DECISION was the keynote of 1962, a year in which issues were clarified and put to the test of public opinion. Seventy-one per cent of the people in a national referendum voted for Malaysia. Early in the year, on his way to London for discussions, Lee Kuan Yew went to Burma, India, the United Arab Republic and Yugoslavia, personally to explain the significance of Singapore’s plan to merge with Malaysia. In July, a PAP Assemblywoman announced her resignation from the party and crossed the floor of the House, where she sat as an independent. Her resignation deprived the Government of its majority, reducing its strength to twenty-five in a House of fifty-one. Lee declared the Government’s intention “to govern and to see Singapore’s destiny in Malaysia secured”. He added: “Until the Opposition outvotes us we are constitutionally the Government. We shall see the referendum and merger through.” Fortunately for Lee Kuan Yew, the Opposition was divided, consisting of the Right and the pro-communists.
In July, the debate on Malaysia was transferred to the United Nations Committee on Colonialism. David Marshall, Singapore’s first Chief Minister, argued for the Barisan Sosialis. Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee presented the Government’s point of view. Mr Marshall won Russian and Polish endorsement of his view that the referendum was a “gross deceit”, but the Committee declined to reverse its decision not to send an observer to Singapore.
In August, the Government again had twenty-six votes when a former PAP Assemblyman retraced his steps across the floor, and rejoined the party. But before the end of the month the Minister for Labour died, thus reducing the House to fifty, and leaving Government and Opposition with equal votes. This did not affect the coming of Malaysia, however, for the seven Alliance Assemblymen used their votes to sustain the Government at least until its realization.
Meanwhile, on the economic front, considerable progress was made on the Jurong industrial project. Factories began to go up. Elsewhere, huge blocks of flats began to change the Singapore skyline. Singapore’s trade continued to increase. Fifteen new schools were built. Attendance in Malay secondary schools increased seventy-five per cent.
LEE Kuan Yew greeted 1962 with an appeal to the Right nationalists to rally with the Left nationalists to fight the Malayan communists. In his 1962 New Year message, he said that 1961 had not been so bad a year after all: it had been memorable for the “drawing of the line between the communists and the nationalists.
“We, the under-developed countries, must continue to seek our own salvation. We do not want the communist system to spread and envelop us. Nor do we want to be pawns of the Western powers for the defence of their own interest. We have to fight and win our own place under the sun. And it is our duty to fill the power vacuum which the withdrawal of colonial rule will leave in this part of the world. . .
“1962 will see events begin to unfold to their logical conclusion. In this round of the struggle between the communists versus the nationalists, victory is assured to us, the nationalists. Malaysia will triumph, whatever the communists may try to do. But we must be prepared to see them come back for another round. We, the nationalists, whether of the Left or of the Right, must study the twists and turns of communist tactics—for example, how they support Malaysian solidarity in principle, while working against it in practice. For it is in the practice that they hope to break up the nationalists and devour us in small morsels.
“So let us rally together for our own survival, not just this once, but for all time, for the struggle by the communists for a communist Malaysia will go on. May 1962 bring us more unity in Malaysia, for unity brings more strength and security to ensure our survival and prosperity in a troubled world.”
In April, Lee Kuan Yew undertook a tour of Afro-Asian nations to meet uncommitted leaders and to explain to them the meaning of Malaysia. This was to counter communist propaganda abroad, mainly through the Peking-oriented Indonesian Communist Party, and the communist-dominated Secretariat of the Afro-Asia Solidarity Organization in Cairo. Lee’s tour was highly successful: the myth that Malaysia was a neo-colonialist plot was destroyed.
Upon his return, Lee Kuan Yew relentlessly pursued a policy of open confrontation with the Barisan Sosialis through radio forums and public debates. Soon the communists were avoiding debate. Refusing to resign, the PAP declared it was prepared to submit the issue of merger to referendum, and this was the question which dominated the political life of the state for the first eight months of 1962, until the referendum decided the issue on 1 September, when, by a seventy-one per cent majority, the people of Singapore decided to become part of Malaysia.
