“WE become a nation” the Head of State declared in his 1960 New Year message “without the prerequisites of a nation—a common language, common loyalties, and a common psychological make-up—to bring about that unity which we all desire.” 1960 for the new state was a year of reorganization, consolidation and preparation for the tasks ahead.
The Prime Minister visited Indonesia, and this was followed by an Indonesian cultural mission to Singapore, and visits from General Nasution and Dr Subandrio, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister. Relations with the Federation of Malaya were good, and every initiative was taken by Singapore to promote cooperation in all matters of joint interest to the two territories. Singapore citizenship was clearly defined by new legislation. Henceforth a Singapore citizen’s allegiance was to Singapore and no other state. The Industrial Arbitration Court was established. A new Factories Ordinance was introduced. Four new schools were completed. Work on thirteen others was started. Education was still the largest single item in the budget. Free education was provided for Malays at all levels up to and including university. On 2 April Nanyang University held its first graduation ceremony. The People’s Association was set up to organize leisure and promote youth activities. The new National Library was opened in October.
In the Cabinet there was a clash between Ong Eng Guan, the Minister for National Development, and his colleagues. Later, Mr Ong was expelled from the PAP. In the Assembly, he continued to attack PAP leaders, and specifically charged the Prime Minister and Minister of Labour and Law with nepotism. A few minutes before he was due to be called before the Assembly to justify his allegations, he resigned.
Singapore’s population (nearly half of the people under the age of fifteen) continued to grow, and statistics showed that Singapore’s earning power depended on thirty-two per cent of its population gainfully employed, one of the lowest proportions in any community in the world. Economically, 1960 was a good year of expanding trade and industry, and a record year for the seaport and carport. The Post Office handled a record of 123 million letters and parcels.
A CONFIDENT Prime Minister went to the microphone at Radio Singapore on 1 January, to “wish and will ourselves a happy and prosperous New Year”. The first half of 1959, he said, had been months of excitement and uncertainty. Everyone knew that change was in the air. Everybody marked time while they waited to see what was to happen. The second half was the aftermath, as fears proved largely unfounded and hopes were not completely realized. But by the end of the old year the heat and dust had settled. The shape of things to come had become clearer. “Not all are strange shapes. A good number of the good things in the past still find their places in the future. If 1959 was a year of decisive change, let 1960 be a year of consolidation.” After seven months of the PAP, since June, 1959, everyone had had the measure of the Government, and the Government the measure of its problems. “Let us look forward to progress in the year ahead. Through hard work, faith and a little good fortune, may 1960 bring more happiness to more of us. Let us all make this our resolution for the New Year: to stop fretting and grumbling and doubting—to get on with the job in hand—do it well and the future will look after itself. . .”
Nobody then, not even the communists, could have imagined that, before the year was out, the extreme Left in the People’s Action Party would try to capture the party. They were repulsed, and expelled. Later they formed the Barisan Sosialis. The break between the communists within the PAP (formed as a nationalists’ front), and the non-communists led by Lee Kuan Yew had to come sooner or later. What was surprising was the communists’ mistiming and their mistaken belief that the English-educated leadership would accept their direction rather than lose office, or that the Lee Kuan Yew group would not be prepared to fight to the finish.
It started with a clash between Ong Eng Guan, the Minister for National Development, and the rest of the PAP leadership. At the PAP Conference in June, Ong proposed sixteen resolutions in fundamental criticism of the Government of which he was a member, and its policy. After discussion the Conference recommended that the Central Executive of the party should consider his expulsion “after hearing evidence of his attempts to disrupt party unity and destroy collective party leadership”. At the end of the month Ong was expelled and he then took his attacks on PAP leaders to the Assembly. There he accused the Prime Minister and the Minister for Labour and Law of nepotism. Ong resigned from the Assembly a few minutes before the Assembly was to meet in Committee to hear him justify his allegations. A Commission of Inquiry, headed by a judge, found there was no truth in his allegations.
