Two different versions of Singapore's Expulsion

COMMENT What to make of Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's reflections on how different things might have been if “the Tunku had kept us together” - meaning had Singapore's 1963 merger with Malaysia succeeded and not ended in separation in 1965?

In an interview with the New York Times, the elder statesmen, whose 87th birthday falls today (Sept 16, incidentally, is Malaysia Day), ranged over a variety of subjects and included musings redolent of the agnostic's classic existential credo, rendered by an obscure Latin poet: “Death plucks my ear and says, 'Live, I'm coming.'”

The wide-ranging interview drew Lee out on his regrets on the what-might-have-been. Inevitably, he aired his thoughts on an always combustible issue: Singapore's separation, or rather expulsion, from Malaysia in 1965.

The relevant remarks are as follows:

“Well, first I regret having been turfed out of Malaysia. I think if the Tunku had kept us together, what we did in Singapore, had Malaysia accepted a multiracial base for their society, much of what we've achieved in Singapore would be achieved in Malaysia. But not as much because it's a much broader base. We would have improved inter-racial relations and an improved holistic situation.

“Now we have a very polarised Malaysia, Malays, Chinese and Indians in separate schools, living separate lives and not really getting on with one another. You read them. That's bad for us as close neighbours.”

'Harry, if only you'd cut me some slack'

Factual omissions in the first lines of the above quotation matter some.

Given all that the Tunku had said on Singapore's separation from Malaysia, it's not hard to imagine his revenant ghost replying to Lee's shift of responsibility to the Tunku for not “[keeping] us together”:

“Well, Harry (Lee's moniker), if only you'd have cut me some slack.”
The embedded narrative on Lee's side of the equation is that Umno's discriminatory treatment of Singapore in the period of the merger (1963-65) caused the latter's departure.

On the Tunku's side, the version was that Lee struggled hard for merger because it gave him the cover for decimating the PAP's leftist opponents in the Barisan Sosialis under Operation Cold Store in 1963, through use of the ISA.

Once the more popular Barisan's leadership was rounded up, the PAP were unfettered in its domination of Singapore politics.

The Tunku would not have shed any tears for the detained Barisan crowd. Remember, the 1950s and 1960s were a period of high anxiety over the threat of a communist takeover of Southeast Asia. The Barisan was suspected to be a front for the communists, but this view is debatable.

Having successfully manoeuvred to remove the threat of Barisan Sosialis to PAP's control of Singapore, Lee went on to bait the ultras in Umno, placing the Tunku in a difficult situation.
The ultras pressured the Tunku to detain Lee under the ISA. The Tunku refused.

To ward off pressure from Umno's baying rightists, like Syed Jaafar Albar, the Tunku chose to expel Singapore.

Autocratic turn

It would require a local historian of Thucydidean powers to sift the historical record to establish whose version of the causes for separation is the truer one.

The history of that period is miasmic and suffused with emotion. Witness how Dr Mahathir Mohamad blames Lee for starting the bandwagon of racialism rolling in Malaysia-Singapore politics.

One thinks that history will confirm the Tunku on what had caused Singapore's separation from the Federation. As to the sequel – pace Singapore's highly impressive post-separation economic success story – one feels that the strong-willed Lee has been vindicated.

The Tunku died in December 1990, much saddened by the autocratic turn that Umno took under the premiership of Mahathir. Lee can go to his grave confident that he has been a success story.

Scorekeeping on premiers and presidents is an inevitable part of politics. But it ought not to slide into instant history which is the effort to predetermine the significance of a leader's tenure while he is in charge or when it has ended.

Leaders are not ultimately judged on everything that happens on their watch but on a few critical issues where their judgment altered the course of events and where the outcomes continue to ride in the balance. Leaders are also judged on a detached view of their character, obtainable only after considerable time has passed since their departures from arenas they bestrode.

The real problem is that we can't know the future with certainty. History's tests are harsh; on its fairly bogus scales, a leader's ratings are apt to fluctuate. More time is needed to tell whether Lee Kuan Yew's grades, presently impressive, are the definitive scorecard on his administration.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.

MI