Up until the end of 1961, the Barisan line had been to support Malaysia in principle provided internal security was left outside the hands of the Central Government. On 30 December, 1961, the Partai Kommunist Indonesia held its conference and denounced Malaysia as anti-Indonesian. This was now the line followed by the Barisan Sosialis.
In the Assembly on 29 January, the Prime Minister asked: “What are the long term aims of the communists? Surely it cannot be to create an independent communist state of Singapore for that would be impossible both militarily and economically. The declared aim of the Malayan Communist Party is to set up a communist Soviet Republic of Malaya and Singapore. And yet they do not want merger, although for all these years since 1945 they have condemned the separation of these two territories as being the responsibility of the British colonialists and later of the Federation reactionary feudalists. . .
“The tragedy of the MCP is that, contrary to Marxist–Leninist doctrine, it is trying to bring about a communist revolution working not through the indigenous races, the Malays, the Dayaks, the Dusuns and the Muruts, but through the active immigrant section, the Chinese. . .the inspiration, the impetus and the organizational techniques are those of the Chinese communist revolution. The communist revolution in China is one of the greatest that has ever taken place in the history of China, and has given coherence, discipline and a sense of purpose to replace the warlordship and corruption which had reduced China to anarchy for so long. But even according to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, for a revolution to succeed it must be locally based, and the MCP will not be locally based for as long as its inspiration cannot pull at the heart strings of the indigenous people of Malaya and Malaysia. If ever one day communism were to hope to make a really massive appeal, it must be home-based and it must be able to draw the Malays, the Davaks, the Dusuns and the Muruts, together with the Chinese and the Indians, into its whirlpool. And that day can only come if the leadership of the Communist Party passes into the hands of local Malays, Dayaks, Dusuns and Muruts, and the inspiration of revolution comes from a close neighbour like Indonesia with a people and a country more like Malaysia.
“Hence the significance of the PKI’s statement about Malaysia being anti-Indonesia. It is easier to make Malaysia accept communism from Indonesia through the Dayaks, the Dusuns and the Muruts on the Indonesian side of Borneo appealing to their kinsfolk on the Malaysian side, and through the Malays from Minangkabau and Sumatra appealing to their kinsmen in Malaysia, than to get Malaysia to go communist from an appeal thousands of miles away, from China. . .”
Although the PAP Government in June 1959 received a mandate in the Assembly to proceed with merger and Malaysia, Lee Kuan Yew insisted upon holding a referendum to ascertain “the mode and manner of the inevitable reunification of Singapore and Malaya”.
Lee’s majority in the Assembly when merger and Malaysia was again discussed in 1961 was thirty-three, but he believed he had to hold the referendum to take away from the communists any hope that, after Malaysia, they could exploit the fact that eighteen Assemblymen abstained from voting. Lee wanted Malaysia to get off to a good start. He wanted to be able to say with unchallenged confidence that Malaysia was strongly supported by the majority of the people of Singapore, and he wanted figures to prove his contention. In the Assembly on 16 March, he was caustic as usual with Assemblymen on the opposite side of the House. “In the past two days in this Assembly there has been a great deal of hypocritical exhortation about democracy and the democratic process made by the Barisan Sosialis who are the least qualified to talk about democracy. They have invoked democracy to establish the right of communists to cause confusion, spread falsehood and try to prevent merger, they the people who are furthest removed from the ideals of government by the free will of the people. Perhaps the Member for Thomson has forgotten that, during the PAP Conference in May last year, after the Hong Lim by-election, he was the strongest advocate for taking the Cuban line, and, like Fidel Castro, he strongly advocated the abolition of all future elections as being unnecessary and stupid. The Member for Upper Serangoon was then trying to dissuade my colleagues and I from ever contemplating resignation and returning the mandate to the people. . . He went so far as to say that what was important was not whether the people knew that what we were doing was good for them, but whether in fact we were doing good for them, and he capped this argument by saying that had Mao Tse-tung stood for elections after the hardships of the Chinese communes in the past few years he would probably have lost his deposit. . . ”
All the thirteen Barisan Sosialis Assemblymen, Lee reminded them, were elected on the PAP platform, the main plank of which was merger, and had signed solemn pledges that they would resign if they were expelled from the party. . .
