On 18 August 2009, Viswa Sadasivan moved a motion for Parliament to reaffirm "its commitment to the nation building tenets as enshrined in the National Pledge when debating national policies, especially economic policies". He identified one of the tenets of the Pledge as the need to strive to become a "united people, regardless of race, language or religion", and expressed the view that Singaporean society needed to address "apparent contradictions and mixed signals" by unnecessarily emphasising racial differences. He gave examples where this had occurred: the existence of ethnic based self-help groups, Special Assistance Plan schools and cultural elitism; policies concerning Malay-Muslims in the Singapore Armed Forces and maintaining the current racial distribution in the population; and discussions about whether Singapore was ready for an ethnic minority Prime Minister. The next day, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew refuted what he termed Viswa's "false and flawed" arguments, saying he wanted to "bring the House back to earth" on the issue of racial equality in Singapore. He noted that Articles 152 and 153 of the Constitution, which make it the Government's responsibility to care for racial and religious minorities and to recognise the special position of Malays as the indigenous people of Singapore, explicitly impose a duty on the Government not to treat everyone equally. He felt that the tenet in the Pledge that Viswa had referred to was only an aspiration: "It is not reality, it is not practical, it will lead to grave and irreparable damage if we work on that principle. ... e are trying to reach a position where there is a level playing field for everybody which is going to take decades, if not centuries, and we may never get there." Thus, it was not feasible to dismantle institutions that provided assistance to Singaporeans on an ethnic basis. It was the first time since 2007 that Lee had chosen to speak during a debate in Parliament.