ON 16 September, 1963, Malaysia was established; five days later the anti-Malaysia, anti-national and pro-communist elements were soundly beaten by the People’s Action Party in a snap general election.
The year started badly. On 20 January the Indonesian Foreign Minister publicly proclaimed Indonesia’s policy of confrontation against Malaysia. The Indonesians explained that this amounted to “direct offensive” in the economic and social fields, not the military sphere. Within three months, however, Indonesian troops had penetrated Sabah and Sarawak, and Indonesian saboteurs and guerillas were sent to Singapore and Malaya. In February, more than a hundred pro-communist and anti-Malaysia leaders in Singapore, including Lim Chin Siong, were arrested.
In the same month the Government introduced the world’s most remarkable television service, with programmes in all four official languages (Malay, Chinese, Tamil and English) as well as in Cantonese, Hokkien and Hindustani. In July, Lee Kuan Yew went to London where the leaders of all the proposed states in Malaysia, excepting Brunei, signed the Malaysia Agreement. In a television report on his return to Singapore, Lee spoke of sharp exchanges between Singapore and Malaya “which had demonstrated the differences between the two states in the economic situation and the political approach. These differences cannot be wiped out overnight on 31 August just by the promulgation of independence.” President Sukarno and the Barisan Sosialis condemned the Agreement.
As predicted by the PAP, the electoral fight was between the PAP and the communist-front organization, the Barisan. All other political parties failed to return even a single candidate to the Assembly. The pro-communists polled 32·1 per cent of the vote and won thirteen seats. The People’s Action Party polled 47·4 per cent and won thirty-seven seats. Ninety-three per cent of the electorate voted.
During the year another twenty-one schools, including technical schools, were completed, seven more were under construction and a further twenty-four planned. By the end of the year 45,000 citizens were living in Government-built flats. Despite Indonesia’s confrontation trade continued to increase.
IN his 1963 New Year Message, Lee Kuan Yew said that 1962 would always be a memorable year in the history of Malaysia. “A year ago it was popularly believed that Singapore was a troublesome place and Brunei a peaceful and prosperous oil kingdom. It was said that Singapore, mainly Chinese, would oppose Malaysia, and Brunei, mainly Malay and ruled by a Sultan, would fit neatly into the Federation. But the prophets were proved wrong. In 1962 it was all peace and tranquillity in Singapore and people got down to working and planning for more prosperity in Malaysia. But in Brunei, some 2,000 of the 45,000 Malays—less than half the number we have in Geylang Serai and Kampong Melayu—attempted to set up the United States of Kalimantan Utara (in North Borneo). These rebels, armed with shotguns and parangs, in green uniforms with buffalo-head shoulder flashes, probably believed they were out to shake the world. But it needs more than the Ruritanian flamboyance of their leader, Sheik Azahari, to make a revolution. It needs more than cash to buy arms and weapon-training to stop the course of history in Malaysia. Indeed now it will take more than volunteers from Kalimantan Utara to stop it.
“The year 1962 saw two agreements, the first that West Irian would be liberated by May 1963, and the second that Malaysia would be established by August 1963. A bare three months will separate these two events which is perhaps just as well. For even before West Irian is liberated and Malaysia established, events have moved to show that nations in Asia are just like nations in Europe—they all like to grow bigger and more important and more prosperous. The solidarity of Asia was and is a solidarity against European colonialism. Once this common enemy is pushed out of the ring, the struggle for supremacy between themselves resumes. And now, even before British colonialism is pushed out of North Borneo and Sarawak, we find some groups in foreign countries pledging support to help Azahari and some 45,000 Brunei Malays he claims to lead to ‘liberate’ North Borneo and Sarawak.”
On 2 February, Lim Chin Siong and his intimate group of communist-front men were arrested. A week later, in the Assembly, Lee Kuan Yew explained why. He said that the Internal Security Council (consisting of representatives of Singapore, Malaya and Britain), which Lim had so long insisted must be abolished, met in Kuala Lumpur. It decided that action should be taken immediately to safeguard national defence and the security of Singapore and the other territories of Malaysia. It decided that certain of those known to the three security authorities to be deeply implicated in the united front working for communist and foreign interests must be arrested. In the early hours of Saturday morning, 2 February, operations were launched from Johore by Singapore and Federation Special Branch officers. A number of persons were detained. “I don’t think the public were surprised that action had been taken against these communists and their united front cadres. For that matter the communists were not surprised either.”
Lee explained the background to the arrests. “The communists preferred Singapore not to merge with the Federation. They wanted to make it into a Cuba, from which they hoped to mount an offensive against the Federation of Malaya. When they lost the referendum, and the overwhelming majority voted decisively for merger, for a peaceful and stable future in Malaysia, they knew that after 31 August they would face security action. Their first team—the open leaders—were so well known they could not easily withdraw and go into hiding. Also, if they had done so, their rank and file would have lost heart and melted away. So their first team of open united-front cadres in the political parties and in the unions and in the rural associations and cultural associations had to be sacrificed. The communists treated them as ‘expendables’ to be sacrificed. However, there were other less well-known expendables, cadres whose names and faces were less well known to the public. . .”
There were urgent reasons why security action was taken on the morning of 2 February. On a previous occasion, when intelligence reports came to the notice of the Federation Government of an impending revolt in Brunei by persons trained in Indonesian Borneo, no action had been taken. The Tunku has said that, although he informed the British, they took no preventive steps. British Intelligence did not altogether accept the imminence of the danger. Had the report been acted on, perhaps the Brunei revolt, which cost money, involved the movement of troops and arms, caused deaths and built up an atmosphere of crisis with some of Malaysia’s neighbours—all this might not have happened. This time, however, none of the three governments represented on the Internal Security Council was willing to be caught napping a second time. Captured rebel leaders in Brunei revealed that Azahari had told them that he had arranged for a simultaneous uprising in Singapore at the same time as they attacked in Brunei, Sarawak and Sabah. These men knew that they had lost the battle in Singapore against Malaysia. So they resorted to every available device, and exploited every opportunity to create trouble in the other territories, particularly in Sarawak and Brunei, in order to stop Malaysia. Lee warned that after the experience of the Brunei revolt, it would be a mistake to underestimate communist intention or capacity for harm. They said in the past that there would be bloodshed and violence if Malaysia were pushed through. “This was said by some of their leaders now in detention, Lim Chin Siong, Fong Swee Suan and Sandra Woodhull. Subsequent events have shown that they were prepared to use the Brunei Malays and involve themselves in conspiracy with foreign groups to precipitate armed revolt in the Borneo territories to stop Malaysia. Action could not be delayed any longer. Already, relations between the Federation and neigbouring countries are gravely strained. We can only hope that goodwill from all sides, with the help of conciliation and mediation by disinterested officials of international organizations, will ease the situation . . .
