The Dominant Perspective on Terrorism and Its Implication for Social Cohesion: The Case of Singapore

Abstract

This paper seeks to portray and examine the dominant understanding of terrorism
as reflected in official discourse in Singapore. It also evaluates its impact on
attempts aimed at combating terrorism's potent threat to social cohesion. It is
maintained that pervasive influence of the culturalist approach woven into the
understanding of terrorism has had the effect of thrusting into focus Islam and
certain presumptions of the identity and culture of the Muslim community of Singapore.
The dominance of this approach conditions and compounds the lack of a
more comprehensive and objective analysis of the phenomenon informed by concepts
and methodology from the social sciences. This impedes efforts at fostering
social resilience and cohesion aimed at thwarting the looming threat of terrorism.