Saturday, 11 October 2014

The Battle For Merger







Mr Lee Kuan Yew's radio talks on merger fight back in print
He made 1961 broadcasts to expose communists' agenda, rally support
By Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh, The Straits Times, 10 Oct 2014

IT WAS a tumultuous time, with the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and its allies out to derail self-governing Singapore's plans for merger with Malaya.

Taking to the airwaves in 1961 for 12 radio broadcasts to expose the CPM's real agenda to seize power, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew managed to turn the tide.

A compilation of the talks, first published in 1962, has been reprinted. The Battle For Merger was launched yesterday, on the same date as Mr Lee's last broadcast 53 years ago.

At the launch, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean said its release could not be more relevant as Singapore turns 50 next year. If the CPM had won, Singapore would be a very different place today. The book will "provide a reality check" to attempts by some historians to recast the role played by communists and their supporters on the issue, he said.

Mr Teo, the Coordinating Minister for National Security and Home Affairs Minister, said the CPM's armed struggle and the Communist United Front's efforts to destabilise Singapore have been well documented by academics and writers. They include top CPM leaders such as Chin Peng and Fong Chong Pik.

These accounts, he said, support a key argument Mr Lee made in his speeches then: that a communist conspiracy to take power was being played out over the issue of merger with Malaya.

The communists and their supporters opposed the People's Action Party's (PAP) vision for merger, fearing their activity would be curbed. They did so through violent and subversive means, arming themselves and infiltrating trade unions and political parties.

In 1961, the pro-communists in the PAP tried to capture the party. After failing, the faction broke away to form the Barisan Sosialis.

Mr Teo said Singapore's road to independence began with the attempt to merge with Malaya - a move that communists, who were in the ascendency regionally and in Singapore, strongly opposed.

"Merger was against the communists' interest... First, it would result in the quick end of British rule in Singapore and make it harder for the Communist United Front to disguise its agenda to establish a communist regime as an anti-colonial struggle," he explained. "Second, the CPM expected the anti-communist federation government to clamp down on them, as internal security would come under the central government in Kuala Lumpur once merger was achieved."

 Mr Lee's broadcasts, which began on Sept 13, 1961, were pivotal in lifting the curtain on the communists and exposing their manoeuvrings. It succeeded in getting the majority to back merger in the referendum in 1962.

National University of Singapore historian Albert Lau said the majority of Chinese speakers were on the fence then. "Mr Lee set out in his radio talks to convince the people that, by supporting merger, they would be on the winning side. He wanted to portray the communists as fighting a losing battle. In this, he succeeded."

The book launch comes as the Government barred from public screening here, the film To Singapore, With Love by film-maker Tan Pin Pin, over its partial portrayal of CPM members who condoned violence and subversion. Officials say the book's reprint and launch were planned much earlier.

In his speech, Mr Teo acknowledged there should be respect for the personal conviction of those of different views who fought on the communists' side. But "we should, even more, acknowledge and give our respect and appreciation to the Singaporeans who had the courage and wisdom to reject the CPM's ideology and tactics".

Published by the National Archives of Singapore and Straits Times Press, the book is available at major bookstores at $32.50 (before GST), and at public libraries.











A LOOK INTO WHAT WAS AT STAKE FOR SINGAPORE

We knew we were in a fight to the death against a formidable adversary. We had been allied with them in an open front to fight the British and knew how strong they were. We knew what would happen if the communists had prevailed. The PAP and its sympathisers would have been the first to be liquidated.

 Having fought so hard for merger, what we did not expect was that in Malaysia, the non-Malays would be treated differently from the Malays. So from a battle of merger, it became a fight for equality between all races in Malaysia.

This again was a fight that we believed in; but this time we could not win it. As a result we were forced to leave Malaysia and had independence thrust on us.

The world and Singapore have changed a great deal since the events recounted in this book. The new media is displacing the old. Politicians no longer choose the radio to get their message across, and the young do not use the medium.

But if the young read this book and understand what was at stake, why and how we stayed the course, then the reprint would have achieved something. Before it is too late, younger Singaporeans should also speak to the remaining members of the pioneer generation who lived through those times, in order to get an appreciation of our past. This is a generation that believed in me and my "Old Guard" colleagues because they saw us stand up and fight back against the communists and later the communalists.

We refused to be cowed and thus won the confidence of this generation, which went on to help us build modern Singapore. Without their support in those crucial years, I do not think Singapore would have made it.

 - Mr Lee Kuan Yew in a message carried in the reprint of The Battle For Merger









Gruelling series of broadcasts
By Lim Yan Liang, The Straits Times, 10 Oct 2014

IN A new message on the genesis of the series of 12 radio talks to convince Singaporeans to back the idea of a merger with Malaya, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew shared the backdrop against which the broadcasts were made.

In 1961, the possibility that merger with Malaya would happen was remote. The majority of the Chinese-educated population in Singapore were unsure that the People's Action Party (PAP) government would prevail over the communists.

"The idea of a sovereign, independent Singapore that could survive on its own was not yet something that had widespread currency," he said in a message in the reprinted edition of The Battle For Merger.

"Until 1961, the goal of merger seemed remote. It is difficult to convey now how much the political winds at the time seemed to be blowing to the left," he said.