“But the most dangerous aspect of this purge of communist-front organizers is that the country may be lulled into a sense of false security. Without the leading communist-front figures in the open, with their wild postures, their fierce statements, their strikes and inflammatory speeches, people may believe that the communist threat is gone. Let us never deceive ourselves that this action has removed the communist threat. Even if the Internal Security Council were to arrest all the other united-front cadres and ban their organization, the problem would be only slightly further diminished. The basic threat remains.
“There are two reasons. First, the underground party is still there. . . Second, the united-front framework is still there. . . All those detained should remember that it is up to them to decide if they want a decent place in our society. If they give up this dangerous nonsense of revolution for a communist Malaya, and stop taking their directives from foreign groups, they can be released immediately. We have no desire to keep anybody out of a fair share of the fruits of our society, whether Chinese-educated, Malay-educated, Tamil-educated, or English-educated. Everybody can share in the fruits of freedom and join in building the nation. But let me remind those who are still determined on violent revolution and the setting up of a communist society, that this time they face nationalism, a much more formidable opponent than colonialism. Colonialism is on the way out. Nationalism will stay and triumph.”
On Tunku Abdul Rahman’s sixtieth birthday, Lee Kuan Yew issued a message: “After eight years as Malaya’s leader, the Tunku has become the symbol of a tolerant, happy and prosperous country. Of the leaders that have emerged in Afro-Asia since the end of World War Two, some would wish to leave their mark behind as great revolutionaries, some as great orators, and some as great nation-builders. Unfortunately the pretensions to greatness of a few of these leaders have led them into curious ways. But the Tunku has not proclaimed himself after the style of the ancient emperors ‘great saviour of the nation’, ‘divine genius’, or ‘infallible leader’. There are no busts or statues in every park and square. No face stares up from every coin and stamp. Instead, every time the Tunku appears, it is always the tolerant, cheerful personality—moving easily amongst all races and classes—a man completely at ease, relaxed, at peace with himself and with the world, practical, and, most important of all, successful. For that is what Malaysia will be—a country with a practical and realistic approach to life, and, most important, successful.
“On his sixtieth birthday, may we wish him many happy returns, for the more happy returns he has the more years there will be in which we can find more permanent solutions to the problems of our multiracial and multicultural society, where intolerance and bigotry could so easily take over and wreck everything. We know if he is in charge he will never let this happen.”
The rate of growth of Singapore’s population when the PAP Government came into power in 1959 was a world record of nearly four per cent per annum. “Here, in a relatively modern city, in an Asian context,” Lee Kuan Yew told the Seventh International Conference on Planned Parenthood, held in Singapore on 13 February, “you will find a microcosm of the problems of population control. Modern science has checked the ravages of disease and pestilence. Floods, drought and famine no longer occur. But old habits and ancient traditions built out of centuries of experience of natural disasters and uncontrollable plagues, still prevail. Old cultural patterns and family values, designed to meet conditions which prevailed hundreds and thousands of years ago, still persist, with grave consequence to the problems of economic and industrial growth.
“Quite apart from religious principles, by and large, Chinese and Indian families believe that the more children a man has the greater is his good fortune. In the old days the more wives a man had, the higher his status. Just like motor-cars, wives and children were a status symbol. All this proliferating made sense in an age when periodic plagues, drought, floods and famine regularly decimated the population. But the same habits in a relatively affluent society, whose public health standards are high, lead to a phenomenal increase in population growth that cannot but dampen the spirits of those who are entrusted with our problems of economic growth, industrial expansion and the maintenance of standards of living. . .
“I have assumed that Asian governments want to increase industrial growth by population control. But perhaps this is an assumption which is dangerous to make. For us, a small people, the decision is obvious. There is no hope of fulfilling any expansionist ambitions. It is disturbing, however, to think that there are some bigger nations in Asia whose population expansion can become phenomenal if health, nutritional and social conditions, which modern science has brought to Singapore, were also to prevail. What happens if one nation controls its population growth and others do not? What happens in the long run if one country becomes overwhelmingly more numerous and more powerful than the other? The problem of the balance between nations is a delicate and sensitive issue. Sometimes even the balance of population within a nation can also become a sensitive issue. I have read that in a particularly advanced country one religious group which does not permit birth control has expressed its confidence of gaining political dominance because numerically it is growing in proportion to the rest of the population. Is the world, then, to be finally inherited by those nations whose religions do not permit the practise of birth control?
“These are the wider imponderables with which, fortunately, we in Singapore need not concern ourselves. We have decided that it is in our interest to check our population growth. Our only problem is how to disseminate knowledge of simple birth control methods as quickly as possible, and how to educate our people to new social values to meet our social and economic conditions. If we do not, then we shall face grave problems affecting our living standards. . . When you see so many little children and young people during your stay in Singapore, you can recall that sixty per cent of our population are below eighten and are being fed and housed and schooled by the efforts of some twenty-five per cent of the total population.”
Discovery (during house-building excavations) of another cache of human bones, evidence of yet another unrecorded massacre of Singapore Chinese by Japanese soldiers during the war, again reminded Singaporeans of their sufferings during the period of occupation, and reawakened their determination that Japan should atone for the crimes of her soldiers. At a meeting (on 21 April) called to make arrangements to build a memorial “to an unhappy incident in which many tens of thousands of all races died at the hands of a brutal invading army”, Lee Kuan Yew said the incident left a scar which after more than two decades was still sensitive.
“Many of us here today have friends or relatives who simply disappeared soon after the fall of Singapore in 1942, and have never been heard of since. Today we stand in silence to pay respect to those who died for no crime whatsoever except the misfortune of being in Singapore at that time. There is one reason why, although twenty years have passed, this matter has never been resolved in our hearts, whatever the legal situation may be. Legally, it may be argued that the Treaty of San Franciso has settled everything, and that all things should be past and forgotten. But this was settled by a colonial government that did not represent us, and never understood the depth of our feeling at the atrocities and humiliation an occupying invader inflicted on us, then a subject people—the tributes in cash and kind exacted, the senseless brutality and the futile humiliation. It is this feeling that we, as a government representative of the people, now seek to resolve peacefully and quietly.
“It was my duty to make known the depth of the feelings of the people to the Japanese Government. This I have done. They have assured me that they are genuinely sorry for what happened and that they are prepared to make a gesture of atonement. They have made a certain proposal. The Singapore Government in turn has put forward another proposal. . .
“Meanwhile, we must be patient, and, above all, we must be realistic. You know that in our industrialization programme the participation of Japanese industries in the development of our Jurong industrial complex would help. They have sent several missions to Singapore to survey the prospects. Already several enterprises, including an oil refinery, have been set up. The amount of trade, technical co-operation and industrial development that they could take part in in Singapore and the rest of Malaysia would be out of all proportion to any gesture of atonement they can make. For that reason I understand the views of the representatives who have organized this meeting that a parsimonious gesture would be worse than nothing. The Japanese are hard-headed businessmen. And because they are hard-headed businessmen, I think they understand that in the long run it is worth their while to make a magnanimous gesture of contrition.”
In 1966, the Japanese offer of a grant of $25 million and the loan of another $25 million on very liberal terms was accepted by the Singapore Government.
