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Separation From Malaysia The
issue on separation had been a significant episode in the history of Singapore
and Malaysia. On the advent of
Singapore independence after being 'expulsed' from Malaysia, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew,
then- Prime Minister of Singapore claimed that it was "(f)or (him), …a
moment of anguish. All (his) life, (his) whole adult life, (he) ha(d) believed
in merger and unity of the two territories."[1]
The
painful exit of Singapore from Malaysia on 9 August 1965 had been shrouded with
controversies. The mudslinging,
together with varied interpretations from scholars from either side of the
Causeway had left a sour aftertaste in Singapore-Malaysia relations.
In the attempt to augment a better understanding of the topic and to
encourage students to promote their own perception of this important issue,
there is a need to allow the students to be aware of the recent interpretations
of this issue, generally from scholars from both sides of the Causeway.
What is hoped to achieve is to allow the students to understand that
merger came as a result of common or shared interests whereas separation was due
to diverse viewpoints and concerns of the two sides of the Causeway. In
an attempt to elicit an explanation on the reasons of Singapore's separation
from Malaysia, scholars like R. S. Milne and C. M. Turnbull attempted to look at
this issue from a purely post 1963 perspective,[2]
choosing to look at the events from the economic, political or social point of
view. Although it can be argued
that the merger years played a significant role in the straining of
Singapore-Malayan relations, which culminated into separation, it will be
parochial to take this as a stand-alone issue.
Even in the abortive Malayan Union issue in 1946 and the negotiations for
merger from 1961-2 had its ramifications on this issue. The
most recent scholarship on this issue is by a senior history senior lecturer
from the history department of the National University of Singapore, associate
Professor Albert Lau. Using sources from the Public Relations Office, the
Australian Archives, the Singapore Archives and other published official
resources, A/P Lau attempted to add another dimension to the existing
historiography. He argued that that
the merger between Singapore and the federation was doomed for failure as a
result of the tactless dealing of the alliance government towards the
non-communal approach of the PAP government.
He cited the residual deep-seated problems, which prompted the separation
of Singapore and Malaya in 1946, which had its repercussions on the 1965
separation.[3] The
leaders of Singapore, Malaya, Sabah, and Sarawak signed the Malaysia Agreement
on 9 July, 1963, under which the Federation of Malaysia was scheduled to come
into being on 31 August1963. As a result of Indonesia and Philippines's
opposition to the formation of Malaysia, Tengku Abdul Rahman changed the date to
16 September to allow the UN time to complete its survey. On 31 August 1963, Lee
declared Singapore to be independent with the PAP government to act as trustees
for fifteen days until the formation of Malaysia on 16 September 1963.
In effect, this implied that Singapore was independent for a short period
of 16 days. This unilateral declaration of Singapore's independence on the
stipulated date, 31 August 1963 was to set the tune of an uneasy partnership
ahead. On
14 September 1963, when the UN mission had reported that the majority of the
peoples of Sabah and Sarawak were in favor of joining Malaysia.
In retaliation to the formation of Malaysia which he claimed to be a
neo-colonialist plot, Sukarno immediately broke off all diplomatic and trade
relations between Indonesia and Malaysia, and Indonesia intensified its
Confrontation operations. Singapore was particularly hard hit by the loss of its
Indonesian barter trade. Indonesian commandos conducted armed raids into Sabah
and Sarawak, and Singaporean fishing boats were seized by Indonesian gunboats.
Indonesian terrorists bombed the Ambassador Hotel on 24 September, beginning a
year of terrorism and propaganda aimed at creating communal unrest in Singapore.