In London. Facing the Press
Press conference
In Warsaw. Inspecting the guard of honour with the Prime Minister of Poland, Mr Cyrankiewicz
At the 1966 Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference, listening to the Tunku
In January, Lee Kuan Yew made his first official visit abroad as Prime Minister. He went to Indonesia. At Jakarta airport he said that, but for the accidental divisions of the European colonial empires, the history of Malaya, Singapore and Indonesia might well have been more closely knit. The Portuguese, the Dutch, the British and the French came to Southeast Asia and divided it up amongst themselves, much in the fashion of modern gangsters who demarcate their respective territorial jurisdictions over a city. Geography they condemned. And the course of history they distorted. During that colonial era, the links between Jakarta and Amsterdam, between Singapore and London, were closer than the links between Jakarta and Singapore. Such were the absurdities of European colonial domination.
“That era,” said Lee, “the dark ages of Asia, is slowly disappearing into the limbo of the past. But it may take some time before we can completely rectify or eradicate the evils of the past. Your great country nurtured a high level of civilization in the past. Borobudur and the relics of the Hayam Wuruk and Gajah Mada governments are traces of a golden age. Your struggle against the Dutch to establish your independence was a source of inspiration for the nationalists in Singapore. And we watch with even greater interest your efforts to make up for past decades of stagnation under Dutch colonial exploitation.
“You are our great neighbour. You have asserted your right to independence fourteen years ago. We are a small country and we have yet to rid ourselves of the last vestiges of colonial domination. But as we emerge from the stupor of the colonial era we must renew our links and our friendship with our neighbours. I bring you the goodwill and fraternal greetings of the people of Singapore.”
At the state banquet, the Prime Minister submitted that “our friendship and desire for co-operation spring from the hearts of the people of Singapore. There is nothing that the people of Singapore would like more than to have more friendly and closer relations in cultural and trade matters with our second closest neighbour—the Republic of Indonesia. . .
“I feel that our relationship has undergone a fundamental change for the better. Our relationship will not be of the nature it was when a colonial power dealt unsympathetically and in purely commercial terms with the Indonesian nation. Co-operation between us will be to our mutual benefit. It is our intention in our trade with Indonesia, not just to make a profit out of her, but to serve her needs for as long as we can perform a useful function as a collecting point for disposal of Indonesian products, and for purchases of finished goods. As your economy develops and our own industries are established, it is inevitable that the pattern of trade between us will change in its complexion. But I am confident that we will always be able to benefit from trade with each other.”
Lee Kuan Yew concluded his speech with the assurance that Singapore would not allow anything detrimental to the security of Indonesia to be committed in any territory over which it had control. “This is the basic friendship which we have towards our neighbours, the people of Indonesia. May that friendship strengthen and grow in mutual respect and mutual prosperity.”
To the surprise of its members, the Prime Minister accepted an invitation from the Rotary Club to dine with them on 24 February. He had refused invitations while in opposition. He explained why, and he told them of the considerations which prompted him on this occasion to accept. The speech made a considerable impression on the trading community, who looked upon it as a major policy declaration.
Lee said that the political beliefs of the PAP would not normally commend themselves to a group of people who were successful in a given order of society. “By the very nature of your constitution, your members are those who have succeeded in life. . . It was not unnatural to infer that your membership consists of people who, having done well under an existing social order, are satisfied with that social order and therefore extremely anxious that nobody should alter things in case they may not do so well under a new order. Not wanting to arouse more animosity from those who are not likely to be politically sympathetic to the PAP, I did not take advantage of the opportunity you offered me in the past to inflict my political views on your members. However, now that the PAP is the governing party, although you probably still do not agree with its political objectives, you may be interested to know what these objectives are.”
Lee said that a whole set of political principles and socialist beliefs had often been summed up in the PAP phrase “a more just and equal society”. By this the PAP did not mean that all men were equal and would be rewarded equally. “Men are not born equal in either physical or mental capacity. But a socialist believes that society as a whole will benefit, and there will be more happiness for more people, if all are given equal opportunities for education and advancement regardless of class or property. It therefore follows that, evenunder the new social order, there will be some men who are more successful than others, but with this fundamental distinction: that they have become more successful after free and equal competition and effort.”