"Sitting on the fence, large swathes of the Chinese-educated ground had little confidence in the long-term prospects of the moderate socialist PAP, thinking that the communists and radical left would be the ultimate winners. For their part, the communists knew full well that merger with Malaya would deal a fatal blow to their chances of capturing Singapore politically.

"PAP leaders saw first-hand the anti-merger agitation stirred up by the communists and their trade union proxies, following the pro-communists' break with the PAP in July 1961."

Mr Lee and colleagues in the PAP felt something had to be done to persuade the people that there was a viable alternative: a non-communist, democratic socialist PAP in charge of a Singapore that was part of Malaysia.

"We had to expose the communist manoeuvrings and show what they were up to in reality. Some effort was needed to convince the people where the long-term political tide was heading."

With no TV, much less the Internet, the most effective medium to reach the public was radio.

To concentrate on crafting his first eight speeches away from the heightened political scene in Singapore, Mr Lee holed up at Cluny Lodge, a government bungalow in Cameron Highlands with his family. As he spoke, his personal assistant recorded his notes.

Back in Singapore, Mr Lee received help with the translation and diction of his Mandarin broadcasts from Mr Jek Yeun Thong, who held various posts during his years in Cabinet.

Mr Lee's series of talks were given on a gruelling schedule: three times a week, and over the space of less than a month.

He delivered each talk in three languages on the same evening, within three hours: in Mandarin first, then English and Malay. The talks were also re-broadcast in Tamil, Hokkien and Cantonese.

Mr Lee wrote his last four speeches between recording sessions. "In between broadcasts, I was spent. I recovered my energy by sleeping on the studio floor in between the recordings," he said.

The broadcasts, delivered calmly with minimum jargon and in plain language for "the layman of the 1960s", struck a chord.

"In exposing the communists, I chose to reveal facts that were not previously known and show their behind-the-scenes machinations. This held the interest of the audience, as did my practice of ending each broadcast with a cliffhanger, giving a hint of what I would disclose in the next episode."

These and other revelations had the desired impact. In the 1962 referendum on merger, 71 per cent of Singaporeans voted in favour of union with Malaya.





Post by Lee Hsien Loong.






At the exhibition

THE key messages and themes of each of the 12 radio talks Mr Lee Kuan Yew gave in 1961 are put in focus at an exhibition accompanying the reprint of The Battle For Merger book.

In addition, there are:
- Old documents such as pro-communist newspaper articles and original notes and minutes of meetings penned by communist-linked personalities like Lim Chin Siong.
- Booths where you can listen to the recordings of the radio talks.
- Interactive exhibits showcasing photos and documents from the referendum period and an overview of the threats posed by the Communist Party of Malaya until 1989.
- QR and near-field communication (NFC) codes that let you listen to the recordings and view the exhibits on your smartphones.
- Video accounts from Singaporeans who heard the broadcasts.
- A copy of the reprinted The Battle For Merger book with a new message by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, plus a bookshelf of curated texts on the communist threat and merger with Malaya.
- Postcards featuring key incidents of communist violence in Singapore, with QR codes linking to online versions of the exhibit.

 EXHIBITION:

 WHERE AND WHEN

 From now to Nov 30, it is at the level seven promenade of the National Library Building in Victoria Street. After that, it will move to other libraries till next March. 
- Jurong Regional Library: Dec 2 to 30
- Ang Mo Kio Public Library: Jan 2 to 30
- Woodlands Regional Library: Feb 2 to 27
- Tampines Regional Library: March 2 to 30

















Remembering the impact speeches made
By Lim Yan Liang, The Straits Times, 10 Oct 2014

VETERAN trainer Lim Eng Chuan was a Primary 5 pupil when Mr Lee Kuan Yew's radio broadcasts became the talk of his household.

Then aged 11, he and his 10 siblings lived with their parents in an attap hut in a Sembawang kampung where water came from a well, kerosene lamps lit their home and the toilet was a bucket in an outhouse.

They did not even own a radio.

Important news was relayed to them by his uncle Joseph Yeo, who was then an editor at The Straits Times.

Now aged 65, the senior training consultant recounted how the adults would have intense discussions after each evening broadcast.

Sitting in the hall of their cramped home then, he said he "could not but pay attention" to what they were discussing, he told The Straits Times yesterday at the book launch of the reprint of the Battle For Merger, a collection of 12 radio broadcasts by Mr Lee in 1961.

His father, an immigrant from Fujian province in China, opposed the union with Malaya as he believed the Chinese would lose their identity.

"My father felt (the government) was taking a huge step backwards. Why were we giving up our Chinese heritage to the Malays, because Malay would become the national language?

"In fact, my mother had a very difficult time convincing him to send me to an English school," said the former pupil of St Patrick's Primary School.

Often, communists armed with pamphlets would visit the kampung to coax the villagers not to support the merger.

"They came in small groups and spoke convincingly in Hokkien. They said communists are part of China and that if you are loyal to China, you should align yourself with communism."

But his father slowly came around, as Mr Lee's radio talks exposed the workings of the communists on the ground. Said Mr Lim: "The most memorable was when Mr Lee spoke of his meeting with the Malayan Communist Party's representative in Singapore."

The representative was Mr Fong Chong Pik, whom Mr Lee dubbed The Plen, short for plenipotentiary.