The propaganda campaign was effective among Singapore Malays who had hoped that
merger with Malaysia would bring them the same preferences in employment and
obtaining business licenses that were given Malays in the Federation. When the
PAP government refused to grant any economic advantages other than financial aid
for education, extremist UMNO leaders from Kuala Lumpur and the Malay press
whipped up antigovernment sentiment and racial and religious tension. On July
21, 1964, fighting between Malay and Chinese youths during a Muslim procession
celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's birthday erupted into racial riots, in which
twenty-three people were killed and hundreds injured. In September, Indonesian
agents provoked communal violence in which 12 people were killed and 100 were
injured. In Singapore, which normally prided itself on the peace and harmony
among its various ethnic groups, shock and disbelief followed in the wake of the
violence. Both Lee and the Tengku toured the island in an effort to restore
calm, and they agreed to avoid wrangling over sensitive issues for two years. In
the financial arena, the first year of merger was also disappointing for
Singapore. Lackadaisical efforts were made toward establishing a common market,
which the four parties had agreed would take place over a twelve-year period in
return for Singapore's making a substantial development loan to Sabah and
Sarawak. Each side accused the other of delaying on carrying out the terms of
the agreement. In December 1964, the demand of KL for a higher percentage of
Singapore's revenue in order to meet defense expenditures incurred in the
fighting during Confrontation and the threat to close the Singapore branch of
the Bank of China, which handled the financial arrangements for trade between
Singapore and China as well as remittances, further applied strains to the
already fragile relations between the two countries. In
the political field, tensions between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur also escalated
as each began getting involved in the politics of the other. UMNO ran candidates
in Singapore's September 1963 elections, and PAP challenged the MCA Alliance
candidates in the Malaysian general election in April 1964. UMNO was unable to
win any seats in the Singapore election, and PAP won only one seat on the
peninsula. The main result was increased suspicion and animosity between UMNO
and PAP and their respective leaders. In April 1965, the four Alliance parties
of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah, and Sarawak merged to form a Malaysian National
Alliance Party. The
following month, the PAP and four opposition parties from Malaya and Sarawak
formed the Malaysian Solidarity Convention, most of whose members were ethnic
Chinese. Although the Malaysian Solidarity Convention claimed to be
non-communal, right-wing UMNO leaders saw it as a Chinese plot to take over
control of Malaysia. In the following months, the situation worsened
increasingly, with abusive speeches and writings on both sides. Faced with
demands for the arrest of Lee and other PAP leaders by UMNO extremists, and
fearing further outbreaks of communal violence, the Tengku decided to separate
Singapore from Malaysia. On 9
August 1965, with the Singapore delegates not attending, the Malaysian
parliament passed a bill favoring separation 126 to 0. That afternoon, in a
televised press conference, Lee declared Singapore a sovereign, democratic, and
independent state. Relevant Websites
Comments The
major difficulty in finding web resources on Singapore is that they are
extremely scarce! Usually web
sources of general history made little or no attempt to explore the
possibilities of Singapore history. Beside
this constraint, most of the few available websites on Singapore history
attempted to cover breadth rather than depth.
Thus the websites provide a multitude of topics but mostly lacking in
substantial details on a particular episode of Singapore history.
Some of the websites obtained are commendable efforts from students'
projects. Two excellent examples
are website 2 and 3 which were done by students from Chinese High School(CHS)
and Bedok South Primary School. The
CHS website is an excellent site on Singapore history which won an award in
ThinkQuest 1997. Likewise the
website by the three Bedok South Primary School girls, although plain in layout,
exhibited maturity in their delivery and understanding on the topic per se. The
fourth website, put up by the Library of Congress, attempted to address this
problem by devoting a whole page on the separation issue.
It is a lengthy piece of work which was posted on the web in 1989, thus
it had not been updated with the newer historiography on the issue.