It was by now generally accepted, Lee said, that a revolution had taken and was still taking place throughout Asia, and that Malaya and Singapore were a part of this revolution. The revolution began before the PAP was ever thought of, but the PAP hoped to endure to see it through to its fulfilment. “Last year, before we assumed power, we expounded the theme of the social revolution. . .”
Lee said that the PAP was basically a revolutionary, and not a reformist, movement and that the social and economic forces which brought the PAP into power had not altered. Although it was not practical or possible to have a profound change of social organization through a major shift in the relations between social classes because of the entrepot economy of Singapore, it was nevertheless important to remember that the have-nots—who formed the mass of the workers —the under-privileged, the under-employed and the unemployed, were seeking a change in their position in society. A government of Singapore which represented these urges could not modify its social programme or political principles without forfeiting the trust and confidence that had been placed in it by the under-privileged. “Such a government can trim its economic programme to fit into the limitations of an entrepot island economy only if a strenuous effort is made to redress the economic balance by a redistribution of social and economic benefits. . .”
For some time before a revolution, said Lee, the ruling class finds itself in a position of a minority, isolated from the rest of society. If the British colonial government had persisted in maintaining its domination, then the machinery of the state would have given way and there might well have been a complete breakdown by a concerted attack of revolutionary forces from the ground. “We have been saved this inconvenience by Britain’s policy of withdrawal from positions of open colonial rule in Asia.”
After the recent elections, the Prime Minister explained, the political system changed, and power passed from the last legitimate colonial government to the first representative government of the people, thus for the time being bridging the gulf between the rulers and ruled. It was important that, if the gulf was not to reappear, the Government’s social and political policies should reflect the sentiments and attitudes of the revolutionary mass from whence it drew its strength. But, on the other hand, he warned, a revolutionary government which attempted to upset the structure of Singapore’s island entrepot economy would only bring deprivations upon the people and disaster upon itself. “So the art of government in Singapore, through this phase of its history, can be summed up in two guiding principles: first, to work to the best advantage the present entrepot economy whilst slowly encouraging industrial expansion, partly through government capital but largely through private investment; and second, to satisfy the revolutionary urge of the mass of the people for a fundamental change in the relationship between social classes, and this in spite of the fact that there can be no fundamental change in the immediate future in the economic base of society. An orthodox Marxist will say that is an impossible task. The business of the PAP, as a democratic socialist party, is to show that, difficult and delicate a task though it may be, it can be done. In the long run, it is inevitable that the economic base itself will be transformed.”
The Prime Minister said that those who feared disastrous changes in the economic system with the advent of a PAP Government, but who were now agreeably surprised that the world had not collapsed, should remember that the PAP’s political opponents were frequently not truthful. “Never at any time did we consider, or pretend, that drastic changes in economic relationships were possible in our given set of political circumstances. It is not for lack of revolutionary purpose that we have not made more drastic change in the relationships of the social classes. It is more the appreciation of the limitation of the Singapore situation which has predetermined our line of policy and action. Basically we are not reformists. We do not believe that changes in the social order can be accomplished through the alteration of some particular institution, activity or condition. But, revolution aside, the first business of a government is to govern firmly and wisely in the interests of the whole community. And the interests of the whole community in our entrepot situation require the active participation and co-operation of the managerial and professional elite. We understand how you came to be leaders of trade and commerce, or captains of industry, or distinguished yourselves in the professions. We also understand that the incentives were material ones. And since it is our desire to see that the system continues to operate effectively and efficiently, it must necessarily follow that we are prepared to allow the old incentives to continue.”
The problem of the Government, he said, was how best to utilize the existing social order to produce the maximum results. This being so, Government’s only intervention in the economy envisaged in the next four years was a redistribution of the results of the fruits of the economy. “At the end of our tenure of office, it is our intention that there should be more equality of opportunity for education and advancement. To fulfil this intention will require a tremendous expenditure of the national revenue on education, expenditure which cannot be made unless there is an expansion of the whole economy. And if there is one overriding problem which we must resolve, it is that of creating sufficient expansion in the economy (1) to provide the jobs for a growing population, and (2) to provide the revenue to educate the younger half of that growing population.”