Eventually, Mr Lim's parents and all his relatives voted for the merger in the 1962 referendum.

Retiree Patrick Ng, 72, who was also at the event, recalled the conviction with which Mr Lee delivered his speeches. Then aged 19, he would wait eagerly for the broadcasts on Radio Singapore. He said: "Mr Lee is a very effective orator and I listened attentively to every one of his talks."

The speeches made quite a splash because Mr Lee named names and revealed much about the communists' workings, said Institute of Southeast Asian Studies visiting senior research fellow Leon Comber.

Dr Comber was then in his 30s and reporting on the radio talks for a British magazine.

Earlier, as a British officer in charge of the Johor police intelligence branch, he knew of the communists' tactics and ploys in Malaya. Still, he was surprised by the extent of Mr Lee's revelations.

"There were many details he gave that were not available to the man in the street. Some would have been restricted from the security point of view but Mr Lee decided to reveal what was going on, and the serious threat posed by the communists," he said. "It helped (his cause) enormously."

Also at the launch and exhibition were 30 secondary school students and their teachers.

Secondary 2 student Ang Shermaine said the exhibition helped her understand how the Government rooted out communism.

"Hearing the actual speeches is really different from reading a book about them," said the 14-year-old. "It's interesting to see and hear history come alive."





"We would always be lost": Prof Chan Heng Chee on the cost of S'pore not knowing its history
In an interview with Channel NewsAsia, the Ambassador-at-Large said those "in the thick of the action" in the 1960s would have believed that the communist threat was a substantive one. 
Channel NewsAsia, 9 Oct 2014

Channel NewsAsia presenter Dawn Tan sat down with Ambassador-at-Large Professor Chan Heng Chee for an interview about the importance of being aware of Singapore's history.

Q. What were the stark realities faced by Singapore in the early days?

Prof Chan: Singapore has always and will always be a city-state, island-state, nation-state. We have no natural resources and we are just an island on its own. It was the conventional political wisdom - nobody thought Singapore could survive on its own.

When you talk of Singapore's history, and we are discussing this in the context of the book The Battle For Merger, you are really talking of the history prior to merger, prior to independence in 1965. We were looking for independence and we knew the British authorities would not give independence to Singapore on its own. It was too precious; it was too strategic a location for it to fall into the wrong hands. And Singapore on its own sounded like that.

And so the struggle was to try to forge this merger, to persuade the Malay leadership in UMNO why they should take in Singapore.
Q: The Battle for Merger radio talks were intended to highlight to the Singapore public that merger with Malaya was crucial for Singapore's survival as a fledgling state, and the inevitability of that merger. What was at stake at that time?

Prof Chan: I think it was first, independence and second, what was going to happen to Singapore. Can you survive on your own? Singapore's conventional political wisdom then was that you have to be part of a larger entity - Malaya was your hinterland. And you know this was the 1960s - where would you sell your goods to, where would goods come to you from? So the inevitability of Malaya - joining Malaya, becoming part of a larger entity to be called Malaysia, seemed as natural as the rising of the sun.
Q. The radio talks also had another crucial objective - to expose the threat of the communists and their attempts to derail merger. How real was that threat?

Prof Chan: I think the struggle against the communists was always one of the lead motives of the post-colonial period after the war. There were communist cells and groups that tried to bring about a communist revolution throughout all the different Southeastern countries - Vietnam, there was a Thai communist party, Malayan communist party, Indonesian communist party, Philippine communist party.

And in Singapore, we are urban, the Malayan Communist Party really took on Malaya and Singapore, treating it as one entity. So dealing with the communists, pushing back the march of communism or the communist revolution, was something that all the political leaders did.

I know that today there are some revisionists, historians, who said it was not so substantive. But in the 1960s, it was very substantive because you are in the thick of the action. Today, you look at the ISIS, is it a substantive threat or not? I am sure there are different evaluations, but you do not know. So in the 1960s, yes, it was a threat, everybody believed it was a threat. The British believed it was a threat.

Later, when historians sat down and looked at the records, in the year 2000, or the year 2008, or 2012, they said looking at these, it does not seem as strong as we thought. Then I would conclude that like the Soviet Union, everybody thought the communist threat was stronger than it was. But it was there.
Q. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recently said many Singaporeans only have "the vaguest idea" of what the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation from 1963 to 1966 was about, and struggle to tell the difference between communists and communalists. Can the importance to understand one's history be overstated? Why is it critical that Singaporeans grasp that struggle?

Prof Chan: History and our understanding of history can never be overstated for a nation. If you do not know who you are, how do you know where you want to go? We would always be lost, we would be unsure of ourselves and have anxieties.

Countries that have strong histories and where people have strong histories and where people love their history, for instance the French, the British, the Thais. Ask the Thais, they always know they are Thai - Thailand is Buddhism, King, Country. You ask the Indonesians, they know their history. And the Chinese, they know their history. There is a confidence and a self-assurance.

If you do not know your history, you do not know your reference point and that is the most important thing. And Singaporeans really should have a reference point. I have always lamented that we do not emphasise history enough. I am a political scientist that uses history a lot. So I have regretted that we did not have a strong emphasis on history. And I am glad we are beginning to come to the point now that history is important.
Q. Singapore's history, as it unfolds, is ours. It belongs to its makers. How far would you agree with that? Is reflecting on history then sufficient to energise the next 50 years?

