It is good to know our history, but we must be wary of invoking the past to make decisions about the present.
By Simon Tay, The Straits Times, 14 Aug 2024
Talking about the past of our country seems more evident today than ever before. Perhaps it is the National Day mood. As we marked our 59th year, there was a new president and a new prime minister in place, and yet the theme song and dance routines evoked the independence era.
Books, too, have contributed to such discussions, like the recently issued biography of our first foreign minister S. Rajaratnam. For me, personally, awareness is heightened because of Enigmas, my own book about my late father, Tay Seow Huah – a pioneer generation civil servant contributing to security for our then young country.
Singapore is old enough to look back on its founding decade with nostalgia. I felt this strongly when writing about Singapore’s first decade of independence in Enigmas. Beyond the work on pressing issues of the time, it is harmless and fun to remember markers of how we lived, like the eating places that my father and his generation frequented, and which I knew as a child.
But lifestyle aside, one must be wary of nostalgia slipping into decisions of policy. And yet, nostalgia seems to inform some current controversies, in public discussions and in social media.
How’s history relevant here?
A mural on the side of a Chinatown shophouse caused considerable debate with its depiction of a samsui woman, smoking and glamorous. The mural had sidestepped the usual processes of seeking permits for such public art, as well as guidelines that caution against the depiction of smoking.
But many reactions focused on the question of veracity: the fact that these women who contributed to literally building Singapore smoked, as a respite from hard labour. This reference to the past was evoked as a kind of trump card: to overcome current guidelines that censor most depictions of smoking.
That focus downplayed other elements of the mural – the woman was depicted as young, attractive and with elaborately and improbably manicured nails. Nor was its artistic merit much discussed.
My own interpretation was that this mural was not about historical fact. Rather I saw it as a comment about how Chinatown has now been gentrified and glamorised, with prices soaring for the once humble and rundown shop houses.
The final decision was a compromise. The mural with its depiction of smoking was not erased. But a fine was imposed as prior authorisation for this public art had not been obtained.
The past was also invoked in what would seem a commercial decision. This concerns the sale of a majority stake in Income Insurance to a foreign investor, Allianz. On top of the regulatory issues, some emphasised the original social mission of Income Insurance.
Much respected Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh was among those who took this line as he warned against Singapore becoming “a nation of people who know the price of everything but the value of nothing”, something our first foreign minister had cited.
No one can argue that it is not important to understand what was before. But past examples and statements are best set in context of the circumstances of their time. Otherwise, there is a risk that past incidents and statements can be invoked selectively in ways that may distort.
NTUC ventured into the insurance sector following a suggestion in 1969 by Dr Goh Keng Swee, who later served as deputy prime minister. Dr Goh had felt that a social enterprise by the unions was needed because “social security is in its rudimentary stages”.
Today presents a very different situation. There are many more insurers to provide for life, health and other forms of security for workers. There is, for instance, a nationwide scheme to insure full-time national servicemen on a voluntary and affordable basis. This scheme is provided by another insurer, not Income Insurance.
Can the current competitive market not meet the needs of Singaporeans? If NTUC were to be asked today about the need for unions to run an insurer, wouldn’t it, probably, arrive at a different decision?
These are among the contextual, “what if” questions to be considered if we are to apply past lessons and thinking to changing circumstances. Otherwise, if we allow the past to overly constrain current choices, history would be a heavy, dead hand.
Mudflats to metropolis
For the pioneers, the past was not a key reference point. The priority was to make Singapore something new and dynamically different. They emphasised a pragmatic approach in responding to situations, and learning from others.
New efforts were initiated in the security field, on which my late father focused at the then Ministry of Interior and Defence. Receiving security advisers from Israel was controversial given the stance of neighbouring states. Developing close ties with the United States required a rebalancing with the British.
In parallel, economic policy shifted too. Socialist policies were revisited, given stumbles in other countries, and efforts were made to harness markets, foreign investment and technology. Singapore sought what Dr Goh called “socialism that works”.
In the boldest of terms, founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew promised citizens in 1965 that the newly independent Singapore would rise from “mudflats” to be a “metropolis”.
Yet this seminal statement, too, can be reconsidered through the lens of history. Some argue that Singapore was always more than mudflats.
There are those who recall the British era positively for establishing Singapore as a key colony. This British legacy has been extolled in Mary Turnbull’s A History Of Modern Singapore, and more generally in works like Niall Ferguson’s Empire.
Others criticise such works as glorifying the colonial period. They instead trace Singapore’s roots preceding the landing of Raffles in 1819, back to the 14th century. This alternative framework of history is explicated in Seven Hundred Years: A History of Singapore, which was authored by leading Singapore-based historians.
The differences are more than a question of past facts and dates, and relate to how we think of Singapore’s roots. But such deep historical reframing also connects to a recent controversy about statues of Sir Stamford Raffles and Danish botanist Nathaniel Wallich installed at Fort Canning Park.
In the lens of Seven Hundred Years, the Fort Canning precinct was called “Bukit Larangan”, or Forbidden Hill, and said to be the centre of 14th-century Temasek. A marker of this view is the Keramat Iskandar Shah at the site, the rumoured ancient tomb of the last king of pre-colonial Singapura.
The controversies show that a monolithic history cannot be imposed. Contestations about history will continue. But balance is warranted.
As an acknowledgement of our colonial legacy, Singapore decided to retain the place and street names of the colonial era, rather than renaming them, as many other post-colonial countries did. But the bicentennial of the landing of Raffles in 1819 was marked as a commemoration, rather than a celebration.
Meanwhile, the lens of 700 years was invoked in the run-up to that 200th commemoration, and echoes in the use of the name “Temasek” for many institutions, not least the government-owned global investor. Yet there must be limits too. In that long ago period, kingdoms of the region laid claim and control over our island. Singapore as an independent and sovereign state is a creation justified by the events leading up to 1965, and backed up by development of international law in the wake of World War II and the waves of decolonisation.
Dead hand or guiding hand?
History and memory have their intrinsic value. Thinking about the past is a welcome marker of how our society is maturing. But if we are to use past examples and statements in present situations, there are cautions and limits.
Those who evoke the past in current arguments would do well to acknowledge context and changes in current circumstances. We also need to distinguish more clearly between different frameworks and contested interpretations. These are important to identify and limit mere nostalgia and avoid cherry-picking the past.
If our society knows more about our history, a richer debate can result. Our past can and should be a resource and guide, but not a heavy and deadening hand.
In a turbulent and fast-changing world, there will be few answers from the past that can simply be replayed. While we do well to be more aware of our history, Singapore must remain focused on what needs to be done today, and to find future paths. They say that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. True. But it cannot be that to know history is also to dogmatically reapply it.
Simon Tay is a professor of international law and an award-winning writer. His latest book is Enigmas: Tay Seow Huah, My Father, Singapore’s Pioneer Spy Chief.
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