Lee went on to say: “We have a mandate from this Assembly of thirty-three unanimous votes, with no Assemblymen being bold enough to be present to vote against the proposals for merger. . . Lim Chin Siong, the communist front leader, who is manipulating and co-ordinating communist policies in Barisan Sosialis and the communist front unions, has openly told a meeting of committee members of several union officials who taxed him on this point that the Government has full legal and constitutional rights, once the proposals have been passed in the Assembly, to carry out the merger. Therefore, let us be clear in our minds that the Government is under no compulsion to have this referendum and there is no necessity to resort to trickery, as the Member for Queenstown has suggested. . . The final position which we want to achieve is not just merger, but a merger under which the various races in Malaya will live in peace and harmony. . . It is the duty of the Government to try and bring merger and Malaysia about peacefully by consent with the maximum of goodwill and of give and take. . .”
The Bill authorizing the referendum was approved on 6 July after a debate which lasted for eight days of midnight sessions.
On the eve of his departure for the Afro-Asian countries, on 19 April, Lee Kuan Yew spoke to the Foreign Correspondents’ Association. He recalled the three points he had made in 1959. One, that if there was a free-for-all in Malaya then the course of political and social revolution in Malaya might be dictated by the Chinese in the towns. But there could never be a free-for-all, and that being the case, the course and the pace of the revolution must be as fast or as slow as the majority of the Malay peasants desired. Two, there could be no communist Singapore so long as there was no communist Malaya. The third was that, for the time being, the threat to peace, stability and prosperity in Malaya was greater from communalism than from communism. Lee said these three points were as valid in 1962 as they had been in 1959.
Lee Kuan Yew landed at Belgrade’s international airport on May Day. Normally, President Tito left for the country after taking the salute at the Labour Day march past, but he agreed to give Lee half an hour of his time and catch a later train. President Tito received the Prime Minister at his official residence on 2 May. The scheduled half hour expanded into an hour. Lee left the President believing that Tito understood (as did other Afro-Asian leaders including Ne Win, Nehru, and Nasser) that Malaysia was a development of Asian nationalism and not neo-colonialism.
At the airport just before he left, on 4 May, Lee Kuan Yew was asked by the Press about his talk with President Tito. Lee said he had formed the impression that President Tito fully supported Malaysia. “Is that not so?” Lee asked Yugoslavia’s Secretary for Agriculture, Dr Slavko Komar. The Minister nodded his agreement.
Before Lee met President Tito, Yugoslavia had been highly critical of Malaysia.
On 20 May, from the BBC in London, the Prime Minister broadcast to Singapore an account of his visit to some of the Afro-Asian non-aligned nations. Lee said his purpose in visiting these countries was to tell them of the facts of Malaysia and the problems in and around Malaysia. . . Since November last year, he said, there had been a consistent campaign to damn Malaysia even before it was created. The communists in Malaysia and the Communist Party of Indonesia had been selling the line that Malaysia was neo-colonialism; in other words, that Malaysia, when created, although nominally independent, would in fact be a stooge regime of the British. This line was echoed by communist radio stations throughout the world. They were able, through their communist representatives on the Afro-Asian Secretariat in Cairo, to move a resolution condemning Malaysia as neo-colonialist. Lee said this was bad for Malaysia. “It meant that even before we were born we would be regarded as an illegitimate offspring of British colonialism and not as nationalists, rightful heirs and successors to the British colonial empire in Southeast Asia. The communists had two motives for taking this line. First, by throwing cold water over the plan, they hoped to prevent or impede its fulfilment. Second, if Malaysia were to come into being, in spite of their opposition, then they hoped to isolate Malaysia from the Afro-Asian nations, and make it appear to the world as a stooge regime of Britain. And then, from time to time, when the independent Government of Malaysia takes action against communists in Malaysia, they hoped, through the Afro-Asian nations, at meetings in Cairo, Belgrade or Casablanca, to mobilize world opinion for the communists and against the Malaysian Government. They would represent actions against communists as being in the interests of the British imperialists, and in suppression of the freedom movements of the peace-loving peoples which the Communist Party of Malaya claim for themselves. And so I spent a few days in each place to talk things over with the men whose names are household words not only to us in Malaya, but also to the peoples of the non-aligned bloc, and of the communist and anti-communist bloc as well. . .