The memorial, a concrete pillar, at the base of which were buried the bones of thousands of victims, was completed in early 1967.
Would Malaysia succeed? Lee Kuan Yew told the Singapore National Union of Journalists, on 24 May, that Malaysia was inevitable. But no one could say that the success of Malaysia as an economic and a political unit was inevitable. “It is dependent upon what we, the people and the leaders in Malaysia, do in fulfilling the basic pre-conditions for success. I would list some of these pre-conditions:
(1) National unity of all the races comprising Malaysia with undivided loyalty to the elected Central Government of Malaysia;
(2) An effective, honest administration which can extend its writs throughout the length and breadth of Malaysia;
(3) Stable political leadership that will infuse confidence, bring about capital accumulation investment in the country, and attract foreign loans and investment capital without political strings from abroad for the development of industries;
(4) The maintenance of a representative system of democratic government in which the interests of all racial and economic groups are fairly balanced by this leadership.
“One factor is fundamental to make Malaysia successful economically and politically, and that is a spirit of tolerance between all the races in Malaysia with all their interests reasonably balanced. Malaysia will begin with political and administrative power in the hands largely of the Malays and economic power in the hands of Chinese and Indians. But it speaks volumes for the wisdom of the Tunku and his colleagues, like Tun Razak, his deputy, that the power which the Malays have in the Federation is not misused. More and more non-Malays are being introduced into the higher echelons of the army, navy, air force, police and administration. Non-Malays may sometimes feel that the progress is too slow, but we must always remember the problem of the Malay leaders in not going faster than their own Malay opinion will allow them. . .
“The art of successful government in the Federation and in Singapore is in part the art of balancing competing interests and not allowing the racial preponderance of any group to conscribe the economic opportunities of the others. The Federation, with a Malay-based political majority, has allowed free Chinese and Indian enterprise, and has employed Eurasians and Ceylonese in public office. In the same spirit Singapore, with a Chinese-based political majority, accepts Malay as the national language and ensures that the Indians, Ceylonese, Eurasians and others, though they may not have the special privileges of the Malays in education, are in no way handicapped when competing for jobs and businesses by the fact that they are racial minorities. This balance of competing interests is an essential precondition for an economically and politically successful Malaysia. . .
“I would like to analyse the problems of Malaysia into two phases—short term and the long term. In the short term, it is impossible for any political party in the Federation to govern without carrying the Malay mass base with them. The Malay mass base, being apprehensive of the commercially and socially more advanced Chinese and Indians, have rallied together around their traditional leaders—their Sultans, their Tunku, and Dato Razak, respected as one of the traditional ruling chiefs of Pahang even before he became a Tun. It is fortunate for Malaya that the Malays should have thrown up traditional leaders to lead them who are also men of good judgment and ability. They see in their solidarity their only protection against being overwhelmed by the more economically and socially advanced immigrants, who are mainly Chinese and Indians. Nothing will change this in the immediate future, and they demand that their leaders should protect their interests under the Constitution, particularly their rights to land and executive positions in government service, so as to ensure that they have the State apparatus in their hands and can thus prevent themselves from being overwhelmed . . .
“In the short term there is no escape from this. There is no person who has yet emerged in Malaya as a complete Malayan national leader, in the sense that he enjoys support equally strong from all the communities. For how can there be one when there is not yet a completely Malayan national opinion, from which such a leader can draw his strength? The Tunku is the leader of the Malays. The Chinese in the Federation, realizing that the Malays are in the majority, are relieved that they should have a fair and non-communal-minded leader. Of all the Malay leaders there is no doubt that the Chinese and Indians, Ceylonese and Eurasians support the Tunku first. Of course, if the Chinese were in the majority in Malaya, then we must be honest and say that, as they are at present, before a new generation has grown up, born and educated in the Malayan national spirit, they would probably choose a Chinese leader. They have done this in Singapore where the Chinese are in the majority. Only the English-educated are completely Malayanized in their political outlook, but they are not in the majority. . .
“Any analysis of the short-term phase must take into account these communal factors. But, in the long run, the only way to a peaceful, democratic and successful Malaysia is to have political loyalties rallying around competing economic policies and competing political ideologies, rather than to strike a balance of communal forces. After Malaysia, as the years go on, more and more of those born in Malaysia will come of age and acquire the right to vote. Then no purely pro-Malay or pro-Chinese party can ever win power. In the Federation today, it is theoretically possible to appeal only to Malay votes and win the right to govern. Similarly, in Singapore, theoretically one could appeal purely to Chinese votes and form a government. But in Malaysia, with forty-four per cent Malays and indigenous people, about forty per cent Chinese, about ten per cent Indians, and the rest Pakistanis, Ceylonese and Eurasians, to secure the right to govern the appeal to the electorate must cut across communal barriers.
“As a democratic, socialist, non-communal party, I consider the role of the PAP to be in a small way a forerunner of this new order of things. We can set the pace for change and progress gradually through persuasion and example, provided in the next ten years of flux and change there is a strong Central Government with a leader like the Tunku or Tun Razak, whose national image can weld the people together. In any case, the events of the past fifteen years in Singapore since elections were first introduced show clearly that only a party with a radical and non-communal programme can hold the loyalty of the people. Any attempt to introduce communal politics would be a retrograde step unlikely to succeed. All it may succeed in doing is to arouse communal friction to the detriment of Singapore and of Malaysia. For without a healthy, stable and prosperous Singapore, the centre of gravity of Malaysia would be severely rocked. The fight in Singapore for the hearts and minds of men is between the communists on the one hand and the democratic socialists on the other. There is no third alternative. . .
“What are the chances of success for Malaysia? I rate them reasonably good, provided racial extremism in any of the major races is kept down, and tolerance and amity preserved. There is a sound administration throughout all these five territories and a sound economy, with confidence established among both home and foreign investors, and international credit high. . . But if racists and communalists take over, then we must be prepared for a sudden and dramatic change, for then I have no doubt that whoever succeeds the Tunku as leader of the Malays must, in order to retain supremacy, exercise his authority to govern through the strength of the army, police and the symbol of the monarch. This would mean there would be a less balanced representation of competing economic and political interests. This in turn would lead to growing resentment among the Chinese, Indians, Ceylonese, Eurasians and others, with all its incalculable effects on the politics, economy and prosperity of Malaysia. The chain of consequences that such a course of events would set in motion is so gruesome as to make one flinch even to contemplate it. It is one thing to mount an anti-Chinese campaign where the Chinese are a minority of three to four per cent of the population: it is another thing to mount an anti-Chinese campaign where they constitute nearly forty per cent of the population, as they will in Malaysia.
“The alternative to success, which is dependent primarily on communal harmony and firm but wise leadership on non-communal policies, is so terrifying that no government can afford to allow any communalist to get out of hand and trigger into motion communal passions, the end result of which nobody can control. But, on the whole, I am hopeful for the future of Malaysia as a developing nation, prosperous and stable, with more and more equal opportunities for its people, regardless of race, language and religion. Malaysia will succeed if we all know what are the dangerous issues and where the danger points. . .”