Prof Chan: There are people who make history. There are people who analyse history. History-makers are the activists, the leaders, the politicians. They shape events, and I would say history is always a 'winners' history first'.

Winners write their history. Then as time goes on, other people revise history and they say, "but this happened, but that happened" and yes of course, history is a living thing. There is a body and there is a central narrative, body of facts and central narratives. And people do contest, once in a blue moon, you get really major changes, but that is history and someone else may come back later, and say I found another batch of documents that really counteracted what was written, but that is history.





Merger exhibition fills in the blanks
Displays also spark old memories for visitors
By Lim Yan Liang, The Straits Times, 11 Oct 2014

GRANDMA Seng Geok Chern has hardly any memory of the 1961-62 battle for merger. A 15-year-old student then, her most vivid memory of the 1960s is the race riots in 1964 and Singapore's ejection from Malaysia the following year.

But yesterday, as the 68-year-old accompanied her grandson, Ryan Seah, 15, to The Battle For Merger exhibition in the National Library building, she realised the significance of Mr Lee Kuan Yew's radio talks in 1961.

"This chart I saw showed neighbouring countries such as Vietnam and Laos being dominated by communists. Without Mr Lee's broadcasts, Singapore could have been like them if the communists had won," she told The Straits Times.

Added Ryan: "I now understand the full threat of the communists and how different Singapore would have turned out if the Barisan Sosialis had become the government," said the Secondary 3 student.

"My history textbook said Tunku Abdul Rahman (then Prime Minister of Malaya) and Mr Lee were excited about merging because they thought it would be mutually beneficial. I learnt today it was also because they were united against a common enemy."

The exhibition accompanies the reprint of The Battle For Merger book, a collection of 12 radio talks Mr Lee gave to win Singaporeans over to form a union with Malaysia. But central to the talks was his exposure of the communist threat and their goal to capture power in Singapore.

Retiree Chua Yong Ann, 75, however, recalled not being convinced by Mr Lee. He was then aged 22.

"The terms he negotiated for merger were unequal; Singapore went in on its knees," he said in Mandarin. "Lim Chin Siong and the others may or may not be communists but they wanted Singapore to enter Malaysia as an equal and with full control of our affairs."

He cast a blank vote at the referendum in September 1962 because he wanted Singapore to be independent, an option not available on the ballot.

"I was part of the 25 per cent that cast a blank vote," he said when interviewed. "Sure enough, we were kicked out three years later."

The exhibition also rekindled memories of political activism for two retirees who were buddies in secondary school but mostly lost touch with each other until they met again at an alumni event last year. Mr Andrew Ang, 78, and Mr Chew Ah Hay, 75, were students at the former Chinese High School, where both were PAP volunteers in the lead-up to the 1955 legislative assembly election.

But on the merger issue, when the the duo were in their 20s, they took opposing positions. They realised it years later.

Yesterday, both had a spirited discussion of the events after viewing the exhibition.

Mr Ang agreed with Mr Lee that Singapore could not have survived on its own and compete with Malaysia. Mr Chew, on the other hand, felt merger would be economically disastrous for the Chinese majority who were largely Chinese-educated.

Said Mr Chew in Mandarin: "Mr Lee's broadcasts may have painted Mr Lim Chin Siong and others as communists but to me then, they were fighting for Chinese-educated workers.''

Disagreeing, Mr Ang said: "I saw Singapore as being too small to compete against Malaysia.''

Looking at Singapore now, both agreed Mr Lee just wanted what was best for Singapore's economy and its future.





Mr Lee Kuan Yew commends team behind merger exhibition
By Fiona Chan, The Straits Times, 24 Oct 2014

FORMER prime minister Lee Kuan Yew visited The Battle For Merger exhibition, which showcases 12 radio talks he gave in 1961 to convince Singaporeans of the need for merger with Malaya.

During his visit to the exhibition at the National Library on Wednesday, Mr Lee commended the team which put up the exhibition for their thorough research and for presenting this key period for today's audience, said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean.

Mr Teo, who posted a picture on his Facebook page yesterday of Mr Lee's visit, added that "winning the struggle against the communists paved the way for modern non-communist Singapore".

Post by Teo Chee Hean.
The exhibition is in conjunction with the reprint of The Battle For Merger book, which was released on Oct 9 - the same date as the last of Mr Lee's broadcasts 53 years ago.

 The book compiles his radio talks for a younger generation of Singaporeans. In a new message in the book on the genesis of the series of radio talks, Mr Lee said that "if the young read this book and understand what was at stake, why and how we stayed the course, then the reprint would have achieved something".

His talks exposed the communist threat in Singapore in the 1960s and the goal of the communists to capture power. The talks worked: In the 1962 referendum on the merger, 71 per cent of Singaporeans voted in favour of union with Malaya.

Apart from displaying a copy of The Battle For Merger reprint, the National Library exhibition also showcases old documents such as original notes and minutes of meetings penned by communist-linked personalities such as Lim Chin Siong, as well as video accounts from Singaporeans who heard the broadcasts in 1961.

There are also booths for present-day visitors to listen to the recordings of the radio talks.