“Has my meeting the leaders of these countries made any difference to us in Malaya? Politically, yes. Economically, not immediately. Our trade and economic links are still largely with the West. We are dependent on the West for our economic development. But more and more in the future, the Afro-Asian bloc of non-aligned countries will make a great difference to us in our march towards our own machine age. To begin with, all this talk of Malaysia being a neo-colonialist plot has been debunked. And if the communists in Malaya and Indonesia continue to decry Malaysia as neo-colonialism, they will find theirs a lonely cry. The Afro-Asian world of newly independent nations will welcome Malaysia into its ranks as an honourable member. We will not be isolated. Nor can the communists use the prestige of the Afro-Asian nations to attack Malaysia for their communist ends. All of us have just emerged from a colonial society largely agricultural, producing the raw materials to build up the wealth and strength of the industrial societies of Europe. We are all tired of being backward, under-developed peoples. All of us want to make our own manufactured goods, acquire machines and build more machines so that our workers can raise the material and cultural standards of our people. The acquisition of political independence is only a first step towards our goal of a better society. . .”
Back again in Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew on National Day (3 June) restated to thousands assembled on the Padang, the basic attitude of the immigrant communities, especially the Chinese, towards the concept of Malaysia. He stressed the contributions the Chinese had made to Singapore and Malaya, and could make to Malaysia. Neither did he forget the Indians. And he reminded the Malays that they must weld into the new society as Malaysians and stop thinking of themselves as a separate and distinct group.
On 3 July, another PAP member, a woman member of the Assembly, crossed the floor and joined the Opposition. The PAP Government then became a minority government with twenty-five seats to the Opposition’s twenty-six. But the Opposition consisted of the Barisan Sosialis and the Singapore Alliance, and the anti-communist Alliance would do nothing at this stage to bring down the Government. Lee Kuan Yew put out a statement clarifying his Government’s position. “It is the business of the Government to govern and to see the country’s destiny in a Federation of Malaysia secured. That is the primary duty of the Government and indeed the duty of all citizens who want to see racial peace and harmony prevail. We are on the final phase towards our goal. There is no question of our quitting and leaving the job unfinished. Until the Opposition outvotes us, we are constitutionally the Government. It is a pity Madam Ho Puay Choo, under pressure, lost her nerve at this late stage. We went through the worst in July last year and there are no troubles that can confront us now which can be worse than what has happened. We shall see the referendum and merger through. There will be merger, there will be Malaysia, in or before June, 1963.”
Lee Kuan Yew’s confidence did not intimidate the Barisan Sosialis. In a bold and desperate move they decided to take the issue into the international arena. They persuaded seventeen Assemblymen (fourteen of them Barisan Sosialis) to petition the United Nations Special Committee on Colonialism. In New York on 26 July, Dr Lee Siew Choh laid their complaint before the Committee. Lee Kuan Yew appeared in person to argue for the Singapore Government. He answered Dr Lee’s charges in detail. He traced the political history of Singapore and Malaya, pointed out that Malaysia would mean that four former territories of the United Kingdom, all of them colonies, would achieve independence and nationhood through merger. The new nation would cover an area of 130,000 square miles and have a population of ten million. Malaysia would become a viable economic and political unit. Instead of being warmly acclaimed by all patriots and nationalists anxious to see an end to colonial rule in that part of the world, the ultra-Leftist Barisan Sosialis resisted Malaysia and demanded that the Singapore Government negotiate with the British Colonial Office terms whereby Singapore would still remain a semi-colony. Lee said that only David Marshall had ever suggested that Singapore should be independent by itself. “It is a political, economic and geographical absurdity,” he added, believing that at the time. He was forced to change his mind later.
Mr Marshall had once suggested that Singapore should be independent and guaranteed by the United Nations, such guarantee being underwritten by the United Nations moving its headquarters to Singapore.
