, I believe Singapore has become home to a real kaleidoscope of different ethnicities, religions, and languages. And I’m so proud to call this my home.

But the question for us, as an international community, is: how do we keep this going, especially with the challenges that we’ve heard about? How do we navigate these challenges, how do we evolve the concept of multiculturalism, to take on board today’s challenges – the tensions that lie today, with the advent of social media and powered with technology?

Well, I’ve got a couple of short observations to share with you. First, we must always work on the basis that multiculturalism is not a natural state. It is never assured, and we have to work hard at it.

We must always assume it to be a constant work in progress, and something that we are ever so anxious about, that we might lose. We must always glance behind us, behind our backs, and wonder whether it could be taken away from us. We must always have that slight nervousness about it, and then we will seek to jealously guard it and protect it.

Second, I believe we need leadership and citizen support in tandem, hand in hand. There can’t be one without the other. No policy alone will ever work, and no community without policy and frameworks, can work.

Government policies are useful, and they put in place the framework, but it has to be the people who breathe life into these ideals, who practice them every day, and, as I said, show us what their lived experiences.

On this, I believe we will have to accept a degree of social intervention. That intervention can be quite deeply personal. My colleague Dinesh spoke about how we integrate living spaces.

Why? Not because we wanted to make people live together or have to transact in a particular way, but because when you live together, you grow up together. You eat together in the hawker centres, side by side, elbow to elbow, in a shared space, at a common table, and you learn to see across the divides. You learn that that is your lived experiences. That is what I mean by everyday, day-to-day, lived experiences – not just on special occasions. So that social intervention can be quite deeply personal – where we live, how we live – all of that existing within a policy framework to maintain harmony within a community – I think that’s really important.

Third, in public spaces, both offline as well as offline, I think there has to be responsibility and accountability for what we say. Sometimes the most divided of conflicts starts with mere words.

Pope Leo, when he was first elected, had a dialogue with all the ambassadors. From among his first speeches, one phrase struck a chord with me – “for words too, not only weapons, can wound, and even kill”.

And when I had a brief opportunity to chat with him, when I met with him in the Vatican, he said many conflicts today start with a disagreement, by words, and it quickly escalates into something that becomes an armed conflict, and sometimes, as you can see, becomes prolonged.

So I believe we could all be a lot more mindful and have a care about what we say, in particular, about hateful speech. Sometimes this will mean sacrificing our own desire to be able to say what we want about anything we want, wherever we want, in favour of being more caring about the impact they have on the person next to us. What happens when you walk into a room when you are not a majority in that room, and your views are not taken into account, and speeches or comments are made, that denigrate the minority. That’s hurtful, and that’s how sometimes conflicts can start.

If we are more mindful, we will have more open, honest, public discourse, based on facts and not hate and disinformation.

Fourth, the responsibility to shape and nurture this cohesive society will increasingly fall on the shoulders of our young people – our young leaders, our young advocates, and I think Alex just now demonstrated what it means to him, because he literally stood up to be counted. And I think that’s what we need our young people to do at ICCS.

This year, I am delighted to see over 200 Young Leaders joining us — nearly double from the previous conference. This is a very significant factoid, that we have more youthful participation, more young people are engaged, and more people have signed up for the YLP (which, by the way, goes on this Saturday). I want to give you all a very big shoutout. Thank you for being here and taking the lead.

You’re not just here to be participants. You’ve been actively working with us to cocreate this programme, to think about what matters, to think about how to deliver the message, and how we design the sessions. You’ve led the conversations, given us your perspectives and your views.

You have a critical role in shaping future conversations as well. You play a big role in being able to shape and build that intergenerational dialogue, and that intergenerational bonding. It’s one thing to connect with people of your own generation, but it’s much harder to do so across generations.

Trust me – one day, you will get there when you are the senior generation and you think, “what is this music they are listening to, what is this language that they’re speaking, I don’t understand it. I look it up on Google and it doesn’t really help me. So I use my children to help me translate”, but one day you will be there. So that intergenerational bonding and cohesion is equally important.