The exhibition will be at the National Library Building in Victoria Street till Nov 30. After that, it will travel to libraries in Jurong, Ang Mo Kio, Woodlands and Tampines through next March.








The Communist Paradox
The Straits Times, 11 Oct 2014

Mr Lee Kuan Yew's 8th radio broadcast on Sept 29, 1961, was titled The Communist Paradox. This is an excerpt of it from the book, The Battle For Merger:

"I want to explain this paradox, that the communists prefer Singapore still under British control but with the Internal Security Council abolished, to a Singapore independent with the rest of Malaya.

The most important reason why the communists prefer a Singapore still under British control to a Singapore as part of Malaya, is that with the British in control, their struggle for a communist Malaya can be camouflaged as an anti-colonial struggle.

But if they continue their struggle in a Singapore which is independent with the rest of Malaya, it is quite clearly a struggle not against colonialism, but against an independent elected government. Their object will then be obvious, that is to destroy an independent national government and to set up a communist government.

Moreover, when they are dealt with by the government, as they have been from time to time, it is far better for them to have a British colonial government take action against them than an independent elected Malayan government.

To be imprisoned by the British colonialists is to be a martyr, in the company of (India's) Mr (Jawaharlal) Nehru, (Ghana's) Dr (Kwame) Nkrumah, (Malawi's) Dr (Hastings Kamuzu) Banda and many other anti-colonial nationalists.

But to be locked up by Mr Nehru, Dr Nkrumah or (Egypt's) Colonel (Gamal Abdel) Nasser or the Tungku (Abdul Rahman of Malaysia) is an entirely different matter.

Mr Nehru, Dr Nkrumah, Col Nasser and the Tungku do not lock up nationalists, who are the real anti-colonialists. In fact, they welcome anti-colonial fighters who are nationalists to their ranks.

It is only those who are out to destroy the independence won by the nationalists and to supplant it with a totalitarian or communist government who are locked up by nationalist leaders like Nehru, Nkrumah, Nasser and the Tungku.

There is this added consideration.

If a communist is detained by the British, questions can be asked in the House of Commons in England, resolutions passed in anti-colonial conferences all over the world and speeches made by friendly delegates in the United Nations.

But if a communist is locked up by an independent nationalist government, there cannot be much noise or propaganda made out of it either here in Malaya, or in London, or in the United Nations, or in Belgrade and the other meeting places of the Afro-Asian nations. The Afro-Asian nations are concerned with protecting nationalists and not communists."





THE BATTLE FOR MERGER: A LOOK BACK

 Cliffhanger endings, political exposes
A reprint of The Battle For Merger was launched on Thursday. The new book contains transcripts of the 12 radio talks given by Mr Lee Kuan Yew between September and October 1961. In those talks, he explained why Singapore's best course of action lay in merger with Malaya at that time. Reproduced here are the new message from Mr Lee, historian Albert Lau giving the historical context for these talks, and excerpts from two talks. Published by the National Archives of Singapore and Straits Times Press, the book is available for $32.50 (before GST) at major bookstores.
The Straits Times, 11 Oct 2014
Foreword by Lee Kuan Yew

 THE story of merger, our ejection from Malaysia in 1965 and our subsequent struggles to survive is well known. Less well known are the crucial years of 1961-1962, when the PAP Government was in a precarious position, and the future of Singapore hung in the balance.

 The story is worth retelling.

Fighting for independence through merger with Malaya had always been part of the PAP platform. It was on this basis that we were elected in 1959. We needed merger in order to remain viable.

We needed a common market, access to the Malaysian hinterland, and also basic supplies like water. The idea of a sovereign, independent Singapore that could survive on its own was not yet something that had widespread currency.

Until 1961, the goal of merger seemed remote. It is difficult to convey now how much the political winds at the time seemed to be blowing to the left.

Sitting on the fence, large swathes of the Chinese educated ground had little confidence in the long-term prospects of the moderate socialist PAP, thinking that the communists and radical left would be the ultimate winners. For their part, the communists knew full well that merger with Malaya would deal a fatal blow to their chances of capturing Singapore politically.

PAP leaders saw first-hand the anti-merger agitation stirred up by the communists and their trade union proxies, following the pro-communists' break with the PAP in July 1961.

Something had to be done to persuade the people there was a viable alternative: a non-communist, democratic socialist PAP in charge of a Singapore that was part of Malaysia. We had to expose the communist manoeuvrings and show what they were up to in reality.

Some effort was needed to convince the people where the long-term political tide was heading. We had to show confidence and persuade the people that ultimately, and despite appearances, it was the PAP which would hold the winning cards.

We calculated that harrying the people into merger would not work.

What was needed was a compelling message; one delivered in a way that would linger and make an impression. There was no Internet and no social media then - not even television. I chose the most effective medium available at the time to speak directly to the people: Radio could reach virtually every corner of the island through multilingual broadcasts. This was how most people got their news then.

Each of my talks was broadcast in the main three languages on the same evening - Mandarin at 6.45pm, English at 7.30pm and Malay at 9pm. All were broadcast in the space of less than a month. This meant 36 broadcasts in all, broadcasting nine times a week.

It was a gruelling experience. Apart from struggling with my speeches in Malay and Mandarin, I had to write the last four speeches in between the recording sessions. In between broadcasts, I was spent. I recovered my energy by sleeping on the studio floor in between the recordings.