“It was,” Lee Kuan Yew told the United Nations Special Committee on Colonialism, “the perfidy of the British, in their desire to hold on to a military base at the tip of the Malayan Peninsula which would give them a command of the whole area, that decided them on this cruel political amputation (of Singapore Island from Malaya), one from which the logic of geography, economics and military necessity compels them now to withdraw. Unlike the Portuguese, the French and the Dutch, the British are the people who most gracefully withdraw from an already untenable position. For that reason I have not had difficulty in the midst of my negotiations with the Federation Prime Minister in getting the British to agree that, on our agreement with the Federation of Malaya Government, sovereignty over these bases and over the whole island will pass into the hands of Malaya.”
Lee questioned the inner purpose of the Barisan’s appeal to the United Nations. What was it they wanted? Lee said all they sought from the Committee was an observer “who may deter major active perfidy being perpetuated against our people”. Lee then set out the PAP Government’s case, and point by point demolished the Barisan’s arguments. It was a skilful performance. The Government was properly elected, had received a mandate for merger, but even so was planning to hold a referendum. “The anti-national Left, having failed in attempts to oppose merger and subvert the national referendum, have now submitted a petition to the United Nations Committee over an internal issue in the hope that somehow, first, they can boost the morale of their followers after their internal defeat in Singapore through intervention of some sort, and secondly, to prolong and delay the inevitable reunification. . .
“The supreme humiliation of the petitioners came last week when they went cap in hand to the office of the British High Commissioner in Singapore to petition the United Kingdom Government not to transfer sovereignty over Singapore to the Government of an independent Federation of Malaysia. They do not allege that the coming referendum will be carried out other than in accordance with the provisions of the Ordinance. They do not, for instance, express any fear that the Government will resort to illegal and unfair manipulations. Our general elections and by-elections have been conducted in a peaceful and orderly manner, and there have never been any instances of kidnapping, murder, violence or any of the other forms of irregular conduct which are not altogether unknown in some parts of the world. The coming referendum will be conducted scrupulously and in accordance with the law; and the petitioning Opposition has never questioned this. What then can an observer from the United Nations Committee of Seventeen do? I suggest that by this move they have demonstrated that their case is weak, hollow and empty. If they request an observer and if an observer were granted, he could do no more than observe and eventually he must report that the referendum was carried out strictly in accordance with the laws. What is the purpose of this request? I repeat: it is that they are now so thoroughly demoralized at their defeats in Singapore, and at their repeated failures in their attempts to unseat the Government through various anti-democratic campaigns that they have waged in the past twelve months. If the United Nations were to take notice of this petition, that would of course boost their sagging morale, for this means that an international organization would have been dragged in on their side in an internal, inter-party quarrel waged between the governing party of Singapore and the anti-national Left, the elements which deserted the governing party because they feared independence for Singapore through a merger in the Federation of Malaysia.”
Lee Kuan Yew concluded his speech with these remarks: “It is my understanding that appeals are made to this United Nations Committee by colonial subjects who desire freedom and who fight for freedom but who are denied that freedom by a colonial power. If my understanding is correct, then this petition before the Committee must stand unique in the annals of this Committee, as it comes from a group of politicians in Singapore who do not want to see the country free and independent. Their sole purpose in fighting merger in Malaysia is to retain Singapore’s semi-colonial status for political reasons of their own. This is the paradox on which these persons have claimed the assistance of the United Nations Committee of Seventeen and this is the position in which they find themselves today through their own follies.”
The United Nations Special Committee on Colonialism did not send an observer to Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew’s arguments prevailed.
Lee Kuan Yew wept when the result of the referendum was announced late on 1 September. He had been working at high pressure for weeks. Malaysia was his political ambition. He admitted that in a sense the referendum had been a calculated risk. The communists had put up a fierce fight, but they had in the end been rejected by the people and Lee’s tears were of relief and joy.
Three days later, over Radio Singapore, Lee claimed that the battle for merger, for all practical purposes, was over. All that remained to be done was to finalize the Constitution of Malaysia and sign a formal treaty. Over seventy-one per cent of the poll wanted merger on the lines of the PAP proposals: twenty-five per cent cast blank votes. Lee reminded his listeners that in 1959 in the general elections the PAP secured only fifty-three per cent of the votes. But on this national, not party, issue, seventy-one per cent of the people rallied round “to defend our future for ourselves and our children. And,” he added, “the communist-manipulated, united-front organizations, aided and abetted by cranks and opportunists, can only temporarily deceive a quarter of the electorate. I must emphasize that the majority of this twenty-five per cent did not vote for communism.
