August 10, 11:54 AM 
514 Chai Chee Lane 03-16, Singapore 469029 We ought to give Tunku Abdul Rahman the Order of Temasek for kicking us out of Malaysia. Third class will do.
After all, Dr Goh Keng Swee has the First Class Order, and of all the members of our then Cabinet, it was Dr Goh who first realised that Singapore in Malaysia was unsustainable and negotiated us the best possible exit under the circumstances.
These rather irreverent thoughts came to me after listening to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day speech on August 8 and watching the National Day Parade the next day. I was too hyped up to sleep and odd thoughts drift into one’s mind in the wee hours of the morning. But I am not entirely joking.
[quip float="pqleft"] I was 11 years old in 1965 and not unusually for a young kid, totally indifferent to politics. The curfews imposed after the racial riots of the previous year were only so many days off from school to me. [/quip]
I was 11 years old in 1965 and not unusually for a young kid, totally indifferent to politics. The curfews imposed after the racial riots of the previous year were only so many days off from school to me. My parents must have been sick with worry. But if I shared their concern, I do not remember.
It was only when I watched the TV broadcast of the press conference of then PM Lee Kuan Yew breaking down when announcing Separation as it was politely termed, that something of the apprehension that PM Lee spoke of in his National Day speech penetrated my consciousness as an inchoate, hollow feeling of indefinable uncertainty.
That I watched the broadcast at all – cartoons were my preferred TV fare – was due to my father who worked for Radio & Television Singapore (RTS) and called home to insist, on pain of a spanking, that I did so. In his memoirs, Mr Lee Kuan Yew was kind enough to credit my father with persuading him not to cut the footage of him in tears. Today that ‘moment of anguish’ is one of the icons of our history.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="287"]
Lee Kuan Yew: "“For me, it is a moment of anguish. All my life, my whole adult life, I believed in merger and unity of the two territories.”[/caption]
We are at peace with ourselves.
What a long way we have come. Fifty years is but the blink of an eye in a nation’s history.
I don’t think I need belabour the contrast with Malaysia. Anyway no need to take my word for it. Yesterday I came across what Julia Yeow, a Malaysian journalist, had to say about the two very different countries we have become: “Singapore’s worldview has become that of a global nation, where their activists fight for a quality of life which they believe citizens of a developed nation should enjoy. We, on the other hand, battle a political system that is rife with corruption and have to endure the unending bickering over the role of Islam in our Constitution ...”
[quip float="pqright"] I don’t think I need belabour the contrast with Malaysia...a Malaysia journalist said, “Singapore’s worldview has become that of a global nation, where their activists fight for a quality of life which they believe citizens of a developed nation should enjoy." [/quip]
Of course we are not without our problems.
Singaporeans worry about MRT breakdowns, the price of public housing, COEs, how to spend their CPF and columbariums. Not to make light of such grumbles, but they can and are being fixed and we are, an impending General Election notwithstanding, at peace with ourselves. We don’t have to reckon with billions inexplicably missing from government coffers and growing religious and racial tensions: whatever they may say, the Low Yat Plaza affray in Kuala Lumpor was a racial riot and vividly exposed what a tinderbox Malaysia has become.
When I watched the mobile column rumble pass at NDP, a reminder of the SAF’s understated power, I thought about earlier NDPs.
In 1966, my friends and I were in Secondary One and had just joined the Army Cadet Corps, the predecessor of the NCC. Only a few schools had Cadet Corps in those days, five if memory does not betray me. We were hastily given uniforms vaguely similar to ‘real’ army uniforms – Army Cadets wore khaki shorts and puttees in those days – and told to march. And march we did, no doubt awkwardly but with pride: in 1966, 1967 and 1968, carrying World War II vintage Lee Enfield Mark 4 rifles sans firing pins!
It was only very much later that it occurred to me that the SAF then being almost non-existent, we were probably there to swell the ranks to instil confidence. Those were desperate days.
When we were expelled from Malaysia, Kuala Lumpor had three instruments that they thought would keep us under their thumb and perhaps bring us crawling back: the military, water and the economy.
By the terms of the Separation Agreement, Malaysia has the right to station its armed forces in Singapore. But not too long after the 1969 NDP revealed we had armour, the Malaysians withdrew their ground forces.
A strong SAF also keeps the Malaysians honest about water. They know Singaporeans are not going to die of thirst peacefully. If we are going to give the Tunku a decoration, we ought to consider one for Dr Mahathir too because his ranting more than anything else persuaded Singaporeans to accept New Water. We have not renewed the 1961 water agreement. And when the 1962 agreement comes up for renewal, we can now decide on purely commercial grounds whether or not to buy water from Malaysia.
[quip float="pqright"] As for the economy, on our National Day, one Malaysian Ringgit could buy you about 35 Singapore cents. ‘Nuff said [/quip]
As for the economy, on our National Day, one Malaysian Ringgit could buy you about 35 Singapore cents. ‘Nuff said.
I sometime think all this is more evident to foreigners than to some Singaporeans. I know of a few western journalists who used to delight in knocking us but upon retirement choose to settle here rather than in their own countries. I know too of some ex-foreign Ambassadors who have done the same.
[quip float="pqleft"] I know of a few western journalists who used to delight in knocking us but upon retirement choose to settle here rather than in their own countries. [/quip]
Yesterday I also came across another article by a Singaporean journalist who seems to specialize in denigrating Singapore for Malaysian publications.
She grudgingly acknowledged our achievements but felt obliged to point out that Singapore was not a poor fishing village in 1965. Of course the Singapore we enjoy today did not spring into being fully formed on 9th August 1965. That is obvious. But what we have achieved since by dint of integrity, pragmatism and sweat over fifty years is our own achievement as a sovereign and independent nation. I don’t understand why she could not understand this or what she was trying to insinuate. She can’t be that obtuse. Perhaps that’s the only way she can sell her articles to Malaysian newspapers.
And this brings me to the last of these rambling reflections.
In his National Day speech, PM Lee Hsien Loong described our first generation leaders and our pioneer generation as “lions and the lion hearted”. I don’t know if the allusion was intentional but it was an inversion of a phrase that was used to describe incompetent World War I British Generals who caused the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of brave British soldiers – lions – during battles such as the Somme, Vimey Ridge and Passchendaele: ‘lions led by donkeys’. A reminder of the irreplaceable need for excellence in leadership if we are to survive and prosper for another fifty years.
Happy National Day everyone!
Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan is Policy Advisor with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
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