The information provided were correct, factually but tended to go off
tangent at some point of time. It
spent too much space dealing with the consolidation of power by Lee after the
merger. Another problem with this
website is that the author looks at it from a post 1963 perspective. On the whole this website provided additional information on
this issue but required student to be able to interpret and analyse the text so
as to extract relevant information from it. Sources Source One "…
What were the real reasons for the Tunku, Razak and Ismail to want Singapore out
of Malaysia? They must have
concluded that if they allowed us to exercise our constitutional rights, they
were bound to lose in the long run. The
Malaysian Solidarity Convention would have rallied the non-Malays and, most
dangerous of all, eventually made inroads into the Malay ground on the
peninsula. The attitudes and
policies of the PAP had already won the unswervingly loyalty of our Malay
leaders in Singapore; they never wavered even under the stress of the race riots
in 1964, nor did they respond to appeals to race, religion or culture, or to the
usual blandishments offered to draw them back into the UMNO fold." (Extracted
from Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story- Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew,
Singapore: Times Editions, 1998, p. 656) The
use of Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs as a source for the student to refer to is a good
one since Lee is one of the major participants of the separation and will
provide the story of the separation from a purely Singapore perspective.
However it is hoped that the student can understand from the source that
actors of the scene can practise "selective amnesia" which can
contribute largely to the turnout of the situation.
This source will allow the student to see it from a point of view which
will no doubt be biased towards the Singapore's plight.
It will help to improve the students' critical thinking skills as they
will learn to judge the validity of the source. Questions 1)
Select on example of a factual statement and an example of an opinion
from this source. Explain your
choice. Suggested answer ·
Factual statement The attitudes and policies of
the PAP had already won the unswervingly loyalty of our Malay leaders in
Singapore. Reason PAP had been able to win over
the Malay voters in Singapore elections, in opposed to the Malay UMNO who failed
to win seats against the PAP in Malay-dominant constituencies. ·
Opinion "They must have concluded
that if they allowed us to exercise our constitutional rights, they were bound
to lose in the long run." Reason Lee Kuan Yew had make an
assumption that the Malay leaders in Malaysia were unable to rally the support
of the people in Malaysia against the PAP's policy. 2)
Do you agree with what then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said with regards
to the reasons that Singapore was separated from Malaysia? Why or why not? Suggested answer ·
Yes ·
Main conflict lies with the "Malaysian Malaysia"
attitude which brought them into disagreement with Malaysia. ·
Attracted a lot of supporters from Sabah and Sarawak which
was perceived as a potential threat to the extremists and Malay sympathizers. ·
·
This led to racial riots. OR ·
No ·
The tacit agreements between the two leaders of both side
of the Causeway were not observed.
·
Merger terms were not met, leading to unhappiness and
strains.
3)
Name one disadvantage of a historian studying the separation issue to
look primarily at Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs? Suggested answer ·
Might include only evidence that backs his point of view. ·
Bias towards Singapore. ·
May not present the actual situation and thus gave the
wrong impression.
The text of the letter is seen
in the next page.
This
primary document is a letter from Tengku Abdul Rahman addressed to Dr. Toh Chin
Chye, the Chairman of the People Action Party in Singapore.
In the letter, the Tengku expressed his regret and his reasons for
leaving Singapore out of the Malaysia setup in 6 August 1965.
This official letter will allow the students to see the correspondence in
its original form and this might entice their interest on the subject as it is
no longer something unseen. The
document is chosen so as to show the students how politicians phrased their
words in order to get the message through without offending others.
Indeed a good exercise would be to ask the student to write something
first on the behalf of Dr. Toh Chin Chye in reply to the letter and maybe draw
some examples from the students and discuss their choice of words. Questions 1.
Judging from the second paragraph, do you think that
separation was inevitable? Why? Suggested
answer ·
Yes ·
Tengku Abdul Rahman mentioned that he can only delay the
matter ·
Inherent problems even before the onset of merger led to
this inevitable consequence 2.
Why do you think the Tengku felt that the break with
Singapore will ensure the friendship between Singapore and Malaysia and the
security and peace for Malaysia? Suggested
answer ·
Prevent the outbreaks of communal riots between the Malays
and the Chinese ·
Revert back to the status quo and maintain the original
status of Malays.