While I’m here, I want to cite some inspiring examples of ICCS alumni – from our young people.
- I’m told that Win Wen from Malaysia founded Jelajah Harmoni Seberang Jaya, a youth-led initiative bringing participants to visit multiple different places of worship, understanding what goes on in a place of worship that is not of your own religion, your faith, fostering, a firsthand appreciation of cultural diversity and in many ways, playing an important role to demystify
- Very often, you are worried and anxious about something you don’t know, you don’t understand. So the first step in harmony and cohesion is to understand, to see, to know, and to understand – that breaks the barrier. How many of us would be able to criticise a friend from a minority group, if that person is someone you know well, someone you hold dear, you understand, you know, you speak to that person, you understand his or her challenges, it is much harder to do so.
- So it is always better to start with understanding. And the efforts Win Wen has made has played a big part in shaping this.
- And Arizza Nocum from the Philippines created Champions for Peace, helping to train youth to address social and environmental fragilities in their own communities. I think it’s a challenge to do so, because it’s never easy to look at social and environmental issues, and across religious and ethnic divides, and to develop thought leadership around it, to rally, to lead.
- All these are great examples of how our young people from the ICCS alumni have done us proud. And I thank all of you for being here, for taking the lead, and for really carrying on with this messaging even outside of ICCS.

These stories underscore the power of our young people to transform societies from the ground up. And in your hands, I believe, you have the power to be able to transcend those conversations and to build stronger thought leadership that leads us into the future of cohesive societies.

Finally, my last thought on this: how do we approach cohesion-building? We speak about this in theory, we understand what a cohesive society looks like. But how do you and I play a part in doing this, how do we all approach these conversations, if and when we are approached? I believe that our approach must always be with an open heart, always prepared to see across differences, willing to foster shared ideas and build hopes with people who might look, think and speak differently from ourselves.

I spent almost five years in my previous role as Minister for Culture, Community and Youth. Five, to me, very fulfilling years. And this part of the work has been deeply personal to me.

In a world that is increasingly shaped by polarisation, by division, we see value in building civic spaces both online and offline, where dialogues and trust can take root – across faiths, sectors and generations, across different ethnicities, and through that, to build trust.

We should never weaponise race and religion. It is so easy to do, but its impact is so long-lasting and it breaks the trust that we all seek to foster.

And to me, this is why ICCS matters. We come together as an open community. We share ideas, we develop a common resolve to do better in each of our own communities. It also helps us to sharpen our instinct to listen more carefully, to collaborate more deeply, and to reach beyond just the familiar.

Because today’s world is not just defined by geographical boundaries. It is a global village connected by technology and trade, yet sadly, very often, divided by suspicion and fear. So we must find a way, even as we part company after today, to go back to our own communities and have that shared thought leadership on how we build a cohesive society across the world.

Finally, in closing, as I reflect on Singapore’s 60 years and ICCS’s growth, I return to a few simple truths:
- Cohesion and harmony – they are not abstract ideals.
- They are tangible objectives. They are lived commitments, made in everyday choices – every day, day in, day out, where we live, work and play
- Cohesion and harmony are also forged in the willingness to listen, to understand, and that open heart, to reach across divides.
- They are built in spaces both big and small — from national policies to neighbourhood conversations, from grand celebrations to the smallest acts of kindness – for your neighbour, as you see him or her in the lift lobby, or at the corridor where you live.
- They require courage, patience, and above all, a certain intentionality and deliberateness to what we want to foster.

I’m pleased to say that at ICCS 2025, we have witnessed this spirit.

Together, we have shared stories, we have shared ideas, and we have discussed solutions.

And now, we go back to our communities, countries, and continents, I hope that we can carry this spirit with us.

May we all be inspired to work actively and intentionally across multicultural societies where difference and diversity is a strength, and not a threat.

Where every individual’s identity is respected, and every person’s voice is heard.

And then cohesion can become the bedrock of resilient futures for all of us.

Thank you very much.

Related Content