January 1, 2024

On 1 January 2018, the Singapore government announced the establishment of a Singapore Bicentennial Office under the Prime Minister’s Office to commemorate 200 years of Singapore history, beginning from Raffles’ founding of Singapore. This way of remembering Singapore’s history has been contested in various ways. In ‘Stamford Raffles and the “Founding” of Singapore: The Politics of Commemoration and Dilemmas of History’ (Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2018), Associate Professor Huang Jianli (NUS History) explores the tensions, dilemmas, and contestations that have resurfaced around the bicentennial.

A/P Huang elucidates the different perspectives regarding Singapore’s history that have emerged amongst regular citizens, journalists, professional academics, and the political establishment. One immediate issue of contestation is the starting point for Singapore’s founding. Should Singapore’s history start from its founding as Temasek/Singapura, as a colonial territory founded by Raffles, or as a modern nation-state developed under Lee Kuan Yew? These issues pertaining to history, he argues, need to be negotiated.

Accepting Raffles’ landing in Singapore as the beginning of the nation-state’s historical beginnings is  problematic for several reasons. Firstly, to some, it is interpreted as celebrating colonialism, elevating the status and actions of great white men of history while downplaying the contributions and struggles of local communities during the colonial period. Secondly, Raffles’ contributions to the development of the colonial settlement in Singapore are called into question. The historical records show that Raffles was largely absent from the island. Critics redirect attention onto William Farquhar, who had executed many of Raffles’ directives on his behalf.

A/P Huang also shows that the modern nation-state under the People’s Action Party (PAP) government has inextricably linked itself with the British colonial legacy, thus making it difficult to make a clean break from Singapore’s post-colonial history. The post-independence Singapore government under the PAP openly celebrated its colonial ties with the British. By basing Singapore’s historical identity on colonialism, it could decentre nativist claims from earlier-settling races to political supremacy in the new island-state. Furthermore, the government retained many English governance logics in its social, political, economic, and security policies. Finally, the PAP government’s legitimacy is in part derived from its history of British-linked anti-Communist struggle in Operation Coldstore. Rejecting Singapore’s colonial links in the post-Cold War period might cause doubts to resurface regarding the PAP government’s legitimacy, particularly in light of the other contestations to Singapore’s historical memory that A/P Huang elucidates in his article.

A/P Huang concludes by reiterating that history is ambiguous: people may have different interpretations and place weights differentially on historical junctures and events. He rejects seeing history through black-and-white lenses where there are absolute ‘good’ or ‘bad’ actors. As he shows in the article, there is lively discourse around Singapore’s national identity as tied to its historical memory. Regardless, A/P Huang is optimistic that deep engagement with these contradictions and dilemmas would foster the development of the ties between the nation-state and its citizens as the polity navigates its identity and nationhood into the future.

Read the article here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/714377