Malaysia had been agreed upon in principle and most of the details had been settled, but sharp bargaining over finance, in which Tan Siew Sin, Malaya’s Finance Minister, was personally involved, led to recriminations. In the end common sense and realism prevailed. Lee Kuan Yew persuaded the Tunku to discuss the matter in London, where they were due to meet the British Government to finalize Malaysia. At the eleventh hour agreement was finally reached, and the Malaysia Agreement was signed by Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and representatives of Sabah and Sarawak at 11.30 p.m. on 8 July.
At the signing ceremony at Marlborough House, Lee Kuan Yew briefly made the point that “nations do not depend on legal documents, but on the hearts and wills of the people, and the quality of the leadership”. It was, he said, his trust and his confidence in the quality of the Prime Minister of Malaysia that had made a very difficult decision possible. “We append our faith and confidence in this document which we shall be initialling to put our lives together for better or for worse.”
In the Assembly on 30 July, Lee Kuan Yew formally moved the motion to bring about merger and Malaysia. He said that the debate would end an era which began in 1945 when “British troops returned to Malaya and, by a unilateral act of the British Government, Singapore was severed from the mainland”. In 1948 the Malayan Communist Party launched its armed revolt. The struggle reached a turning point in 1957 when the British granted Malaya independence, but not Singapore. “Singapore, it seems, was ordained to remain forever in semi-tutelage with internal self-government but with supreme authority in matters of defence, foreign affairs and, for that matter, internal security, in the hands of the British raj.
“I do not wish to detail an account of the years 1945 to 1948 or, even more unpleasant, the years 1948 to 1957. Suffice it to say that this unilateral division of the country was never accepted by the peoples of either the Federation of Malaya or of Singapore. In Singapore. . . for us, the last chapter to merger really began with 1959. Then for the first time power, other than responsibility for defence, foreign affairs, and internal security, which was shared with Malaya and the British, was bestowed on a wholly elected government. The history of Singapore, and indeed the history of Southeast Asia might well have been different had we decided any other way. . . In 1959 we were quite convinced, even before we assumed office, that there was no other way. . .In 1956. . .I urged the then Secretary of State for the Colonies, a very able and forceful character, who decided to give independence to Malaya, that he should, despite the advice of his officials, tie up Singapore with the Federation, for there was too much at stake. . .But it took another two years—from 1959 to 1961—before the British were convinced of the next step in the argument: that if Singapore was not in Malaya, then Singapore and Malaya would ultimately be lost to the communists. . .Slowly the unpleasant and brutal facts were placed before the Federation Government. What had been publicly known was that Malaya was vital to Singapore, but what we did not emphasize, lest we offend our friends across the Causeway, was that Singapore was vital to their survival.
“Quietly over the golf course, sometimes even across the poker table, and sometimes over a meal, friendly discussion always came. It had one theme song: merger is inevitable, either by consent or by force of one territory over the other. Let me say, Mr Speaker, that the possibility of Singapore overwhelming the Federation is not a possibility to be altogether dismissed. Being what we were, having regard to the susceptibilities of our friends in the Federation, the line was put over softly, gently, and politely. Finally a note was struck in the hearts of the Federation Ministers. On 17 May, the Tunku came down to announce that he had decided that there should be a closer political and economic association of the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, and the three Borneo territories.”
For another hour the Prime Minister went into details about the arrangements for merger and Malaysia. He ended his long speech by insisting that two things were required of anyone who wanted to inherit the 400 million dollars stacked away for the country to carry out the building plans, the industrial projects in Jurong nearly completed, harbour, railroads, water, power — integrity and determination. ‘‘Absolute and utter integrity that can stand the closest scrutiny at any time. And determination to see that right is done. I do not know whether the same Assembly will meet again, Mr Speaker. I am not in a position to tell my opponents these things, but I hope in the next Assembly you will find a government worthy of an industrious and able people.”
Winding up the debate, on 1 August, a disappointed Prime Minister said he had hoped, somewhat forlornly, that before the end of the Assembly the House would rise to the occasion. “We are,” he said, “deliberating not the future of the PAP, or the future of the Barisan Sosialis, or the Singapore Grand Alliance. We are taking a decision of momentous proportion.” He expected the communists to take the same consistent anti-national, anti-Malaysia line, but he had expected more from the rest of the Opposition, whom he accused of playing party politics. He appealed to David Marshall and the others to stop this. “Why not rise above this pettiness? This is something bigger than ourselves. This is going to ensure our survival.”
At the same time, Lee Kuan Yew urged everyone not to misjudge the situation. Two thousand communists were under training in Sarawak, along the border. They were being supplied with arms. “I
Determined if they could, to frustrate Malaysia even at this late stage, the Malayan Communist Party, through the Barisan Sosialis and the extreme Left trade unions, decided to exploit the Japanese blood debt issue to turn the people against Lee Kuan Yew. Lee understood the people’s anger and bitterness, but he was more interested and concerned with the future than with the past, more worried about new factories than old bones. He knew the Japanese must make a suitable gesture of atonement, and he expected they would, but he did not want to damage Singapore’s plans to industrialize, for these included high hopes of Japanese participation.
But the blood debt was a popular issue: it was sponsored by well-meaning Chinese connected with the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Tension mounted. People became more interested in the Japanese blood debt than in Malaysia. This was a situation which the pro-communist anti-Malaysia elements could exploit: here were capitalists and communists in harmony against the popularly elected Government which did not, on this issue, apparently, reflect the true feelings of the masses. Lee’s dilemma was that if he stood aside the anti-Malaysians would magnify the issue out of all proportion: if he took part in the growing anti-Japanese agitation he might ruin the prospects of Japan helping Singapore to industrialize, and in the process might find himself a captive of the joint communist-capitalist leadership.
Lee recognized that there was only one move he could prudently make. He must take over the direction of the blood-debt issue himself. He knew that both the capitalists and the communists, for their own separate reasons, would resist. He knew that what the communists wanted to do was to create chaos and confusion. By taking this step Lee realized he might force their hand in what was a highly charged atmosphere of emotion and tension. This was danger he felt he could not avoid. He could no longer stand aside. Accordingly, he notified the blood-debt committee that the Government had decided to throw its weight behind the campaign and to take certain anti-Japan decisions in an effort to convince the Japanese that some gesture of atonement was necessary. He told them he would address the rally.
