US embassy cable - 05SINGAPORE343

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 SINGAPORE 000343 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR INR/B 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/07/2015 
TAGS: PINR, PGOV, PHUM, PREL, PTER, SN, SOCI 
SUBJECT: MUSLIM MPS IN SINGAPORE: PART 2 OF 2 
 
REF: SINGAPORE 312 
 
Classified By: Amb. Franklin L. Lavin, Reasons 1.4 (b)(d) 
 
1. (U) This cable completes the biographic reporting on 
Singapore's 12 Muslim MPs.  Reftel covered five of them and 
reviewed the role they play in Singapore and how they are 
perceived by the Muslim community.  The biographies are 
designed to be stand-alone documents, so acronyms and 
organizations are described in each biography. 
 
============== 
MP Biographies 
============== 
 
Halimah Binte Yacob 
------------------- 
 
2. (U) Halimah Binte Yacob has been a member of parliament 
since 2001.  She was one of 25 new candidates fielded by the 
ruling People's Action Party (PAP) that year and was the 
first female Muslim MP to be elected since 1959.  She 
reportedly declined several invitations from the PAP to enter 
politics while her children were younger, but finally joined 
after a personal invitation from then Prime Minister Goh Chok 
Tong.  In December 2004, she was named to the PAP's Central 
Executive Committee, making her one of its two Muslim 
representatives. 
 
3. (U) In parliament, Halimah has championed the interests of 
workers and women.  In particular, she is concerned about 
older and less skilled workers, many of whom are Malays, who 
have been hurt by Singapore's economic restructuring and 
shift away from traditional manufacturing.  Halimah also 
fought successfully for equal medical benefits for women 
civil servants.  She has criticized academic streaming or 
tracking, which she considers elitist and detrimental to 
racial and cultural integration among Singaporean children. 
 
4. (C) Halimah does not appear to have a prominent position 
in the Muslim community.  She occasionally appears on the 
Malay-language television news, but seldom is quoted in 
Berita Harian, Singapore's Malay-language newspaper, and 
rarely attends large Malay/Muslim events attended by emboffs. 
 The leadership of Jamiyah (the Muslim Missionary Society) 
was unenthusiastic about her in a recent meeting with 
emboffs.  Halimah has a much stronger background in the trade 
union movement.  She first joined the National Trades Union 
Congress (NTUC) in 1978.  She has served several stints in 
the Ministry of Manpower and, in 1999, was recruited by the 
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to represent 
Singapore at the International Labour Organization (ILO). 
Within Singapore's Muslim community, she has taken the lead 
in co-ordinating job-training programs run by the various 
Muslim self-help groups. 
 
5. (U) In 2003, Halimah participated in an International 
Visitor Program on Organized Labor in the United States and 
was impressed by U.S. laws ensuring equal employment 
opportunity.  It was her first trip to the U.S., but she has 
traveled extensively in Southeast Asia and Western Europe. 
 
6. (U) Born in Singapore on August 23, 1954, Halimah comes 
from a humble background.  Her ethnic Indian father died when 
she was eight years old, leaving the family impoverished. 
She helped her ethnic Malay mother to sell food to support 
the family.  Due to this experience, she believes that people 
can overcome difficult circumstances through hard work, but 
the government should lend a helping hand.  With a 
scholarship from the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore 
(MUIS), she was able to attend the University of Singapore 
law school.  In 1978 she earned her Bachelor of Law degree 
and later a Masters in 2002 from the National University of 
Singapore.  Her husband is a businessman and they have five 
children in their late teens and early twenties.  She speaks 
excellent Malay and wears traditional Malay/Muslim clothing. 
 
Mohamad Maidin Bin Packer Mohd 
------------------------------ 
 
7. (U) Mohamad Maidin Bin Packer Mohd first entered 
parliament in 1991.  He has held a number of sub-cabinet 
positions at the Ministries of Education, Environment, and 
Information and the Arts.  Since 2001, he has been Senior 
Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs.  As 
the highest ranking Muslim in the Ministry which administers 
the Internal Security Act, under which Jemaah Islamiyah 
suspects have been detained without trial, Mohamad Maidin has 
the sensitive task of assuring Singapore's Muslim minority 
that the process is fair. 
 
