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Only a few days ago, the National Day Parade used a fictional story to represent the nation’s history. Yet in the press the day after, there were two examples of what happens when one fails to attend to stories in their complexity. A newspaper report described the journey from independence to the present, symbolised through the growth of a child, as how a “five-act musical … showed how a mother and son stuck it out as Singapore went from small fishing village to big city.”
But the starting point of the story was independence, and Singapore was not a fishing village in 1965. And as historians such as Kwa Chong Guan and Derek Heng have shown, Singapore’s current development parallels its past. Singapore was a major port city long before Raffles arrived in 1819, going through several long cycles of expansion and contraction: Raffles just happened to land in a period of decline.
Similarly, an article in the Straits Times titled “China and Taiwan can look to the S’pore Model,” in praising elements of the Singapore model, claimed that Lee Kuan Yew had created the Central Provident Fund system. Yet the CPF was introduced in 1955 just after David Marshall became Chief Minster, and a central plank of the PAP’s manifesto in 1959 was a commitment to abolish the institution.
- http://newasiarepublic.com/?p=31813
But the starting point of the story was independence, and Singapore was not a fishing village in 1965. And as historians such as Kwa Chong Guan and Derek Heng have shown, Singapore’s current development parallels its past. Singapore was a major port city long before Raffles arrived in 1819, going through several long cycles of expansion and contraction: Raffles just happened to land in a period of decline.
Similarly, an article in the Straits Times titled “China and Taiwan can look to the S’pore Model,” in praising elements of the Singapore model, claimed that Lee Kuan Yew had created the Central Provident Fund system. Yet the CPF was introduced in 1955 just after David Marshall became Chief Minster, and a central plank of the PAP’s manifesto in 1959 was a commitment to abolish the institution.
- http://newasiarepublic.com/?p=31813