On Sunday night, 25 August there gathered on the historic Padang the largest crowd ever assembled in Singapore. Lee expected trouble. He knew the temper and desperation of the pro-communist, anti-Malaysia elements. Elaborate security precautions were taken: Lee himself had a revolver in his pocket when he addressed the silent crowd. “You all know,” he said, “that my colleagues and I have placed great emphasis on the rapid industrialization of Singapore. It is our policy to invite technical and industrial skills from the rest of the world to come to Singapore to heighten the tempo of industrialization. The cheapest technical and managerial skills that can come to Southeast Asia are from Japan. But after tonight’s meeting, and the adoption of the resolutions of non-co-operation until a fair and just solution has been found, no more visas will be issued for more Japanese on new industrial or commercial projects in Singapore. And, indeed, with the solidarity now shown by the Chamber of Commerce in Kuala Lumpur and the response from the people in North Borneo and Sarawak, it means that non-co-operation with Japan will be extended throughout Malaysia. . . I am not unhopeful that, being a practical people, the Japanese will come to realize the wisdom of coming to terms with the national representatives of the people of Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak, and even Hongkong. It is now up to them whether they wish to participate in the lucrative commerce and industry of Malaysia. I say Malaysia because, as you can see from the development of events over the past few weeks, even though the Central Government will be in charge of foreign affairs and immigration, it will make no difference at all. For on this issue there is Pan-Malaysian solidarity. . . In other words, Japan must come to terms with us in Malaysia, or else lose the Malaysian market—at present and in the future potentially one of the wealthiest markets in this part of the world.
“Let me add that calm deliberation and cold calculation do not mean that my colleagues and I have no feelings on this issue. Indeed, it is a highly charged issue for many of us. My colleague, Dr Goh Keng Swee, was a member of the Singapore Volunteer Corps, together with my wife’s brother. My brother-in-law was shot and killed, but, by an inexplicable chance of fate, Dr Goh escaped this unhappy end to play his part in the history of Malaysia. The Japanese Consul-General and his predecessor, who discussed these matters with me, or indeed the Japanese Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister, with whom I had brief discussions in Tokyo, did not know how I, but for a chance of fate, would have been one among those massacred in February 1942.”
Lee told how he escaped from a lorry taking young men to be executed. He hid. “Those who were put on the lorry never came back. Such was the blindness of their brutality. They would never know what they did to a whole generation like me. . . Now, in a matter of days, we shall be a free people. We are not going to change masters from time to time. We have had enough of all that. We shall be our own masters in our own country. Rather than have a new master, death would be preferable. But I believe that the solidarity of the people of Malaysia, the desire to unite and live in peace and tolerance with each other, the desire to prosper in freedom, to be friends with our neighbours, friendly, fair and firm, will ensure our survival and prevent the repetition of the horrors of enemy occupation and re-occupation. Humiliation and degradation by foreign European powers is bad enough. It was worse at the hands of a conquering Asian nation like Japan—and it will be even worse if it should be by a neighbouring power in Southeast Asia.
“I speak for one and all of you when I say that we have had enough of being the pawns and playthings of foreign powers. We have a will of our own, and a right to live in peace on our own. So let us unite in Malaysia and prevent it ever happening again. And let us settle these legacies of World War II peacefully if we may, but otherwise if we must.”
Pro-communists in the crowd tried to agitate, to start a riot, but Lee’s words fell on receptive ears, and there were no more than a few scuffles with the police. The people went away prepared to have confidence in his handling of Japan.
On 4 September, Lee Kuan Yew announced his decision to hold general elections. Nominations closed on 12 September. The legal minimum notice was given, but the PAP had indicated on 25 July that elections would be held after Malaysia. Polling day was fixed for 21 September. Nine days’ campaigning was sufficient, it was thought; people were getting tired of politics and the climate of tension. For the communist-dominated Barisan Sosialis these general elections were a matter of life and death: here was an opportunity for them to prove to the world that the people of Singapore did not, after all, want Malaysia. They marshalled all available forces to smash the PAP and to win the elections. If they did that they could stop merger and wreck Malaysia, all in a constitutional manner.
Early in the morning of 22 September, Lee Kuan Yew knew that the People’s Action Party had been returned to office with a substantial majority. Over the radio a physically almost exhausted Lee described the result “a vote of confidence which will resound throughout Malaysia. It was more than just an act of faith that made us hold these general elections at this moment with the communists out in the open. We knew that they were the real enemy. Our problem was to convince you that they were, really the enemy, and that the others were clowns and were just confusing the issues, clouding the sharp definition of issues in all the main towns in Malaysia. We have proved in Singapore, long abandoned by many a professional political commentator as a lost city, lost to the communists, that it was not lost, never had been. What was required was an honest and effective leadership to work the democratic system. And after four and a half years, of which the last two and a half have been for you and for me years of acute conflict and anxiety, we reached this morning what is for the communists their moment of truth. That their masses were mythical, that the invincibility of the communist organization—the claque, the cheer leaders, the slogans, the posters which they stuck up over everyone else’s, their attempts to smother everybody else with a sense of inordinate numbers— was false. . .”
In August, the Prime Minister received the only known official communication from the People’s Republic of China. It was a letter addressed to him by the Prime Minister of China, Chou En-lai.
Then, at least, China recognized the existence of independent Singapore. In later years Peking Radio was to quote reports from the Barisan which denied Singapore’s separate existence. These reports also denied Malaysia and referred to “Malaya including Singapore”.
On 17 December, Peking Radio broadcast the following: “Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Premier, on 30 November, 1963 wrote a message to Chou En-lai, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, replying to the Chinese Premier’s letter dated 2 August, 1963. Premier Chou En-lai in his letter proposed the complete, thorough, total and resolute prohibition and destruction of nuclear weapons by all countries and a conference of the government heads of all countries of the world to discuss this question.
“Lee Kuan Yew’s letter said, ‘The letter from your Government dated 2 August, 1963, has been received. Due to various reasons, the reply message was only posted today. The Singapore Government holds that all efforts for the abolition of nuclear war deserve support. Mankind will be overjoyed should all nuclear weapons be eliminated and the danger of nuclear war be thus lessened and removed. Any step towards this lofty ideal will have our positive response.’ ”
When he opened a UNESCO symposium at the University of Singapore (on 8 December), Lee Kuan Yew said he could think of no more fascinating subject for scholarly analysis and discussion than patterns of authority and leadership in traditional and modern societies. Since 1945, over fifty new nations had emerged, and the patterns of authority and leadership that they presented were a rewarding subject of study. Surely some universal truths and principles emerged from a systematic comparison of the forms of authority and leadership and their relative efficacy as intelligent and tolerant forms of government?
“As one who is actively engaged in this quest for benign authority and yet effective leadership, immersed in the day-to-day task of resolving specific problems in the given situation obtaining in Singapore and Malaysia, I have often wondered which of these problems are universal and whether solutions have not been found in other similar situations elsewhere which I could profitably amend for use in Singapore.
“Most of the nations that have emerged since 1945 have never before existed in history with those exact geographic boundaries and demographic content. A few, like India or Burma, re-emerged, but not altogether in the form they were before colonialism engulfed them. Pakistan is new; so is Indonesia; so is Malaysia. Whether these countries will endure as coherent nations, providing the political framework for economic and industrial development to raise standards of life to levels comparable to those prevailing in Europe and America, depends in large measure upon the quality of the leadership.
“Basically, the problems presented to all these new nations are the same. In the period of European colonial rule, there was centralized institutional authority. The Viceroy or the Governor held his power by virtue of external authority, and was, in fact, the agent of external authority. The people he governed consisted not of followers, but of subjects. In this colonial-type society some forms of traditional leadership of maharajas, sultans and chieftains were sustained as useful adjuncts to the authority of the metropolitan power. But leadership which rests upon the capacity to articulate the hopes and fears, the wishes and grievances, of the mass of the people was actively discouraged.