8. (U) Maidin has deep ties with the Muslim community.  He 
was a founding member of MENDAKI (the leading Malay/Muslim 
education self-help group linked to the government) and has 
been involved with other groups, such as the Islamic Welfare 
Association and the Malay Language Council.  He was a 
journalist and assistant to the editor for more than ten 
years at Berita Harian, Singapore's Malay language newspaper. 
 Then Deputy Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong recruited him to 
join the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) in 1988 to focus 
on Malay issues and improve communication with the 
Malay/Muslim community.  At that time, his supervisor at the 
paper, Zainul Abidin Rasheed (now an MP and Minister of State 
at MFA), said that Malays who joined the PAP were seen as 
selling out. 
 
9. (U) He has strongly condemned terrorism and extremism, but 
is frustrated with western media depictions of Islam.  After 
the 9/11 attacks, he said "the only way to live as a Muslim 
is to live as a moderate."  He has called on religious 
leaders to promote mainstream Islam and, during a January 
2005 forum on terrorism and jihad, he urged the audience not 
to allow sympathy for the Palestinian cause to allow them to 
sanction bombings. 
 
10. (U) Maidin was born on December 25, 1957 in Singapore and 
has a high school level education.  He is married to Rahimah 
binte Asmore and has five children. 
 
Ahmad Khalis Abdul Ghani 
------------------------ 
 
11. (C) In 2001, Ahmad Khalis Abdul Ghani was easily elected 
to parliament on the People's Action Party (PAP) ticket from 
one of the few Group Representation Constituencies to be 
contested by the opposition (Reftel).  Ahmad appears more 
willing than other Muslim MPs to express his less than total 
agreement with government policy.  For example, he has been 
skeptical of the government's willingness to consider 
allowing casinos to operate in Singapore.  Even during the 
2001 election campaign, he hinted at his dissatisfaction with 
the government, noting that "no system is perfect" and that 
he had to do some serious "soul searching" before joining the 
PAP. 
 
12. (U) Ahmad's involvement in the Malay/Muslim community 
stretches back to his high school days, when he was chairman 
of his school's Malay language society.  In college, he was 
president of the National University of Singapore Muslim 
Society.  In 1993, he became the General Secretary of the 
Muhammadiyah Association, a major Muslim charity that runs 
nursing homes and a madrasah.  In 2002, this was one of 
several Muslim organizations that urged the GOS to not 
support the U.S. liberation of Iraq. 
 
13. (U) An enthusiastic supporter of Islamic religious 
education, Ahmad has argued that Singapore's madrasahs do not 
turn out extremists.  His two teenage daughters attend 
madrasahs.  He is the Supervisor/Honorary Secretary of one 
madrasah and was a member of the Madrasah Development 
Committee of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore 
(MUIS) from 1998-2001.  Ahmad has said that the madrasah 
curriculum should prepare students to study at a wide variety 
of religious and secular institutions.  If anyone should 
monitor Islamic education to detect extremist elements in 
Singapore, he believes that Muslims themselves should do it. 
He has urged Muslim leaders to "correct erroneous perceptions 
of Islam which may be purveyed by the ill-informed" outside 
the Muslim community. 
 
14. (U) Ahmad was born on July 20, 1960 in Singapore.  He 
graduated from the prestigious Raffles Institution in 1978 
and earned a law degree from the National University of 
Singapore in 1985.  He started his own law firm with an 
ethnic Chinese partner in 1986.  Ahmad is married and has 
four children. 
 
Yatiman Yusof 
------------- 
 
15. (U) Yatiman Yusof was first elected to parliament in 
1984.  Since 1997, he has been the Senior Parliamentary 
Secretary at the Ministry of Information and the Arts.  Prior 
 
SIPDIS 
to that, he spent almost six years at MFA in the same 
position. 
 
16. (U) Yatiman appears strongly committed to preserving 
Singapore's multi-racial society and has sternly criticized 
Muslims who question the government's treatment of its 
Malay/Muslim minority.  For example, in 2002, he accused the 
Muslim author of some critical articles of threatening 
Singapore's racial harmony and condemned Jemaah Islamiyah 
terrorists as "social saboteurs who undermine our continuous, 
sustained efforts at creating a multi-racial community living 
in harmony." 
17. (U) Born on September 22, 1946 in Johor, Malaysia, 
Yatiman worked odd jobs as a youth to support his large 
family.  In 1964, he was forced to take a job in the 
construction industry because he lacked the money to attend 
university.  Later, he earned a B.A. in Geography and Malay 
Studies from the University of Singapore in 1972.  Before 
entering politics, he worked as a teacher and as a journalist 
and editor at Berita Harian, Singapore's Malay-language 
newspaper.  In 1992, he published a book of his poetry.  He 
is married and has four children. 
 
Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman 
------------------------ 
 
18. (U) Dr. Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman was elected to 
parliament in 2001.  During the last cabinet reshuffle in 
2004, he was promoted to the sub-cabinet position of 
Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Health and the 
Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCDYS). 
Another Muslim MP, Yaacob Ibrahim, is the Minister at MCDYS, 
which is the major source of government funding for community 
and ethnic groups.  Mohamad Maliki exemplifies the new style 
of Muslim MP that the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) has 
been recruiting: a relatively young and highly educated 
professional.  He has a Bachelors and Masters degree from the 
National University of Singapore (NUS) and a Ph.D. from the 
University of Illinois in Social Work.  He is an Assistant 
Professor at NUS. 
 
19. (U) Given his background in social work, Mohamad Maliki 
has focused his efforts as an MP on strengthening Muslim 
families in Singapore.  He was chosen by the Muslim Community 
Leaders Forum to head its focus group on family development. 
He has stated that being a good Muslim means being a good 
father and has encouraged a redefinition of traditional 
gender roles to encourage Muslim men to help out more at 
home.  He has also participated in a variety of Muslim 
groups, including on the Madrasah Steering Committee of the 
Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) and on the 
board of MENDAKI, the leading Malay/Muslim education 
self-help group linked to the government. 
 
20. (U) Mohamad Maliki was born on July 19, 1965 in 
Singapore.  He was the eighth of nine children and grew up in 
a one-room apartment.  His father was a bus driver and his 
mother was a housewife.  He is married to Sadiah Shahal and 
they have two children. 
 
Othman Bin Haron Eusofe 
----------------------- 
 
21. (C) Othman Bin Haron Eusofe is the longest-serving Muslim 
MP, having been first elected in 1980.  He was Minister of 
State for Manpower from 1997-2001 and became Minister of 
State in the Prime Minister's Office in 2004.  Given the 
ruling People's Action Party's (PAP's) stated interest in 
recruiting a new and younger batch of MPs for the next 
general election, it wouldn't be surprising if this is 
Othman's last term. 
 
22. (U) Othman has a background both in the trade union 
movement and the Muslim community.  He has held a variety of 
positions at the National Trade Unions Congress since joining 
it in 1980.  He was a founding member of MENDAKI (the leading 
Malay/Muslim education self-help group linked to the 
government), served on the board of the Islamic Religious 
Council of Singapore (MUIS), and is Vice Chairman of the 
Social Enterprise Network Cooperative (SENSE), which was 
created in 2004 to provide job training for Malay/Muslim 
workers. 
 
23. (U) Although he attends many Malay/Muslim community 
events, he seldom appears in the press.  In his few public 
comments, he has expressed his concern about maintaining 
racial harmony in Singapore.  In 2002, he reportedly 
criticized the media for its "sensationalist" and "negative" 
depiction of Islam, which he claimed threatened Singapore's 
social cohesion.  At a forum for the Malay community on 
September 11, 2002, he urged Muslims not to view an invasion 
of Iraq as an attack on Islam, but as a means to combat 
terrorism. 
 
24. (U) Othman was born in Singapore on December 17, 1940. 
He has nostalgically recalled growing up in a big family in 
which siblings looked out for each other.  He graduated from 
the prestigious Raffles Institution in 1960 and earned a B.A. 
in Economics and Political Science from the University of 
Singapore in 1964.  After graduation, he joined Singapore's 
civil service, where he worked until entering politics.  He 
is married and has three children. 
 
Zainudin Nordin 
--------------- 
25. (U) Zainudin Nordin was first elected to parliament in 
2001.  He has maintained a lower profile than other Muslim 
MPs and almost never appears in the press.  He is co-chairman 
of the recently launched Youth Development Network.  The 
organization is dedicated to resolving the problems among 
Malay/Muslim youth in Singapore and to improve coordination 
of efforts by the various Muslim self-help groups. 
 
26. (U) Born on July 3, 1963, Zainudin is married and has two 
young daughters.  A Francophile, he spent almost four years 
in France earning a Master's degree in engineering from the 
College of Electrical and Electric Engineering on a 
scholarship from Singapore's Economic Development Board.  He 
is presently the Deputy Manager of the Electronics Design 
Centre of the School of Engineering at Nanyang Polytechnic. 
LAVIN