In opening each talk, I chose to dispense with preliminaries or pleasantries. There was no rhetorical fanfare and I kept political jargon to the absolute minimum. I wanted to break down the arguments in terms that the layman of the 1960s could understand. It was imperative to emphasise in plain language the urgency of the political situation.

But I also took care to speak calmly. Causing alarm would only have played into the hands of the communists and their proxies agitating against merger. In exposing the communists, I chose to reveal facts that were not previously known and show their behind- the-scenes machinations.

This held the interest of the audience, as did my practice of ending each broadcast with a cliffhanger, giving a hint of what I would disclose in the next episode.

The talks were covered extensively in the English-language and vernacular press. The revelations made - particularly about the communists - caused a stir. Some political figures I had named were incensed and demanded redress. But there were no libel suits. Those I had singled out knew I had the facts on my side.

After the last broadcast, Radio Singapore invited political figures mentioned in the talks to take part in a series of radio forums. It was important to have reasoned discussion, and not allow the pro-communists to dictate the mode and manner of discussion.

If given the chance to have their own airtime, they would have tried to use the opportunity to rabble-rouse. They were masters at manipulating such settings and turning them to their advantage.

The radio talks were only the opening salvo in the battle for merger. But their effectiveness was a key reason why the referendum for merger in 1962 went decisively in the PAP's favour. Our vision for merger found support with more than 70 per cent of those who voted. The Barisan Sosialis' "blank vote" campaign could muster only 25 per cent support. When people digested the referendum result, they took heart, and were more prepared to give open support to the PAP.

People may ask what would have happened to Singapore if the Barisan Sosialis had won, and if there had been no merger. This is a parlour game for those who have the luxury of engaging in armchair debates. The founding generation of leaders did not have this luxury. We knew we were in a fight to the death against a formidable adversary. We had been allied with them in an open front to fight the British and knew how strong they were. We knew what would happen if the communists had prevailed. The PAP and its sympathisers would have been the first to be liquidated.

Having fought so hard for merger, what we did not expect was that in Malaysia, the non-Malays would be treated differently from the Malays. So from a battle of merger, it became a fight for equality between all races in Malaysia.

This again was a fight that we believed in; but this time, we could not win it. As a result, we were forced to leave Malaysia and had independence thrust on us.

The world and Singapore have changed a great deal since the events recounted in this book.

The new media is displacing the old. Politicians no longer choose the radio to get their message across, and the young do not use the medium. But if the young read this book and understand what was at stake, why and how we stayed the course, then the reprint would have achieved something.

Before it is too late, younger Singaporeans should also speak to the remaining members of the pioneer generation who lived through those times, in order to get an appreciation of our past. This is a generation that believed in me and my "Old Guard" colleagues because they saw us stand up and fight back against the communists and later the communalists. We refused to be cowed and thus won the confidence of this generation, which went on to help us build modern Singapore. Without their support in those crucial years, I do not think Singapore would have made it.








MANY of the urgent problems we face are related to the struggle for power of the communist ideology and its supporters in Malaya. I shall have to talk to you about the nature of the challenge which the communist system and the Communist Party of Malaya are posing to us in terms which may never have been used before.

For years since the beginning of the Emergency in 1948, communism has been painted in terms of violence, terror, brutality and evil. There was violence, there was terror, there was brutality, and there were evil men. But that is not the whole story. For if it was as simple as that, the communists would have died and perished with the collapse of their armed revolt.

It is because, together with these weaknesses, they have some strong qualities that they have been able to survive in spite of the collapse of their armed revolt.

For the foreseeable future, the communists have no chance of capturing power in the Federation or Singapore by force of arms. But they have been able to continue the struggle for the communist cause through new methods.

Many of their old supporters in the jungle have died or been banished. Some have drifted back anonymously into the towns. Only a hard core remains on the Malayan-Thai border.

But new recruits have been found. These are the idealistic young men and women, largely from the Chinese middle schools of Malaya, both the Federation and Singapore. These are new men fighting under different conditions with different methods and tactics to create a communist Malaya.

They press on, capturing the leadership of trade unions, cultural organisations and old boys' associations. Most important of all, they try to capture the power to manipulate the lawful political parties.

Past governments called this subversion. Because the Communist Party is illegal in Malaya, none of its followers go about telling people that they are communists. Publicly they will always pretend to be democrats; privately they keep on recruiting as many effective persons as they can persuade to join them in the communist cause.

The communists and their supporters say that I have raised the bogey of communism in order to confuse the people. They blame us for splitting the so-called unity of the Left and they list our failures - the failure of no intra-party democracy, the failure of not consulting them, the failure of not taking their communist mass line and being isolated from the masses - in other words, the failure of not espousing the communist cause. The truth is they do not want their quiet and relentless erosion of our society to be made public.

The time has come for me to tell you what is going on in Singapore, why these things are going on, and what the future is likely to be. You have to decide on your future and you must know the truth.

Realities of revolution

We have learnt one important thing during the last decade: 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.

Parts of this narrative are concerned with friends of personal courage and deep political conviction who have gone over to the communist side. Because they have accepted the communist doctrine and dogma, they would have not the slightest compunction, if the time comes, to destroy us, the non-communists, if we do not bend to their will.