“In the phase just before colonial authority relinquished its power, it was this second kind of leadership which forced itself into the fore and asserted its right to authority. In other words, it had to have the capacity to exercise ascendancy over the people. In some countries, like India, the development of this leadership is a long process stretching over more than seventy years. Where popular leadership took some time to mature before emerging, and the traditional rulers had been associated with the colonial power in trying to stifle its emergence, then they were cast aside by the popular leaders. This was the fate of the Indian maharajas.
“But in most countries the spark of freedom only flared after the end of the Second World War. In many, where the European colonial power in its own enlightened self-interests withdrew more rapidly than the nationalist leadership could oust it, curious combinations of the traditional leadership of sultans and kabakas and other chieftains, found accommodation in the pattern of authority.
“Another common feature of these new nations is that the pattern of authority and government invariably follows that of the metropolitan power. The Philippines copied the American presidential system. The French colonies in Africa have variations of the Fourth and Fifth Republics. The British Commonwealth nations have moulded themselves after the pattern of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. This inevitably happens when there is legitimacy in colonial revolutions, where the new nationalist government takes over with consent of the metropolitan power. Partly as a condition precedent, and partly because of general acceptance in the colonial territories of the value of the institutions of the metropolitan power, since it was the only pattern of authority that the leaders were familiar with, the pattern was repeated in the new nation.
“But soon afterwards, confronted with the stresses and strains of social and economic problems, in a society where the people have no abiding loyalty to the new institutions of authority that have been adopted, there is a rapid return to the centralization of power in the person of one leader, much after the fashion of the centralized power of the imperial Viceroy or Governor. And so many of the former British colonies in Asia and Africa have abjured the British parliamentary system and have established the centralized power of the presidential system. There must be a common denominator of factors which has brought this pattern about in countries where national, racial and situational peculiarities are as divergent and far apart as Pakistan and Ghana, or Burma and Tanganyika.
“One possible explanation is that often in new nations the loyalty of its people is to individual leaders and not to the institutions of the state. In an established society, the institutions have endured over a period of time and have become the objects of loyalty. The Houses of Parliament and the office of Prime Minister in Britain, together with the symbol of the monarch, provide whoever attains the office of Prime Minister with a ready-made set of loyalty symbols, and changes in the personnel of the leadership do not affect the pattern of authority or the order of society. Whether it is Churchill or Attlee or Eden or Macmillan or Home, the pattern of authority, set and established long before the incumbents of the high office, endures. But the loyalty to Pandit Nehru in the hearts of millions in India is certainly greater than the loyalty Indians feel towards the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha, or to Dr Radhakrishnan, constitutional Head of State, who resides in the former Viceroy’s palace. In other words, in such a situation, the pattern of authority can so easily be changed, and usually is changed, with changes in the personnel of the leadership.
“No doubt ultimately, if these new nations survive and endure, their societies may become established and their institutions of authority acquire a capacity to attract loyalty greater than that which their occupants now attract. . . The loyalty those leaders personally command is much greater than the loyalty that their high offices command. Their successors, however, may not command the same loyalty, affection, reverence and obedience. But eventually, as the pattern of government becomes established, so loyalty accrues more to the office than to the person. . .
“If the leadership of these new nations is successful, then the pattern of authority, through which the leadership governs, becomes established and institutionalized. Continuity is then ensured for some time. If, on the other hand, failure, not success, is the result, then, even during the lifetime and ascendancy of the leader, experiments proceed on new and other patterns of authority. Innovations are made in the constant search for a magic solution that will provide material success. Strangely enough, in most cases, it is not the pattern of authority that guarantees success, but the quality of the leader and the men around him—whether they have the ability, dedication and the executive drive to achieve success for the new nation. . .
“When success comes, as it did to Malaya over the years 1957 to 1963, the pattern of authority is maintained. The constitution drafted for Malaya by five constitutional jurists from five British Commonwealth nations has had a few hundred amendments, mostly of a minor nature, and a few quite fundamental, all in order to make it suit the national, racial and constitutional peculiarities of Malaya, and now of Malaysia. But the broad structure has been retained, for success had come whilst this pattern of authority was in operation. But I feel that research and analysis will probably show that success or failure was quite unconnected with the constitutional pattern of authority, and more closely dependent upon the quality of the leadership—the first leader and the men immediately around him. If, together, they constitute a balanced team, in which ability and intellect are matched with imagination and executive capacity, success is more likely. When success is achieved, reliance on demagogy, and on fear and hate fetishes, diminishes. In its place is the halo of success, the magic touch of the leader. . . But when the team in the leadership is unable to produce results, then the leadership is either changed, and with it the pattern of authority, or it sustains itself in power and holds its following by demagogy, and the stimulus of real or imaginary threats to the new nation. The problem of authority and leadership is as old as the history of man. But what is new and fascinating in the eighteen years since the Second World War is the great number of experiments being made in Asia and Africa with patterns of authority copied from a wholly European historical experience.
“All these nations share a first common problem—that of creating unity in a new nation which has come into being for the first time in history. A second common problem is how to raise standards of living quickly enough to meet the expectations which political freedom has stimulated in the people, who vaguely believe that freedom should entitle them to the standards of living of their former European rulers.
“This must be achieved in spite of the backwardness of the colonial economies, geared by and large to be feeders of raw material for the industries of the metropolitan power. Further, the new nations lack trained administrators, technicians and professional men. They need to re-establish the obedience and respect for authority and discipline which the very same leaders, in their struggle for independence, had to destroy only a few years before. There must be some universal truths which could be of immense value in helping the leadership of these new nations to avoid the mistakes committed by others, and which could provide answers already proven in similar situations elsewhere. . . All these new nations are in a state of flux, patterns of authority and leadership are fluid, changeable and changing. It would be a valuable contribution to the problems of authority and leadership if systematic research could provide an insight into the mechanics of power which can make or break the most idealistic and well-intentioned leadership in the new nations of Asia and Africa.”
Singapore’s new Assembly met as a State body within Malaysia for the first time on 9 December, 1963. “It is,” recalled the Prime Minister, “nearly two and a half years since the communists broke away from the united front with the nationalist Left in the People’s Action Party to form their own front organization, the Barisan Sosialis, to prevent Malaysia.” Ultimate power, he reminded Members, was now vested in the Parliament of Malaysia, and it was still true that Singapore could not become communist until the communists first captured power in Malaya. Lee said: “The division between this side of the House and the Opposition is deep and abiding. They represent the minority, but a militant and tightly knit minority, determined to bring the democratic state down and establish a communist regime. We, on this side of the House, are privileged to have been chosen to represent the majority, the rest of the people who want Malaysia to live in peace and to progress unmolested. We are a party dedicated to democratic socialism. But it is our duty to recognize that the only long-term basis on which national unity can be forged and stability ensured is for us to bind all those sectors of society who reject the soulless creed which offers communist dictatorship as the only answer to our undoubtedly many social evils. We are proud that, in the process, we have been able to convince large sectors of the community, from working-class labourers to wealthy merchants and the professional and middle classes, that the long-term answer to the communist challenge lies in an honest and effective government whose social and economic policies can bring about appreciable and visible equalization of opportunity.