“The calculated risk is now over. The people have declared their will. The front men of the Malayan communist united front are now threatening a continuation of their struggle. After your verdict, it is our duty to tell them that, if they continue their anti-national struggle against merger and Malaysia, they will have to face the consequences, backed by the clear endorsement of the overwhelming majority of the people. And if the tough men in their midst take to direct action, they face direct consequences. Before 1 September our firmness could have been misrepresented as Fascist repression of a so-called colonial liberation movement. After 1 September I am sure you will want my colleagues and me to do what is right for the security and well-being of all in Singapore and Malaysia. . .”
In September 1962, on his way back to Singapore from London, where he had attended the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference as “an adviser”, Lee Kuan Yew visited Moscow. Malaysia’s Prime Minister said that the trip nullified all that Mr Lee had said about communism. At the Singapore Airport upon his return Lee Kuan Yew told a large crowd of party supporters that he had not been contaminated by communism, a suggestion made in “certain quarters”, The Straits Times reported, in Kuala Lumpur. “I am what I am and the Russians know it. They know the PAP, they know the Singapore Government, and they are prepared to deal with us as such. They are prepared to trade with us.” Lee said it was an advantage to get to Russia, to know the Russians and “tell them where they get off here”. The Prime Minister said he had also gone to Moscow to learn. Stressing that he had not been contaminated, the Premier said that his stand was like those of Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, whom he had just visited, and Abdul Gamal Nasser of Egypt. “We will defend our territorial integrity, our ideas and our way of life to the last drop and I don’t think anybody can doubt it.”
Lee also spoke of his three-day official visit to Cambodia, whose leader, Prince Sihanouk, he said, shared the same views. “We are neutral where it is a collision of the big power blocs because we are not sure who is on our side, but we are not neutral where our interests are concerned. And if we are threatened, we shall defend our interests.”
When Singapore became an independent republic, the Russians were invited by Lee Kuan Yew to set up a trade commission in Singapore. In 1967, Tunku Abdul Rahman announced that Malaysia and the Soviet Union would exchange Ambassadors, and the Moscow magazine New Times, commenting upon this rapid development, remarked that this would mean that Malaysia and the Soviet Union, in trading, would be able to cut out the middlemen, presumably referring to London and Singapore. The wheel seemed to have gone the full circle.
For a while, the Barisan Sosialis lay low after their referendum defeat. They turned more and more to clandestine activity, and became involved with Sheik Azahari, leader of the Party Raayat in Brunei. He was preparing an armed revolt in Brunei, and this was to be backed by communist demonstrations and other forms of direct action in Malaysia. The hope was that the Malaysian plan would collapse amid armed action and civil disorder.
The revolt broke out on 8 December, but was contained within a few days. Even before it started, Azahari fled to Manila. Before the Brunei uprising began, Azahari had been in touch with Barisan Sosialis leaders, including Lim Chin Siong and Syed Zahari, and prominent Indonesian politicians. The failure of the Brunei revolt was the signal for an open campaign against Malaysia by Indonesia. On 14 December, the Indonesian Government issued a statement denying implication in the revolt, accusing Tunku Abdul Rahman of an unfriendly attitude towards Indonesia, and supporting Azahari’s revolt as a movement for independence against imperialism and neocolonialism. Four days later the revolt was over.
Lee Kuan Yew took all this in his stride. He went about his business as usual, confident that Malaysia would be created and would survive. On 10 December, he opened an Asian Seminar on Urban Community Development. He pointed out that more than eighty per cent of the population of Asia lived in villages in the country where the forms and patterns of a traditional peasant society had persisted for centuries, oblivious to the great changes to the city civilization of the modern world.
