Yawning Bread. July 2006
Struggles rather than Troubles?
A post-65 Singaporean & the post-1945 "Communist subversives"
by Liew Kai Khiun
Barely five years after its debut as another political party, the People’s Action Party (PAP) was voted into government in the General Elections of 1959. Capturing the jubilation was an iconic photograph of Lee Kuan Yew carried around by cheering supporters. A bearded young man shouldering the future prime minister among the supporters was Jamit Singh, a towering trade unionist representing dock workers. Subsequently detained as a communist subversive, his presence in the photograph has been conveniently forgotten. Given the entangled relationship between the PAP and the so-called communists, should the legacies of these activists like Singh be marginalised because they were on the "wrong" side of politics? For younger Singaporeans, why should this aspect of the past be of significance?
Two former detainees, Michael Fernandez and Tan Jing Quee who recently shared their own experiences in a public forum were dismissed by the government for disguising their "subversive and violent" pasts as democratic struggle, hoping to impress "young Singaporeans with no personal memory of the past."
Rebuking Straits Times columnist Chua Mui Hoong’s call for these dissidents to be given a greater voice as part of a more "open and inclusive society" (ST, 3 February 2006), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) spokeswoman added "They and other ex-communists and supporters cannot be allowed to rewrite history by watering down communist atrocities, subversion and other unlawful activities and glossing over the harm they caused to so many victims and the threat they posed to our country." (ST, 8 March 2006)
I have been revisiting this disturbing aspect of my country’s past through archival accounts from newspapers, official publications and declassified records in both Singapore and Britain. In the process, I have also met former dissidents like Fernandez. Being a post-1965 Singaporean, I lack the "personal memory" of the era. In a recent speech on 8 April 206, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stressed the need for young Singaporeans to know more about Singapore’s post-1965 history: "We now have a lacuna, a gap, in the generation of Singaporeans who were too young to know our pioneering leaders first-hand and, at the same time, too old to have learnt the modern syllabus. Hence when Mr Rajaratnam passed away recently, many Singaporeans in their 30s and younger admitted they knew little about who he was and what he had done."
But, I feel that this has also freed me from the emotional baggage of the previous generation to move towards a more objective and disinterested perspective of the events that have happened.
In this respect, it would be myopic to pigeonhole and simplify the more complex historical legacies of these personalities. To a certain extent, MHA’s anti-communist statement is like a double-edged sword. It can characterise both bullying communist dictatorships as well as liberation movements such as the African National Congress (ANC) where the celebrated Nelson Mandela was once demonised as a communist terrorist. The same labels have also applied to John Lennon, the lead vocalist of the group The Beatles, who was classified by British intelligence as a "dangerous communist."
In the case of Singapore, the muddled political scene of the 1950s-60s of overlapping ideologies and alliances clouds any attempts to make neat classifications between good and evil. Known to many as honourable, committed and idealistic individuals, it is not helpful to unquestionably lump former political detainees like Lim Chin Siong, Fong Swee Suan, Sydney Woodhull, Jamit Singh, Chia Thye Poh and Kuo Pao Kun with characters like Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden.
Even as opponents, the PAP leadership has been generous with their acknowledgement of the leftwing opposition. In his tribute to Lim Chin Siong, Lee Kuan Yew wrote "Because of the standards of dedication they [Lim and his comrades] set, we, the English educated PAP leaders had to set high standards of personal integrity and Spartan lifestyles to withstand their political attacks."
Similarly, the late Devan Nair placed Lim's legacy within "The irresistible tidal wave of anti-colonialism, which convulsed Singapore in the 1950s, found in Lim its leading and most eloquent voice, and I do not regret having been one of his closest comrades. Incipient and subsequent disagreements do not abrogate the facts of history."
Have the facts of history been abrogated? The government’s version of rehabilitation unfortunately seems more like victor’s justice than reconciliation. It remains incredible that the official suspicion of these activists remains largely intact. The strongly worded response of the MHA and its disinclination to declassify relevant official records of the era for public scrutiny reflects the government’s continued apprehension about permitting a more open and balanced public discussion about this era. Deliberately withholding pieces of the jigsaw puzzle has not only obstructed a more critical appreciation of our recent past, but has inevitably cast a long shadow of paranoia, suspicion and cynicism across Singapore’s political culture.
For my generation, looking back at this particularly painful past is not so much about exposing scandals, unearthing conspiracies, righting wrongs, correcting misrepresentations and misperceptions. It should serve the broader purpose of healing and reconciling the acrimonies of the previous generation.