“We would be breaking faith with the mass of the people who voted for us this time if we did not recognize that we represent, as the governing party, a broad cross-section of the community. We must recognize further that their aspiration is to create a more equal society by the more difficult process of levelling up rather than levelling down. In this city of pushful people, energetic and hard-working, largely of immigrant stock, the desire that there should be more opportunities for everyone to work harder and do better and increase the size of the national cake is as great, if not greater, than the desire to share the cake more equally.
“We would be doing a disservice to the country if we misled people into believing that just because this last time the communists were defeated they will thereby remain an impotent force. There are already signs of their picking up the bits and pieces left of their organization, wrecked by the disastrous policies they pursued. We cannot expect them always to be so accommodating in the next round, to continue to make false and erroneous assumptions. . .
“We are,” claimed Lee Kuan Yew, “realistic enough to anticipate that the Barisan Sosialis and their communist-front organizations will become more skilful in their tactics to obstruct and prevent Singapore’s success. In thwarting industrialization they can create unrest in labour unions and a sense of insecurity to prospective investors. . . The stage has been set for the next five years. We can and will succeed. The constitution and responsibilities of this Assembly have been changed—if anything, for the better. Whilst the State Assembly may not have so many matters to look after, we have enough of the constructive side left to make our meetings useful occasions, when progress can be reviewed and faults remedied. It would be useful if at these meetings criticism of shortcomings, either in policy or implementation, were aired not only by the Opposition but also by our own back-benchers. It can serve a useful purpose in focusing public attention on the way in which things are done, on how they can be done better, or on why an apparent ineptitude has in fact a rational and valid explanation. . . We must never be afraid of departing from accepted and habitual practice, either in this Chamber or without. And it is for this reason that I invite our own back-benchers to criticize the Government in this Chamber for what they consider to be its shortcomings, even though this may not be the practice elsewhere. For all of us inside this Chamber must realize that the mental attitudes and responses of the mass of the people outside are very different from those of the people who elect representatives to the House of Commons in Britain.
“We have gathered valuable experience from our difficulties over the past ten years. To ensure that the democratic system prevails we must not only ensure that there is an honest and effective government that produces results. What is more important is that we must also ensure that it is able to keep in touch with the mass of the people, to produce those results in the form and manner the people consider desirable, and to prevent the communists from distorting the success of the Government or subverting public loyalties by pressure and manipulation.
“In the next five years we will see the growth in my office of a special department which will help to create and build up a whole series of grass-root organizations in every village, in every street, and in every community. All those active in the interests of their fellow-citizens can find rewarding work and recognition in Citizens’ Consultative Committees. For in the end not only must we succeed in making Singapore a better place, but we must also succeed in building up an organizational structure within the country that can help strengthen the links between the people and their government, so that the best that can be done will be done in their interests. Only in this way can we ensure stability and progress towards a more enlightened and healthy society.”
In spite of his analysis of Barisan Sosialis intentions, Lee Kuan Yew still hoped that the Opposition would contribute something to the Assembly’s proceedings. He was disappointed: his analysis had been accurate. The Barisan continued to be destructive. “The tone and tenor of debate set in the past week,” he said on 18 December, winding up the discussion, “is a depressing reminder of the futility of these meetings, when the purpose of the Opposition is not to debate, to criticize and to improve. Their purpose is to read out, under cover of privilege in this Chamber, long and dreary extracts repeating the communist united-front line, anti-Malaysia, and anti-any plan or policy or action that in any way makes things difficult for the communists to strengthen their ground. . . They talk of the death of freedom and democratic rights, of merger and Malaysia being a sell-out, all as if the referendum never took place in September last year, and the general elections had been a triumph for Barisan Sosialis. For it appears that, every evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, only they can speak for the masses. . . We would do well to always remember that if they, the Barisan Sosialis, were in charge of the country it is very unlikely that we the Opposition would be allowed to say the things of them that we have allowed them to say of us. It is also unlikely that, either in the unions or in the civic organizations we would be allowed even one hundredth part of the opportunity that we are now giving them to organize and preach their gospel against the nation. Our failing is not that we have stifled democratic rights and liberties, but that we have been too tolerant with a group of men who interpret our tolerance as a weakness to be exploited and abused.
“We can all remember what happened throughout Malaya and Singapore in the few weeks immediately after the defeat of Japan and before the re-occupation by the British Forces. The communists were in charge in some towns and districts. Members on the other side have been talking about the right to free and open trial. The unreasoning, unceasing screech of hatred which they have preached leads us straight back to the summary methods of justice the people’s courts then enforced. They had even less regard for the niceties of the rules of evidence and of trial by jury. On this side, we must never forget that, if ever we lose this fight, we shall be stupid indeed if we expect them to concede to us what we have conceded to them, even after their defeat.
“But it is worthwhile pointing out to them that, whilst the democratic system concedes the right of opposition to the new nation before it is formed, once it has been formed, to preach disloyalty and incite disaffection against Malaysia is treason, and punishable as such. . . To talk of Malaysia being imposed upon the people after the people have endorsed it, both at the referendum and, again, in the general elections, is not just to perpetrate a lie, but to actively help hostile forces around us to intervene against Malaysia. . .
“The question we have asked the Opposition is: whose side are they on? They have not answered. They have remained silent. They have never admitted the existence of Malaysia. So how can they admit they are Malaysians? And how can they defend Malaysia if they are not Malaysians? But let me give them this piece of advice: whatever their intentions, if by any overt act they help the enemy against Malaysia, then they must bear the full consequences of being treated as traitors to the nation.
“The fact that Indonesia is now prepared to use agents and fifth columnists to disrupt our economy puts a sombre hue on our responsibilities. We are now in the midst, literally, of a battle of life and death, a battle for survival, our survival as a separate entity to live our own lives in our own way in Southeast Asia, unmolested by bigger and more powerful neighbours. We have always feared that the temptation of the big to be bigger and to absorb the smaller would be too great to resist. But now we know this for a fact, in that confrontation includes fifth columnists and trained saboteurs, trained to wreck the economy of Singapore and, even more important, to weaken the will of the people of Singapore and of other parts of Malaysia to resist absorption.