The curious position now was that a socialist government was entrusted with the responsibility for industrial expansion in what was still essentially a free enterprise, and capitalistic, system. “To the extent that you help the expansion of that system, you will have the support of the Government. And the message that I would like to leave with you this evening is this: regardless of our differing political beliefs, we have enough common ground, albeit for different reasons, in desiring a rapid economic and industrial development in the immediate future. For this phase of our social revolution, the better business you do, the more things you buy and sell to and from Singapore, the more shops and factories that you open, the happier we are. Where we might not be in agreement is the way in which we hope to spread the benefits of prosperity. But so long as your activity assures not only your own prosperity but the prosperity of the whole community, you will find the apparatus of the Government willing and ready to assist you in your enterprise.”
Multilingualism may well be a symbol of racial tolerance in a multiracial state, but it has its own peculiar problems, and the impact of several tongues upon a debate in the Assembly was remarked upon by the Prime Minister at the election of the Speaker on 1 June. Lee said that the task the Speaker had been invited to discharge was not the simple one of following traditions and precedents. He was faced with some of the complications which a chairman of an international conference must face. “Can we maintain decorum and an air of intimacy in debate in spite of the fact that the Chairman and many Members of the House will not know what is being said until it is irretrievably recorded on the official tapes? Can such a chairman develop the powers of intuition to sense and fathom the evil intentions of wicked tongues before the words have been uttered? Can there be a sense of humour and an atmosphere of conviviality as one is being harangued in a language not understood, even through an interpreter not always clearly understandable? The past year has given us some experience of the problems which we have to resolve if we are to maintain this House as a debating and thinking Chamber, and not just a forum for declamations and denunciations.”
Lee Kuan Yew realized that multilingualism had its limitations, but he strongly resisted any move to abolish it. Whenever occasion demanded he continued to speak, in the House and outside, in Chinese, Malay and English. He encouraged everyone to learn at least two languages in addition to their mother tongue.
From March onward, Lim Chin Siong and other pro-communists began to build up their strength in the unions and set out secretly to undermine the prestige and influence of the Government. To embarrass PAP leaders, Ong Eng Guan, expelled from the party for unprincipled activities, also voiced ultra-Left slogans. Lee Kuan Yew faced up to all this in a speech in the Assembly on 3 August, when he spoke of “new factors which have entered the political arena”. Against the PAP and what it stood for—an independent, democratic, non-communist, socialist Malaya, of which Singapore would be part—there was only one organization, the Communist Party, which could challenge the Government in a bid for ultimate power. The Right-wing forces were “inert and ineffective”, but communist sympathizers and activists, who had scattered and gone underground before the election, had begun the work of regrouping and reorganization.
Lee dealt with the contradictions between the PAP and the pro-CP forces. “I would like to restate in simple language for the benefit of the Opposition, both in the House and outside the House, that the policies of the PAP were evolved out of its own experience of struggle under local conditions, not out of doctrinaire principles. And it has been successful up to date and will continue to be successful so long as it adheres not to doctrinaire principles, in complete disregard of local facts and conditions, but to the principles evolved in the context of the Malayan revolutionary situation. We believe in an independent, democratic, non-communist, socialist Malaya. What is the alternative for all Left-wing forces in Malaya? To this affirmation of faith, does anybody seriously stand up to say that they believe in the establishment of an independent communist Soviet Republic of Malaya? In the context of the present situation, do they hope to carry with them the mass of the Muslim Malays, the English-educated, the Indian-educated? Surely all have conceded that there can be no communist Singapore until there is a communist Malaya, and that there can be no communist Malaya unless the Malays are sufficiently softened from neighbouring territories.”
Lee chided the English language Press, which he said confused and deluded the public. “The irony of it is that, basically, anti-communist local journalists, through European, imperialist, colonialist newspapers, have helped to build up confusion in the minds of the people. All this talk of democratic rights, laissez-faire liberalism, freedom, and human rights, in the face of the stark realities of an underground struggle for power, can only confuse the English-educated world.”