Source 3
The
picture depicted the Tengku during a procession. He was surrounded by Malay followers who were protesting
against the PAP's policy of "Malaysian Malaysia". The banner that was held up read: "We oppose the policy
of the PAP". This picture was
chosen primarily because of the details of the procession; it clearly showed
that most of the people in the procession are Malays which clearly indicate this
split in racial lines. Their
protest will highlight to the students that the PAP's policy did not go well
with the Malays and they felt threatened. This
picture depicted a sporadic but no doubt significant event which contributed
towards separation. By judging the
amount of support as seen from the pictures, it will impress on the students the
amount of communal support both the PAP and anti-PAP ideologies had and thus
able to see the potential of racial conflicts. Questions 1.
What was the PAP's policy that was opposed by the people
in the picture? Why did they oppose
it? Suggested
answer ·
"Malaysian Malaysia" ·
It is a threat to the Malays' special privileges in
Malaysia. 2.
From the picture, who do you think are the main people who
opposed to the PAP's policy? Why do you think so? Suggested
answer ·
The Malays (judging from their customary headdress they
wore) ·
The Malays felt that the "Malaysian Malaysia"
would be a threat to the economic backward Malays and thus wanted to protect
these rights ·
They felt that Lee (who was synonymous to the PAP) was
trying to abolish these rights by rallying the non-Malays.
Thus they directed their unhappiness to PAP as a whole. Source
4
These
headlines were extracted from the Straits Times 10 August 1965 issue.
From the headlines it is hoped that the students can detect that the
choice of words used in this pro-Singapore newspaper was to try to project a
non-biased view of the separation episode.
The important thing about this particular exercise is not on the content
but merely to detect the bias from the headlines.
This is to promote higher order thinking.
Words were carefully chosen. The
purpose is to allow the students to see the importance of wordings in projecting
a particular mood in this newspaper. Throughout
the paper, as seen from the different headings and headlines, the main focus is
to minimize Singapore' involvement in this whole issue; it was made to be seen
that the Malaysian counterparts were the ones who initiated the breakup.
However the paper didn't project an all-gloom situation, as some positive
news and messages of encouragement were published after the separation so as to
raise the morale of the people. It
is hoped that the choice of this source will allow the student to detect the
biases of it, based on their knowledge of Singapore's role in the separation and
the difficulties that Singapore went through after the separation. Questions 1.
Look at the headlines, where do you think the newspaper
was from? Justify your answer. Suggested
answer ·
The newspaper was from Singapore.
Words like "Singapore is out" showed a certain degree of
sympathy to Singapore's situation in this whole episode.
Clues like " A dream shattered… now a parting of the ways"
showed the reluctance of the break and this can be related to previous knowledge
that Singapore does not want the break. 2.
Why do you think headlines like " Great activity
gives exchange its busiest day of year" and "All smiles for Bank of
China employees" were put in that newspaper? Suggested
answer ·
So as not to project a all gloom situation after the
separation ·
Encourage the people to look forward and not to delve on
the issue anymore. Bibliography Drysdale,
J. Singapore:
Struggle For Success. Singapore
: Times Books International , 1984. Lau, A.
A Moment of Anguish.
Singapore: Federal Publications, 1998 Lee,
Kuan Yew. The
Singapore Story - Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew.
Singapore: Times Editions, 1998 Turnbull,
C. M. A history of
Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.
London: Allen & Unwin, 1989 Milne, R. S.
"Singapore's
exit from Malaysia; The consequences of Ambiguity" in Asian Survey
(6, 3), pp. 175-184.
[1] Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story, (Singapore: Times Editions, 1998), p. 16. [2] See R.S. Milne, "Singapore's exit from Malaysia; The consequences of Ambiguity" in Asian Survey, (6, 3), pp. 175, 183-4. He argued that the racial problem was the biggest and can be reconciled by changing the approach by PAP towards the issue. C. M Turnbull argues in her book that economic played a slightly more important role. See C. M. Turnbull, A history of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1989), pp. 258-9. Another writer, John Drysdale, see it as a result of political conflict. Drysdale, J., Singapore: Struggle For Success, (Singapore : Times Books International , 1984), pp. 342-3. [3] Lau, A., A Moment of
Anguish, (Singapore: Federal Publications, 1998)
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