“However, two factors—the industrialization programmes of the new governments in Asia, and the landlessness of the younger sons—are bringing about the inevitable drift from the country to the towns. As they leave the country behind, so they leave behind the traditional village and family ties, ties of mutual insurance that go with a tightly-knit peasant community, the oldest form of social insurance against hunger and poverty. In the higgledy-piggledy tenements of the city new problems arise, not only of re-housing them but of re-forming them in new group patterns to create a community which ensures a satisfying social life and effective forms of social organization to help co-ordinate with, and supplement, welfare programmes of government departments.
“In Malaya, because of the highly developed plantation and mining economy of the past fifty years, with its extensive road and rail transport, about half the population lives in towns. Broadly speaking, the Chinese and Indian communities, either first generation immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, live in the towns and cities, and the Malays, who are the peasants, live in villages or kampongs in the countryside. Singapore is the first large town to develop in Malaya and fairly presents the problems of urbanization throughout Malaya, albeit in an advanced stage.
“Over eighty per cent of the population of Singapore are Chinese and Indians, immigrants or descendants of immigrants. About twelve per cent are Malays. Only recently, with widespread primary Malay education in the countryside, is there a drift of the Malays from the country to the towns of the Federation of Malaya. From the towns of Malaya there is a drift to Singapore, the largest town of all.
“The Chinese and Indians are those who were adventurous and adaptable enough to leave their homelands to seek a better life in Malaya. From the villages of Southern China and Southern India they have grown new roots here. They carried over from China into Malaya their clan and village associations. These were their closest knit non-governmental organizations. Through the clan associations, and the Chambers of Commerce formed of trade guilds and clan associations, they maintained a substitute pattern for the old social ties of the villages of their homeland. Their tontines and mutual aid and insurance relationships of the early clan associations took the place of the traditional village social patterns.
“After a hundred years the pattern gradually changed. As the immigrants and descendants of immigrants became the settled community, new forms of social association developed. Gradually, sporting clubs and benevolent societies began to mean more to the active social life of the descendants of the immigrants than the old clan associations which helped their fathers to settle here.
“Now, in a new phase, with self-government and independence, the clan associations, guilds and Chambers of Commerce have changed their roles and are gradually ceasing to be the only points of contact between the immigrant communities and the Government. With direct representation in the legislative chamber the people have learned quickly to adjust themselves to a new situation. The old forms of contact and co-operation between the immigrant population and the colonial power have given way to new forms between a settled community and its elected leaders. Political parties, community clubs and recreational groups, welfare bodies, are all in the process of becoming the new medium of co-ordination and co-operation between government activity and the people. What is interesting to note in the urban community in Singapore is the difference between the high mobility and adaptability of the Chinese and Indian immigrants as against the indigenous Malays. The Chinese and Indians, being immigrants, were people who had psychologically prepared themselves for change, and they took to the urban life in Singapore easily and without tears.
“The Malays, on the other hand, being a settled rural community in Singapore, are reluctant and resistant to sudden change in their living habits. They still prefer to live in kampongs or villages in the country. They prefer wooden houses on stilts with land around them for poultry, fruit and vegetables, to concrete flats in the city. As the city expanded, rather than be absorbed into it, they have gone or been pushed to the outer rural areas. They have preferred this, although it has meant fewer amenities. An example can be seen in the Southern Islands where about 4,000 to 5,000 Malays eke out a precarious existence on what must have been the traditional fishing village economy over 100 years ago when Raffles landed here. Living in houses built on stilts over the sea, with the tides acting as a natural sewerage, they have preferred it and have adjured the amenities of pipe-water, electricity, schools, medical services available in Singapore City itself. For, with the Malays, it is not just an economic adjustment between a cheap attap hut and a dearer city flat. The greater problem is the psychological one of making them willing and happy to give up their traditional forms of kampong society, for the impersonal life of the city. . .
“Fortunately, here and there in the city proper there are pockets of Malays who, because of their employment either in the police, army or government departments, are in institutional quarters, most of which are modern flats. They are examples of Malay adjustability to urban life once the psychological resistance to change has been overcome. Their resistance to change is not just because they are changing from wooden houses on stilts with attap roofs to a cell in a concrete beehive, but, more important, because it has meant the breaking of old social ties in community patterns which provided a satisfying life in a complete society as they understood it. . .”