The problem that confronted them was not, he suggested, a simple one of allowing absolute liberalism and democratic rights to prevail, but of exerting that right amount of restriction on absolute rights so that a tolerant democratic society could endure and not turn into a totalitarian state. “In other words, the Government can, and where necessary must restrict the rights of individuals, but if it does so to a point where it becomes in fact a totalitarian society, then the purpose of the restriction has been negated. These restrictions are bearable only because without them a more intolerant system would triumph.”
Winding up the debate a week later, the Prime Minister returned to what he called “the ideological battle and political realism”. He said that a big mistake which the Left-wing adventurers were making in Singapore was that they thought they could use Singapore as a base, a Yenan, from which to liberate the rest of Malaya. “As the top leaders of the MCP know, independence for Singapore can only come with merger. . . the task is not to build up tension and strife, but to lay the foundations for merger. For independence is no longer the simple business of fighting the British. All these attempts to try and swing the political line back to the fluid, confused, uncertain position of the 1955 elections can never succeed, for these Left-wing adventurers cannot find the arguments to counter the logic and the realism upon which our analysis is founded.”
To summarize the PAP’s ideological stand, Lee Kuan Yew read out what five persons closely connected with the Party leadership, S. Woodhull, Fong Swee Suan, Lim Chin Siong, C. V. Devan Nair and Chan Chiaw Thor, all of whom were in prison for two and a half years, from 1956 to 1959, had had to say immediately after they were released on 4 June, 1959: “ ‘In most other countries, socialist programmes rest on an already given historical foundation of an unitary national consciousness and solidarity. We have to struggle not only for socialism, but for the nationalist basis of socialism. The real struggle for socialism in Malaya can only begin when our people, Malays, Chinese and Indians, are able to transcend the communal, cultural and linguistic barriers and loyalties which at present divide them, and embrace a common Malayan loyalty and cultivate a common national consciousness.
“ ‘Once the problem of linguistic and cultural unity is on the way to being resolved, fears and suspicions will fade away. We must face the facts. So long as the fight was against British colonialism the differences between the peoples of Malaya were muted and dulled in the desire to achieve the common goal of freedom by common effort. Now that this freedom has been won in the Federation all the differences come back into their own. They can and must be resolved. And we in Singapore can set the way to the solution of these important differences in language and culture. That is what we can and must do in this next phase of our struggle for freedom, the struggle for merger.
“ ‘It was not the might of British arms which defeated the armed revolt led by the MCP, but the failure of the MCP to establish itself as a nationally-based movement. And thereby hangs a lesson which Malayan socialists will ignore at their own peril. But genuine socialists will oppose, positively and on the basis of principle, all those who attempt to negate and destroy either the ends or the means of democratic socialism in Malaya.
“ ‘With the achievement of political independence by the Federation of Malaya, a new phase has begun. And the most important task of socialists in this new phase is to achieve complete identification with the ideal of a United Malayan nation, and to struggle by peaceful, democratic and constitutional means for the enduring objective of an united, independent, democratic, non-communist and socialist Malaya.’ ”
Lee said this had been a declaration of political faith and principles which was in complete accord with the policies and programmes of the PAP. On the strength of this political stand four of the five authors were appointed Political Secretaries. Lee assured the House that, if any deviation was made from this stand, then the working basis was gone. “We are not going to harbour those who are not sincerely with us.
“One thing,” added Lee, “we have achieved in greater measure than any other political party since 1948: we have won over the masses of people who might otherwise be sympathizers or supporters of the communist cause by our positive approach—the non-communist, democratic, socialist approach. As long as we keep on doing so and succeed in doing it, we shall remain a virile and vigorous force, and a movement to be reckoned with in the Malayan political situation. . .”
What suddenly became known beyond the frontiers of Singapore as the Professor Enright Case, brought to the fore once again the question of academic freedom. At the end of November, Professor Enright, Johore Professor of English at the University of Malaya in Singapore (now the University of Singapore), publicly presented his inaugural lecture. After reading a Straits Times report of this, the Minister for Culture came to the conclusion that Enright had interfered in state political affairs and angrily and publicly rebuked him.