“Our chances of survival are ten times better in Malaysia than if we were by ourselves. Malaysia has been followed by a trade boycott and a loss of 8.7 per cent of our national income. But this was not the logical consequence of Malaysia. It was the consequence of a conscious act of the Government of the Republic of Indonesia to inflict damage on all the parties in Malaysia, either by economic sanctions, even if it cost Indonesia four times our losses, or by military pressure along our borders and sabotage from within. If ever it appears to have a chance of success, then direct military action cannot be altogether ruled out. We must resolve to defend ourselves to the last man; death is preferable to conquest and absorption. When our neighbours, both friendly and unfriendly, understand this, then peace in Southeast Asia is more likely to be preserved. Whatever the economic pressures, whatever the harassment by sabotage, whatever the psychological tensions, let no one mistake our right to be masters in our own house. We cannot afford to be befuddled or bemused into weakening in our resolve for Malaysia. What is at stake is not just 8.7 per cent of our national income, but literally our survival as a separate people in this part of the world. When our survival is at stake, those who help the enemy to weaken the nation will find to their cost that the nation is prepared to defend itself against the enemy without, and also against the enemy within. If ever the communists succeed in weakening our resolve for Malaysia, then verily first Sarawak, then Sabah, then Singapore, and finally Malaya itself will be slowly absorbed into the Indonesian orbit. If this happens, perhaps then even the Barisan may look back to this era as a golden age compared to what is in store for all of us in that situation.”
Activities of Indonesian saboteurs and local fifth columnists in Singapore, with plans to disrupt the economic life of the State and generally to cause alarm and despondency through terrorism, were reported by the Prime Minister to the Assembly on 18 December. He also revealed that, in their operations in Singapore, the local representatives of an Indonesian intelligence organization at Tanjong Sekupang (an island in the Rhio Archipelago, a few miles south of Singapore) used three dummy commercial organizations as cover for their intelligence operations and for the finances required. They were:
(1) Gerakan Ekonomy Melayu Indonesia (GEMI)
(2) Duma Corporation, in Bussorah Street, and
(3) Malaysia Indonesia Corporation (MIC), in Beach Road.
“The training of these fifth columnists at Tanjong Sekupang consisted of military close combat, sabotage, and political propaganda against Malaysia. Their instructions on return to Singapore were to sabotage petrol dumps, railway lines and, in particular, the Tebrau waterworks and the water pipeline to Singapore, and the Pasir Panjang Power Station. In the event of their being unable to reach these targets, they were instructed to explode their charges anywhere in Singapore, with the object of causing damage and public alarm.” The Prime Minister called upon the public to report to the police any suspicious movement of persons or vehicles.
Lee Kuan Yew’s first speech in the Malaysian Parliament, as one of the fifteen Singaporean MPs, was on 21 December. He said he spoke not as a Singaporean, but as a Malaysian, in the Budget debate. He would have preferred, he said, to have talked about a more neutral issue “on which pleasantries would have been more appropriate”. He congratulated the Finance Minister on a business-like Budget, even though he had to criticize certain tax proposals. He also congratulated the Minister “on having considerably scaled down what his military advisers wanted him to do, and what we in Singapore were originally expected to pay for. . . Far from joining the cry of the Opposition on wasteful defence expenditure, I congratulate him for having kept the ambitions of the armed forces within very realistic limits. I say that it is not altogether without a certain degree of self-preservation on the part of those who determine these things, because I remember once recounting to one of his ministerial colleagues that there is no army or air force or navy in Asia that has been expanded and subsequently demobilized. Armies have been expanded in Europe, wars have been fought, armies have been brought back to size. But in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia, armies when expanded have a tendency ultimately to take over, whether it is in Burma, Pakistan, or in some other of our neighbouring States, and we should be extremely chary about an unnecessary expansion of the army. We can count ourselves lucky that the Finance Minister, whatever his other idiosyncrasies, is not a man with great military ambitions for Malaysia.”
Lee predicted that “the next few years will test the capacity for survival of Malaysia—whether we have enough national and social cohesiveness to be a nation. If we haven’t, then, as I said before on some other occasion, history will write us off in one paragraph as a polyglot community, which, by an accident of British imperialism, came together with Malaya and Sarawak and North Borneo, and looked for a momentary fraction of history like succeeding. . . I say to Members opposite, our problem now is not that the British will dominate us, but whether they have the will and the capacity over the next decade to manifest the same determination to see that Malaysia, which they have helped to bring into being, survives. Is there all that amount of vested interest—in tin and rubber, and in other commodities in Borneo—for the British Government to find it worth its while to face a recurrent annual drain on its budget? If not, where is the cancelling force which we ourselves are unable to produce? If ever it happens in the immediate future, that these ‘neo-colonialist, imperialist forces’ suddenly withdraw from this region, I suggest that the only people in this Chamber who will take any joy from that are those who, from the very outset, have contemplated the possibility of power based on the armed strength of the friendly communist parties in this region—nobody else. . .”
Lee Kuan Yew went on to say unreservedly that, “having played our part in bringing Malaysia about, we have every intention of playing our part in making Malaysia succeed—and I would like to define success in this context, not as a struggle for power between political parties, but as the social and economic objectives which our nation must pursue if we are to be successful in the modern sense of that word—an emerged, developed nation. . . Now, Sir, what I do propound is this: that whether or not our tolerant society—multiracial, multilingual, multicultural, multireligious — survives depends so terribly upon a tolerant and reasonable leadership of the Malay rural population. Whether it be the present Prime Minister, or whoever succeeds him. I say without reservation that we would be fools, in our own self-interest, not to sustain in leadership a group of men basically tolerant in racial, religious, linguistic and cultural matters. The problem, as I see it, is how do we ensure that the leadership that emerges from this Malay rural base is always reasonable and tolerant? If they do not produce results for the mass base that has thrown them up, then I say verily that mass base will be tempted to throw up new leaders, not necessarily so reasonable or so tolerant, and my fear is that the fiscal policy of the Finance Minister is inadequate to produce rapidly enough a visible and appreciable change in the conditions of the have-nots in both the rural and urban areas. That is the core of the matter. If this leadership were replaced, then I say it can only be replaced for the worse. We have seen glimpses of what it could be: people, who, in the name of God and the scriptures, literally lose perspective and sanity. . .
“The totality of my argument really amounts to this, Mr Speaker: assuming that we survive this first impact of confrontation—and I think there is a fair chance that we will do that—are we able in five, at the outside in ten, years to reshape the structure of our society to equalize opportunities within the country? Does one really solve rural poverty and distress by the creation of a counter group of ‘haves’ in the Malay world? You have got it in the Chinese world—a group of ‘haves’; you have not got it in the Malay world. Is the problem resolved by creating—assuming that it can be created—an energetic and pushful group of entrepreneurs who move from the acquisition of bus licences to the running of aeroplane companies, and so on? Is that the solution? My humble submission is that it is not—and never will be—and the dilemma with which we are all confronted is that for various reasons an education policy has already been implemented in the Federation, in Singapore, and is soon to be implemented in Sarawak and Sabah, by which literacy becomes universal. In other words, the revolution of rising expectations has already been set in motion, and it will no longer be possible, when this generation grows up, to prevent a social revolution—a remodelling of opportunities and the structure of power in our society. And my indictment of this Budget, as of all the other budgets, is that it has not set into train what one would call, euphemistically, social change for the better, social change to create a more equitable society, where rewards are based on performance and efforts, and not on property and rent. . .”