On the other hand, other friends have been so disgusted by the stupidities of the leadership of the Communist Party that they abjured the communists and came over and joined us at great personal peril.

So the battle goes on for the hearts and minds of the political activists of the country.








Then one day in 1954, we came into contact with the Chinese-educated world. The Chinese middle school students were in revolt against national service and they were beaten down. Riots took place, charges were preferred in court. Through devious ways they came into contact with us.

We bridged the gap to the Chinese-educated world - a world teeming with vitality, dynamism and revolution, a world in which the communists had been working for over the last 30 years with considerable success.

We the English-educated revolutionaries went in trying to tap this oil-field of political resources and soon found our pipelines crossing those of the Communist Party. We were late-comers trying to tap the same oil-fields. We were considered by the communists as poaching in their exclusive territory.

In this world, we came to know Lim Chin Siong and Fong Swee Suan. They joined us in the PAP. In 1955, we contested the elections. Our initiation into the intricacies and ramifications of the communist underground organisation in the trade unions and cultural associations had begun.

The underground

It is a strange business working in this world. When you meet a union leader you will quickly have to decide which side he is on and whether or not he is a communist. You can find out by the language he uses, and his behaviour, whether or not he is in the inner circle which makes the decisions. These are things from which you determine whether he is an outsider or an insider in the communist underworld.

I came to know dozens of them. They are not crooks or opportunists. These are men with great resolve, dedicated to the communist revolution and to the establishment of the communist state, believing that it is the best thing in the world for mankind. Many of them are prepared to pay the price for the communist cause in terms of personal freedom and sacrifice. They know they run the risk of detention if they are found out and caught. Often my colleagues and I disagreed with them, and intense fights took place, all concealed from the outside world because they were communists working in one united anti-colonial front with us against the common enemy, and it would not do to betray them.

Eventually, many of them landed in jail, in the purges in 1956 and 1957. I used to see them there, arguing their appeals, reading their captured documents and the Special Branch precis of the cases against them. I had the singular advantage of not only knowing them well by having worked at close quarters with them in a united front against the British, but I also saw the official version in reports on them.

Many were banished to China. Some were my personal friends. They knew that I knew they were communists, for between us there was no pretence. They believed that I should join them. They believed that, ultimately, I would be forced to admit that what they call the "bourgeois" democratic system could not produce a just and equal society, and that I would admit that they were right.

On the other hand, I used to spend hours arguing with some of them trying to prove to them that whatever else happened to China or Russia, we were living in Malaya and, irrespective of communism or democratic socialism, if we wanted to build a more just and equal society in Malaya, we would have to make certain fundamental decisions, such as being Malayans, uniting the Chinese and Indians and others with the Malays, building up national unity and national loyalty, and rallying all the races together through a national language.









THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

 High-stakes talks
By Albert Lau, The Straits Times, 11 Oct 2014

THE year was 1961. One Wednesday evening in September, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew took to the airwaves to begin the first of his "fireside" chats to the people. There was as yet no television, which was still 17 months away from putting out its pilot broadcast.

So radio was used.

At first glance, there seemed nothing unusual about the Prime Minister making a radio broadcast. Except that in the space of less than a month, Mr Lee would make an unprecedented 11 more broadcasts in a row over Radio Singapore, each within days of the other, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Even more remarkable, the Prime Minister would relay each broadcast in three languages - English, Malay and Mandarin - to reach the widest audience.

These 12 talks were no ordinary radio broadcasts. Aired between Sept 13 and Oct 9, they were in fact the opening shots in what would soon become a keenly fought battle for the hearts and minds of the people of Singapore.

The immediate context was a referendum that Mr Lee's People's Action Party (PAP) Government intended to hold in a year's time to decide on a matter that would vitally affect the lives of the people on the island: merger with Malaya.

However, behind Mr Lee's "battle for merger" lay a related - but no less important - purpose: He wanted to expose the conspiracy of his shadowy communist opponents and their proxies to prevent merger. The stakes for the Prime Minister could not be any higher. If merger failed, not only would the outlook for his non-communist government be in jeopardy, but the future of Singapore also could possibly take a dramatically different turn - not necessarily for the better...

The communist conspiracy

RIGHT from the start, the PAP had communist and pro-communist elements within the party. In their desire to form a mass-based anti-colonial political party in 1954, the English-educated non-communist founders of the PAP solicited the help of Chinese-educated communist and pro-communist activists, like trade union leaders Lim Chin Siong and Fong Swee Suan, to bridge the gap to the majority Chinese-educated world.

By then, the outlawed Malayan Communist Party (MCP) had all but lost the jungle war; a disappointing setback that prompted its secretary-general, Chin Peng, to leave his jungle hideout and meet Tunku Abdul Rahman to discuss the latter's amnesty terms at the historic Baling talks in December 1955.

Though agreement was not reached at Baling, the failure of its guerilla campaign in the Federation (of Malaya) had left the MCP with no practical option but to defer its goal of a united communist Malaya for an indefinite period and settle on achieving socialism in a smaller place - Singapore.

To pursue its anti-colonial activism in this new urban setting, the MCP needed a legitimate left-wing political party to provide cover for its subversive activities and it found willing collaborators in the PAP's English-educated leaders.

Thus, for reasons of mutual political expediency, the two groups were able to forge a united front.