Speaking to the Students’ Union on 25 November, the Prime Minister said it was unfortunate that the Professor had become the unwitting trigger of the larger question of academic freedom. “Several of my contemporaries who are now teaching at the University tell me that he is one of the best type of teachers that the University should be recruiting, and a distinguished scholar and poet.” Had the Professor explained that the report in The Straits Times was “tendentious”, and that no sneer had been intended against “sarong culture”, then no letter would have been necessary. There was no issue of academic freedom as such at stake in this case. “And whilst I sincerely congratulate you on your high resolve to defend the principle, I think you have rallied in defence of a principle that was never challenged. The simple point the Minister of Culture made is that no alien has a right to intervene by comment or action in the political issues of this country. Academic freedom does not confer this right on a visiting professor. And this right the Professor never intended to exercise.”
Lee argued that academic freedom was founded upon three principles. First, that the teacher was a technical expert in his field. Second, that his search for truth and knowledge was disinterested. Third, that teachers in a university did not just transmit knowledge to successive generations: they were expected to advance the frontiers of human knowledge and widen the dominion of man’s mind. His freedom of inquiry, research and exposition on the subject of which he was a competent and disinterested explorer and mentor should not be challenged by either governmental or even university authority. Within his province, his freedom was supreme. But his special status did not extend to fields where he was not the competent disinterested explorer. And one of those fields was the heat and dust of the political arena. Of course there was nothing to prevent him from going into this arena if he was a citizen and so entitled. But he entered this field not as a university teacher but as a citizen, and must therefore be ready for the hurly-burly in which other citizens entering this arena indulged.
Lee said: “Indeed, if they are citizens, it is their duty as respected and educated members of our society to express and canvass their views on what should or should not be done in the government of their country. They are citizens who, at very high cost to the state, have had their minds trained and sharpened in their various disciplines. They should and ought to undertake the responsibility of leading and formulating opinion on the political issues of the country. As I said to some friends teaching in the University, whether you are a trained physicist, or scholar of English literature, if you are a citizen it is your duty to contribute your share in the running of the democratic system. In England, before the days when egalitarian principles were carried to their logical conclusions, the English Universities of Cambridge and Oxford had special representation in the House of Commons, in recognition of the special contribution which trained scholars were expected to make to the deliberations of the country. But only those who were British subjects, citizens of Britain, could be elected to represent the Universities in Parliament.
“What then are the limitations on the university teacher who is not a citizen? None whatsoever as a teacher, but a definite prohibition against participation in the political issues of the country. How are we to know where the bounds of academic freedom end and the boundaries of political issues begin? I say common sense and academic judgment can be left to mark out these bounds. In the large majority of cases the question of whether it is wise for an alien teacher to canvass his views publicly on a political issue of the country in which he is a guest is quite simple. If you are an authority on Greek literature but a non-citizen, then you would be wise to leave the question of whether or not Malay should be the only official language to those who are citizens. The best thing is to stick to your subject. Now if you are an authority on economics and your research shows that a certain type of industry cannot be successfully established in Singapore, then by all means propound the results of your research and your conclusions thereon, even if it should conflict with a pet scheme of the Minister in charge of industrial development. And if you are an economist of repute the Minister would do well to read your exposition of the subject. . .
“Good sense should not be lacking where there are good brains. We need and will continue to need these good brains from abroad. In the past my colleagues and I have had occasion to state in no uncertain terms what we would have to do to expatriates who meddle in local politics, to colonial-owned newspapers and the expatriate newspapermen employed on the local paper. They took heed of our views. But they seem to have found a new way of meddling with local politics by publishing tendentious and sometimes completely distorted reports of speeches, making mischief all round. We trust these misreportings so far were not deliberate. If they persist we shall have to revise our views. On the whole, however, good sense has made any unpleasantness unnecessary so far. So I am sure good sense will prevail in other fields. For no one can be upset by the language of a scholar erudite in his branch of human learning, however polemical the views propounded. It is the language of the partisan that offends, and no great scholarly effort is required to avoid this.”