Expect Government's response in debates THERE is a difference of opinion between the Government and some citizens, including this one, about the proper pace of racial integration and democratisation in Singapore. This was an observation made in my column, "A healthy dose of idealism can create one united people" (Sunday Times, Sept 5), and acknowledged in the reply, "The reality is fault lines exist" (ST, Sept 9), from the Prime Minister's Press Secretary Ong Keng Yong, in the Forum pages. Regarding race relations, the issues are complex and controversial. I did not ask for "forced" integration. Indeed, I have argued elsewhere that one prerequisite for a Singaporean Singapore is that the English-speaking, more progressive groups accommodate others' fears about losing their cultures and identities. Given mutual understanding and enlightened leadership, their positions are not necessarily irreconcilable. Some Singaporeans believe that a multi-cultural agency would help build bridges between our different communities. Whether or not such a proposal should be implemented is a matter of judgment, of the kind that the Government is best placed to make. However, the impulse behind that suggestion was based on an observation that the Government has, for more than a decade, said and done more to defend and promote the separate cultures of the different ethnic communities here, than to strengthen understanding between them. Even if it is only a "small elite" that worries about this, it does not lessen the seriousness of the potential problem. One of Singapore's success factors has been the Government's determination to take decisions that are right, regardless of the initial level of popular support behind them, and then to carry the ground. It is this type of leadership that more idealistic Singaporeans miss in the area of multi-culturalism. On the need for more democracy, Mr Ong says that I have "forgotten" statements I made in 1994 about Parliament. Yes, I did write a column (ST, March 10, 1994) that was judged to carry an innuendo against the Speaker and his deputies. I immediately and unreservedly apologised and retracted the offending words, as the Leader of the House demanded. I went further and underlined in positive terms my respect for the way the Speaker and his deputies discharged their duties. The Speaker subsequently declared the matter closed in the light of my prompt retraction. Mr Ong suggests that my latest column contradicts my 1994 tribute to the Speaker. There is no contradiction. The health of democracy in any country is affected by more than just the Speaker of Parliament. In the recent column, I was specific about the symptoms that I felt made Singapore's democracy less than 100 per cent fit. Speaker Tan Soo Khoon's conduct was not one of them. As a Singaporean, I am proud to acknowledge our system's many strengths. Indeed, Parliament's human -- and now physical -- infrastructure is not the only one. There are others that are often underrated or ignored. Take, for example, our service-oriented administration. In many countries that profess to be more democratic than Singapore, the day-to-day reality is that citizens are powerless against corrupt bureaucrats and politicians at all levels, who abuse their positions for pecuniary or megalomaniacal gain. In contrast, Singaporeans enjoy an extraordinarily high degree of efficiency and accountability in the delivery of public services, which ultimately is the level of government that matters to most of the people, most of the time. My column listed this and other strengths. It also highlighted two weaknesses. First, there is Singapore's tightly supervised press and civil society. Mr Ong's reply caricatures this point as an uncritical call for a Western-imposed political system, and states that this outcome will "weaken our cohesion, make us divided and fractious, and cause us to lose control of our destiny". This is an argument against a sudden and mindless transplanting of unsuitable foreign models on local soil. I made no such call. Democracy being a core value of Singapore, as Mr Ong agrees, more idealistic Singaporeans should be able to discuss democracy openly without being labelled automatically as apologists for Western liberal groups out to undermine Singapore's stability with an anything-goes free-for-all. A second problem area that I mentioned was the litigiousness of ruling party politicians. Mr Ong reiterates the Government's position that suing for defamation is the way to distinguish false charges from true, and thus develop a form of politics where public statements by politicians are taken seriously. This is a worthy goal. However, as in any public education exercise, it is necessary to assess the impact, not just the intention. My guess is that, despite many years of PAP politicians winning and justifying lawsuits in open court, not all Singaporeans look at the situation in the terms that Mr Ong has described. One of the more effective demolition jobs carried out by the Government -- against allegations about health-care subsidies by Dr Chee Soon Juan and the Singapore Democratic Party -- was carried out not by lawyers in court, but by politicians in open debate in a Select Committee setting. In the course of that protracted political debate, Singaporeans could indeed distinguish between fact and typos, and discern which men deserved to be taken seriously. In the general elections soon after, voters threw Dr Chee's SDP out of Parliament. Thus, there are proven alternatives to lawsuits as vehicles of effective political communication. Mr Ong's concluding remarks suggest that I should be thankful for "the luxury of expressing critical views with no worse retribution than a sharp public rebuttal". I wrote an opinion column that was critical, but which I believe broke no law. I do not know what "worse retribution" the Government thinks it is entitled to mete out for this sort of engagement. The Government has given a detailed and proportionate reply, which I hope readers will think about seriously in the continuing debate on important issues facing Singapore. The public should neither expect anything less than such a response from the Government, nor need to fear anything more. CHERIAN GEORGE