{"id":17788,"date":"2018-12-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2018\/12\/24\/commentary-bicentennial-can-be-a-worthwhile-endeavour\/"},"modified":"2020-09-28T23:57:22","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T15:57:22","slug":"commentary-bicentennial-can-be-a-worthwhile-endeavour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2018\/12\/24\/commentary-bicentennial-can-be-a-worthwhile-endeavour\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: Bicentennial can be a worthwhile endeavour"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_59147\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59147\" style=\"width: 780px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-59147 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fas.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/SG-Bicentennial.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"520\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-59147\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Straits Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The year 2019 marks a milestone in Singapore history, being the 200<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of the country\u2019s founding by Sir Stamford Raffles. However, some members of the public have voiced their displeasure at the government\u2019s plan to celebrate the Bicentennial next year. They suggest that commemorating the Bicentennial would mean overlooking and disregarding a significant part of Singapore\u2019s history that happened before 1819.<\/p>\n<p>In a commentary for Channel News Asia, Professor Tan Tai Yong, President of Yale-NUS College and NUS History faculty member, stressed that the Bicentennial initiative needs to be sensitively framed as an inclusive process instead of an elitist, celebratory one. Prof Tan believes that the Bicentennial provides an important opportunity to reflect on Singapore\u2019s long history and find personal meaning in it. He emphasized that it should serve as an impetus for further rumination about Singapore\u2019s history, to appreciate Singapore\u2019s connection with the region and acknowledge the importance of globalization, trade, and diaspora in shaping Singapore\u2019s history and identity as a people. If framed this way, the Bicentennial has the potential to be a rewarding and worthwhile endeavour.<\/p>\n<p>Read it here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/news\/commentary\/understanding-the-ambivalence-about-the-bicentennial-11039360\">https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/news\/commentary\/understanding-the-ambivalence-about-the-bicentennial-11039360<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The year 2019 marks a milestone in Singapore history, being the 200th anniversary of the country\u2019s founding by Sir Stamford Raffles. However, some members of the public have voiced their displeasure at the government\u2019s plan to celebrate the Bicentennial next year. They suggest that commemorating the Bicentennial would mean overlooking and disregarding a significant part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247,"featured_media":17789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4529],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26415,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17788\/revisions\/26415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}