To begin with, our perception of these activists should not be measured by contemporary standards. Writing on the social movements of the English working classes, historian, E.P. Thompson was of the opinion that "they lived through these times of acute social disturbance and we did not. Their aspirations were valid in terms of their own experiences… our only criterion of judgment should not be whether or not a man’s actions are justified in light of subsequent evolution. After all, we are not at the end of social evolution ourselves."
Ironically, it was perhaps through the hindsight of some of the first generation of PAP leaders that enabled me to further contextualise the legacies of the leftwing opposition in Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew once recalled his experience with the radicals during the 1950s: "…that only those count and matter, who have the strength and courage of their convictions to stick up and stand up for what they believe in, for their people, for their country, regardless of what happens to themselves."
The late S. Rajaratnam described the political and trade union activists of the 1950s and early 60s as fiery "Old Testament Fundamentalists" whose "primary aim was to inject a corresponding degree of militancy into a docile and disorganised working class which for long had accepted injustice, exploitation and oppression as the natural order of things."
Rather than just zeroing on the troubles they might have caused, we should also remember the former leftwing activists by the struggles they effected. Reinstating these former activists to the mainstream of Singapore’s history will not risk another revolution. On the contrary, it will demonstrate the sincerity of the current leaders to reconcile with opponents of a previous era in a fair, honest and honourable manner. The South Africans showed the way through the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation. Rather than mounting show-trials and public denunciations of the losers, the Commission openly discuss, acknowledge and exorcise the decades of violent social animosity that fractured South African society.
In February 2004, another leftwing activist Fang Chuang Pi (known commonly as The Plen) passed away in Thailand after being denied re-entry into Singapore. Refusing to renounce the government’s imposed version of communist subversion -- he probably felt it misrepresentative -- as a condition of his return, Fang’s last rites took place in Southern Thailand. Undeniably, it was the anger of Fang and his generation towards the inequalities of British Imperialism that accelerated decolonisation in Singapore and Malaysia. But today, they are still dreaded as vengeful wandering spirits. Fang’s unfulfilled dream motivated me to write to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shortly after his first National Day Rally Speech to consider a general and unconditional amnesty for Singaporeans estranged and exiled by the politics of the Cold War.
I hope this can be a step forward in ending the bitterness that had scarred the previous generation, which left unresolved, will remain to haunt the next generation. For the country to move forward as a whole, it is crucial for all Singaporeans, particularly the post-65 generation, to take ownership of a past that will not be looked back upon in anger.
Struggles rather than Troubles?
A post-65 Singaporean & the post-1945 "Communist subversives"
by Liew Kai Khiun
Barely five years after its debut as another political party, the People’s Action Party (PAP) was voted into government in the General Elections of 1959. Capturing the jubilation was an iconic photograph of Lee Kuan Yew carried around by cheering supporters. A bearded young man shouldering the future prime minister among the supporters was Jamit Singh, a towering trade unionist representing dock workers. Subsequently detained as a communist subversive, his presence in the photograph has been conveniently forgotten. Given the entangled relationship between the PAP and the so-called communists, should the legacies of these activists like Singh be marginalised because they were on the "wrong" side of politics? For younger Singaporeans, why should this aspect of the past be of significance?
Two former detainees, Michael Fernandez and Tan Jing Quee who recently shared their own experiences in a public forum were dismissed by the government for disguising their "subversive and violent" pasts as democratic struggle, hoping to impress "young Singaporeans with no personal memory of the past."
Rebuking Straits Times columnist Chua Mui Hoong’s call for these dissidents to be given a greater voice as part of a more "open and inclusive society" (ST, 3 February 2006), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) spokeswoman added "They and other ex-communists and supporters cannot be allowed to rewrite history by watering down communist atrocities, subversion and other unlawful activities and glossing over the harm they caused to so many victims and the threat they posed to our country." (ST, 8 March 2006)
I have been revisiting this disturbing aspect of my country’s past through archival accounts from newspapers, official publications and declassified records in both Singapore and Britain. In the process, I have also met former dissidents like Fernandez. Being a post-1965 Singaporean, I lack the "personal memory" of the era. In a recent speech on 8 April 206, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stressed the need for young Singaporeans to know more about Singapore’s post-1965 history: "We now have a lacuna, a gap, in the generation of Singaporeans who were too young to know our pioneering leaders first-hand and, at the same time, too old to have learnt the modern syllabus. Hence when Mr Rajaratnam passed away recently, many Singaporeans in their 30s and younger admitted they knew little about who he was and what he had done."
But, I feel that this has also freed me from the emotional baggage of the previous generation to move towards a more objective and disinterested perspective of the events that have happened.
