The Founders’ Memorial is a chance to remember more Singapore stories

Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own.

I learnt as a child that it’s important to remember your roots – it was a Chinese idiom that we dutifully copied into our jotter books and memorised for tests. Knowing where you’ve been – whether as an individual, a family or a nation – is key to know where, and who, you are.

The idea of honouring our founders is not a bad one. Our understanding of history, and the impact made by prominent figures before our time, can teach us a lot about the issues that we face today. But in celebrating our history through commemoration and memorials, we should be most careful about skewing the stories we tell ourselves, and thus skewing what we think we know of our country.

The idea of a Founders’ Memorial was first brought up by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong about a month after the passing of his father and founding PM Lee Kuan Yew. A steering committee was selected, and they are now engaging in public consultation to find the best way to remember Singapore’s first generation of political leaders.

This engagement should be seen as a chance for Singaporeans to think about our knowledge of our history, and of the people who have contributed to the country’s journey. It requires us to reflect upon what we know, and to find out more about what we don’t know, so we don’t end up uncritically perpetuating the same narratives that we’ve always heard.

While it is undeniable that the People’s Action Party (PAP) has played the major role in Singaporean politics, we should be wary of allowing our historical narratives to be monopolised by PAP men. Many more people have contributed to Singapore and its politics than just the men in white, and it would be a disservice to all Singaporeans if we fail to acknowledge that.

It’s probably a long shot in our current political context, but one person we should remember is Lim Chin Siong. There is so much that Singaporeans don’t know about this man and his contributions to the anti-colonialism movement. The PAP would not have achieved its success without him and his ability to galvanise the masses, particularly the Chinese-educated workers.

Lim has since been demonised in the media and in history texts as a violent, subversive communist, yet research has shown that his detention in Operation Coldstore was politically motivated rather than a national security issue. Lim and the other progressive leftists who were arrested, many young and promising leaders, were victims of other people’s play for power.
Lim was a staunch fighter of colonialism. He saw the terms of the merger between Singapore and the Federation of Malaya as imposing a different form of colonialism because Singapore would not have full control over its internal security, and Singaporeans would not be equally represented in the Federal Parliament. He wanted a democratic Singapore where inequality could be addressed and the rights of the workers be respected. That he ultimately disagreed with the PAP on how to end British colonialism in Singapore does not mean that he is unworthy of remembrance.

Another suggestion I have for the memorial would be Chan Choy Siong, a PAP member elected into the Legislative Assembly in 1959. Chan was one of the founders of the Women’s League within the PAP, and a vocal and fearless advocate for gender equality. In 1959 the PAP campaigned with the election slogan of “One Man One Wife”, and Chan and the Women’s League were crucial in ensuring that the party lived up to the promises made to female voters. They campaigned for the Women’s Charter, which gave women protections they previously lacked in a society where polygamy was commonly practised and wives had little recourse against abusive or neglectful husbands.

“Women in our society are like pieces of meat put on the table for men to slice,” Chan once fiercely declared in the Legislative Assembly when criticising the power imbalance between men and women in Singapore. She retired from politics in 1970, and it was in 1984 before women entered Parliament once again.

I suggest these two, but they hardly form an exhaustive list. Plenty of people contributed to Singapore’s journey, from our first Chief Minister David Marshall to trade unionist and Barisan Sosialis member James Puthucheary and also our first Indian president Devan Nair, who had been instrumental in the establishing of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC). The latter’s wife, Avadai Dhanam, was also the first Indian woman to serve as a Member of Parliament, the second being current MP Indranee Rajah.

The achievements of the PAP Old Guard are well-known. There are many stories and individuals that do not enjoy the same recognition. To allow these individuals and experiences to fade into obscurity will merely heighten ignorance of our own past, narrowing our imagination to one standard narrative in which anything of significance in Singapore has to do with (largely Chinese) PAP men. The planning of this upcoming Founders’ Memorial is therefore an opportunity for us to widen our gaze to take in the vibrancy of multiple Singapore stories.