Collaboration, however, had its hazards, for the communists and pro-communists the PAP attracted soon endeavoured on numerous occasions - famously in May-June 1955 and October 1956 - to enmesh the party in supporting or condoning their advocacy of forceful mass agitation, using the Chinese-educated middle school students as their shock troops and their control of strategic trade unions to precipitate widespread industrial action accompanied by debilitating riots.

To deny the British and the Labour Front government of (David) Marshall and his successor, Lim Yew Hock, a pretext for smashing the party, the PAP's non-communist leaders had to publicly disassociate themselves on numerous occasions from the rough tactics of their pro-communist associates...

The more critical dilemma facing the united front, however, lay in the two groups' conflicting attitudes towards merger. From its founding, the PAP's objective had always been to take Singapore into Malaya. When the PAP formed the government in 1959, the goal of "independence through merger" was pursued unwaveringly as the next logical constitutional step for Singapore.

This, however, was not in the interests of the communists. After Malaya was granted independence in 1957, the MCP had lost its raison d'etre as far as anti-colonial agitation in the Federation was concerned. Only Singapore, which was still in a semi-colonial state, offered the communists scope for continuing their anti-imperialist struggle. For this reason they opposed the PAP's strategy of "independence through merger".

A Singapore independent together with the rest of Malaya would make it more difficult for the communists to camouflage their battle on behalf of communism as an anti-colonial struggle.

Moreover, merger would also mean placing internal security in the hands of a rabidly anti-communist Kuala Lumpur government, which had since 1959 shared joint custody over Singapore's internal security through its participation in the Internal Security Council (ISC) with Britain and Singapore.

The Federation government would certainly spare no effort to put down the communists on the island. But even though the extreme left-wing in the PAP fundamentally opposed merger, they were willing, for the sake of the united front, to pay lip service to it - at least so long as the possibility of fusion remained remote.

This state of uneasy tension remained until May 1961. The Tunku's Malaysia announcement, however, fundamentally changed all that. Once merger became a genuine prospect, the communists took alarm. Within days of the Malayan leader's speech, Lim Chin Siong conferred with Fang Chuang Pi, one of the communists' top three leaders overseeing Singapore and known to Mr Lee, who met him furtively on several occasions, as "the Plen" (for plenipotentiary).

Beginning in June, the extreme left came out openly to oppose merger. Through six leading trade unionists led by Lim, and backed by some 42 unions in a show of force, the pro-communists obliquely threatened to withhold support for the PAP candidate in the July 15 Anson by-election (occasioned by the death of a PAP assemblyman) unless the CEC substituted its "independence through merger" line for the communists' agenda of "complete internal self-government", that is, without the ISC. When the PAP leaders refused and proclaimed unequivocally their commitment to achieve "independence through merger" by 1963, a war of words ensued, with escalating intensity as both sides exchanged blow for blow, knowing full well that it would lead either to one side or the other giving in, or to a complete break. Meanwhile, Lim had been luring disaffected assemblymen to his side for the purpose of assembling a shadow team ready to capture the PAP and take office.

Two days before polling day, eight dissenting PAP assemblymen, led by Dr Lee Siew Choh, came out openly to denounce the party leadership and throw their support behind the trade unionists. Lim also threw his weight behind the Workers' Party candidate, David Marshall, who went on to win Anson by a narrow margin.

On July 16, a day after the PAP lost Anson, Fang Chuang Pi again conferred secretly with Lim Chin Siong. Two days later, an urgent approach was made to see Lord Selkirk, the UK Commissioner, who invited a pro-communist group, which included Lim and three others, for tea the same day. In his radio talks, Mr Lee subsequently charged that the British, with consummate skill, had deliberately tricked Lim and his radical group into open conflict with the PAP moderates by giving them the impression during their meeting at the UK Commissioner's residence on July 18 that if they left the British bases alone, they could form the government, provided they acquired power constitutionally.

Confronted by such treachery, Mr Lee called for a vote of confidence in the Legislative Assembly on July 20, five days after the polls, before Lim could win over more assemblymen. The debate lasted until the pre-dawn hours of July 21. When the vote was taken, 26 PAP assemblymen and one independent supported the Government against eight who opposed the motion. There were 16 abstentions, 13 of which were by PAP assemblymen. The delaying tactics of the pro-communists to gain time for more defections failed.

After the meeting, Mr Lee proceeded to break up the united front and expelled the 13 PAP assemblymen who abstained. Fang Chuang Pi then instructed all communist members to leave the PAP and form a new proxy political party. Six days later, they launched the Barisan Sosialis, which was officially registered on Aug 13, with Dr Lee Siew Choh as chairman and Lim Chin Siong as secretary- general. Some 19 of the 23 organising secretaries in the various PAP branches and possibly 60 to 70 per cent of the PAP membership crossed over to the new party.

Not all who defected were communists or pro-communists. Some thought the days of the PAP were numbered and wanted to join the winning side. At this stage, the PAP was in the doldrums. It had lost two by-elections in succession. Its organisation was shattered. And, in the Assembly, its position had become precarious in the extreme, clinging on to power by a majority of one.

Nevertheless, the abrupt ending of its united front with the communists gave the PAP the clean slate it needed to rebuild the party from scratch, this time without communist influence.




















































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