Hawa / tjc09_violence

The author in Passage 1 said that there is a relation between the culture of the country and the rates of murder and violence in a country. Countries with a greater diversity of culture are likely to have higher rates of murder and violence in a country because immigrants are said to be more likely to resort to violence to be successful in their new country. This may be applicable to Singapore as a cosmopolitan city and there is a constant influx in the number of foreign workers here. Thus, this means that these foreign workers who are success-driven would go all out commit an act of murder or violence in order to be successful in Singapore. However, this view may not be entirely true because if that were so, Singapore would have extremely high homicide rates given the number of foreign workers here. Furthermore, foreign construction workers in Singapore are usually housed in cramped dormitories and do not exactly have very high pay cheques. Despite that, there have been little or no cases of these foreign construction workers murdering their employers for their predicament. Hence, although the view which states that countries with a greater diversity of culture are likely to have higher rates of murder and violence raises concern since Singapore has a multi-racial society, the underlying reason behind this view is flawed. Thus, this makes inapplicable in Singapore’s context.

The author is Passage 2 said that many people perceive violence as “religiously motivated”. This view is highly applicable to Singapore. Since the world was shook by the September 11 incident carried out by Islamic militants, many acts of violence and bombings have been associated to religious views. This issue is of great concern in Singapore today because we live in a country with many different religions. The notion that violence is “religiously motivated” can cause mistrust and suspicion among citizens, which will consequently disrupt the social cohesion in Singapore. This can be detrimental to Singapore as this can lead to other undesirable effects like the racial riots in 1964. Moreover, the recent arrest of the self-radicalised fulltime NSman who was interested in militant jihad may cause further disturbance in Singapore as gullible non-Muslims in Singapore may stereotype all Muslims as being involved in violence which are related to the religion. Hence, this view is highly applicable to Singapore as the terrorist threats which are thought to be carried out by those who are religiously-driven still exist.