In this respect, it would be myopic to pigeonhole and simplify the more complex historical legacies of these personalities. To a certain extent, MHA’s anti-communist statement is like a double-edged sword. It can characterise both bullying communist dictatorships as well as liberation movements such as the African National Congress (ANC) where the celebrated Nelson Mandela was once demonised as a communist terrorist. The same labels have also applied to John Lennon, the lead vocalist of the group The Beatles, who was classified by British intelligence as a "dangerous communist."
In the case of Singapore, the muddled political scene of the 1950s-60s of overlapping ideologies and alliances clouds any attempts to make neat classifications between good and evil. Known to many as honourable, committed and idealistic individuals, it is not helpful to unquestionably lump former political detainees like Lim Chin Siong, Fong Swee Suan, Sydney Woodhull, Jamit Singh, Chia Thye Poh and Kuo Pao Kun with characters like Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden.
Even as opponents, the PAP leadership has been generous with their acknowledgement of the leftwing opposition. In his tribute to Lim Chin Siong, Lee Kuan Yew wrote "Because of the standards of dedication they [Lim and his comrades] set, we, the English educated PAP leaders had to set high standards of personal integrity and Spartan lifestyles to withstand their political attacks."
Similarly, the late Devan Nair placed Lim's legacy within "The irresistible tidal wave of anti-colonialism, which convulsed Singapore in the 1950s, found in Lim its leading and most eloquent voice, and I do not regret having been one of his closest comrades. Incipient and subsequent disagreements do not abrogate the facts of history."
Have the facts of history been abrogated? The government’s version of rehabilitation unfortunately seems more like victor’s justice than reconciliation. It remains incredible that the official suspicion of these activists remains largely intact. The strongly worded response of the MHA and its disinclination to declassify relevant official records of the era for public scrutiny reflects the government’s continued apprehension about permitting a more open and balanced public discussion about this era. Deliberately withholding pieces of the jigsaw puzzle has not only obstructed a more critical appreciation of our recent past, but has inevitably cast a long shadow of paranoia, suspicion and cynicism across Singapore’s political culture.
For my generation, looking back at this particularly painful past is not so much about exposing scandals, unearthing conspiracies, righting wrongs, correcting misrepresentations and misperceptions. It should serve the broader purpose of healing and reconciling the acrimonies of the previous generation.
To begin with, our perception of these activists should not be measured by contemporary standards. Writing on the social movements of the English working classes, historian, E.P. Thompson was of the opinion that "they lived through these times of acute social disturbance and we did not. Their aspirations were valid in terms of their own experiences… our only criterion of judgment should not be whether or not a man’s actions are justified in light of subsequent evolution. After all, we are not at the end of social evolution ourselves."
Ironically, it was perhaps through the hindsight of some of the first generation of PAP leaders that enabled me to further contextualise the legacies of the leftwing opposition in Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew once recalled his experience with the radicals during the 1950s: "…that only those count and matter, who have the strength and courage of their convictions to stick up and stand up for what they believe in, for their people, for their country, regardless of what happens to themselves."
The late S. Rajaratnam described the political and trade union activists of the 1950s and early 60s as fiery "Old Testament Fundamentalists" whose "primary aim was to inject a corresponding degree of militancy into a docile and disorganised working class which for long had accepted injustice, exploitation and oppression as the natural order of things."
Rather than just zeroing on the troubles they might have caused, we should also remember the former leftwing activists by the struggles they effected. Reinstating these former activists to the mainstream of Singapore’s history will not risk another revolution. On the contrary, it will demonstrate the sincerity of the current leaders to reconcile with opponents of a previous era in a fair, honest and honourable manner. The South Africans showed the way through the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation. Rather than mounting show-trials and public denunciations of the losers, the Commission openly discuss, acknowledge and exorcise the decades of violent social animosity that fractured South African society.
In February 2004, another leftwing activist Fang Chuang Pi (known commonly as The Plen) passed away in Thailand after being denied re-entry into Singapore. Refusing to renounce the government’s imposed version of communist subversion -- he probably felt it misrepresentative -- as a condition of his return, Fang’s last rites took place in Southern Thailand. Undeniably, it was the anger of Fang and his generation towards the inequalities of British Imperialism that accelerated decolonisation in Singapore and Malaysia. But today, they are still dreaded as vengeful wandering spirits. Fang’s unfulfilled dream motivated me to write to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shortly after his first National Day Rally Speech to consider a general and unconditional amnesty for Singaporeans estranged and exiled by the politics of the Cold War.
I hope this can be a step forward in ending the bitterness that had scarred the previous generation, which left unresolved, will remain to haunt the next generation. For the country to move forward as a whole, it is crucial for all Singaporeans, particularly the post-65 generation, to take ownership of a past that will not be looked back upon in anger.
