Conflict and Harmony in Multi-Ethnic Societies   Tags: conflict, english, racial harmony, singapore  

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"We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people, regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society based on justice and equality so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation".

The Singapore pledge above embodies the national values that the government aims to instil in every Singapore citizen. Singapore is a cosmopolitan melting pot where people of different languages, races, religions and ethnic groups live and interact in harmonious accord. We have 4 official languages (Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil) and the Singapore government recognises 10 religious denominations here, the pricipal ones being Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and Judaism.

Living in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic society such as Singapore poses certain challenges as unhappiness, tensions and ill-feelings may arise between different racial or ethnic groups when there is a lack of understanding of each others' beliefs and customs. Racial and cultural tolerance are vital to counter ignorant suspicions and unfounded prejudices and to manage the perceptions of different racial and religious groups.

This LibGuide is divided into two parts. Part one provides an overview of two case studies -- Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka -- that illustrate conflicts in multi-ethnic societies and part two provides information on how ethnic diversity can be managed in a unique country like Singapore.

Books and texts are often mainstays of resource guides as these provide introductory and comprehensive information on a particular topic. In the creation of this libguide however, effort was also made to recommend resources that are highly accessible, such as, ebooks, journal and newpaper articles, authoritative websites, among others. Please find below a brief write-up of the resource formats, as well as, how to access them.

• Print materials from both the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, as well as, NLB's Public Libraries. Just click on the given links to activate NLB's online catalogue showing availability of the items. Apart for the reference books at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, books recommended in this guide can be reserved online and brought to the library branch of your choice for a small fee of $1.55 (just click on "Reserve this item").
  
  
• Journal articles from the library's eResources service (http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg). Most of the recommended journal articles are from Proquest Central and JSTOR as these databases are accessible from home. Just click on the given links to be brought to the relevant section of the eResources site. Thereafter, register (if you are new to the service) or log-in >> click on the relevant database (e.g., JSTOR, Proquest Central) >> conduct a search using the article's title.
  
  
• Newspaper articles from the Factiva database, as well as, the NewspaperSG database. Factiva is available via our eResources service and articles within can be accessed in the same manner as that for journal articles (described above). Newspapers from NewspaperSG can be accessed via (http://newspapers.nl.sg). Articles from 1831 - 1989 can be accessed from home (direct links to the articles are provided) while those after 1989 can only be accessed onsite at the libraries.

• Embedded videos. A picture speaks thousand words, what more a video? Click the play button on the embedded videos (from reputable sources) for some visual learning.
  
  
• Web resources. Relevant websites on the topic, as well as, journal articles accessible via the web.

This guide highlights items in the collection, and is thus not intended to be comprehensive. Interested readers should search the NLB catalogue for more works.

If you know of any interesting resource not featured in this guide, please share with us! It's easy, just click below :)

  

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