Mahathirism: The Cancer that Plagues the Nation (Part 5)

Raggie Jessy

a. May 13, 1969 (continued..)

In part 4, we examined in brief the role of the Internal Security Council (ISC), an instrument used against politicians who dropped out of cadence with Kuan Yew. To deliberate on its inception is to deliberate on terms by which the British agreed to have Kuan Yew as their pivot in Singapore. Had it not been for Kuan Yew’s candid resolve to support the ISC, the Singapore of today may have had a very different history.

Now, the British saw Kuan Yew to be obdurate and unwavering, with a mission to have Singapore clenched tightly in his iron fist. London saw no ounce of quit in Kuan Yew and thought it best to go along with him. To them, crossing swords with him would be akin to having one Chin Siong too many. They couldn’t risk him flipping over to the left with a vengeance, what with him being quite the opportunist and all.

So they knew precisely what Kuan Yew had in mind when he resurrected the ISC proposal which Chin Siong had in the past played down. It was a win-win scenario; Kuan Yew got to castigate his detractors, while the British found a man who they thought could establish order in Singapore. But in due time, Kuan Yew proved to be an irrepressible and ruthless dictator, while his detractors were right in believing that he was in collusion with the British to castigate anyone who dared oppose him.

Textbooks depict the ISC as being an instrument to check the wanton spread of communism within Singapore and its neighbouring regions. That may have been so at the onset, when both the British and the Tunku intended for the ISC to weather the perils of a communist threat.

The ISC was originally proposed as a countermeasure to remedy a perceivably fatal security flaw in Singapore. The flaw became manifest with Marshall’s reluctance in facing down rioters during the Hock Lee Bus riots on the 12th of May, 1955. It was Marshall’s disposition that hammered in the need for the British to exert a form of security veto in Singapore that took into account a potential security threat to Malaya.

You see, internal order in Singapore was very much intertwined with Malaya’s internal security. Marshall was to the British the dialectic on regional instability at the hands of Singaporean politicians. As the British had it, politicians of the island colony would not withstand the tide of communism, which they feared would sweep Malaya along with Singapore. Being a predominantly Chinese enclave, the island colony was thought to be an ideal breeding ground for communists to lay eggs and nurture their kind. Singapore also posed a strategic gateway to Malaya, which was another cause of concern for the Tunku.

The Tunku had opposed any attempt to grant Singapore complete emancipation. He feared the threat posed by various incidences of internal disorder that seemed commonplace to Singapore. Marshall’s failure at containing the spread of violence within the neighbouring island colony raised alarms within the Tunku’s quarters. The Tunku also knew that hardcore elitists back in Johor UMNO would want to have Singapore returned to the Federation; the nobles had always perceived Singapore to be a part of the Malayan Peninsula. But that was not all that worried the Tunku.

PAP had lost two consecutive by elections in 1961. Kuan Yew’s rightwing faction lost to Ong Eng Guan in April 1961 (the Hong Lim constituency) and to David Marshall (the Anson constituency) some three months later. A jolted and visibly agitated Kuan Yew ran to the then PAP chairman, Toh Chin Chye, and asked him what needed to be done next.

It was then that Kuan Yew likely foretold of a prophecy that had Chin Siong in the driver’s seat and him under lock and key. The fall of Hong Lim and Anson to the leftists did not go down well with the Tunku. His anxiety was compounded by a fast approaching deadline for a review of Singapore’s constitutional charters, which brought the island colony steps away from complete emancipation.

But the British were reluctant to grant full independence to Singapore just yet. The British were still not convinced that team Kuan Yew had the clout to suppress a communist insurgency. The Tunku, on the other hand, feared that an independent Singapore under Marshall or Chin Siong would disallow a Malaysian representation on the ISC, which would further alienate Singapore from Malaya.

As a point of interest, the ISC comprised a British chairman, two British members, a Malayan representative and three Singaporeans. Thence any opinion rendered would be construed as being subject to the approval of a non-Singaporean majority.

When Kuan Yew realised that team Chin Siong had the better half of the Legislative assembly against him, he began to plot a manoeuvre to save his ass from damnation. It dawned upon Kuan Yew that Chin Siong would take over his position as Chief Minister should the island state go into elections. Kuan Yew knew that he had to do Chin Siong in once and for all.

It was sometime in 1961 that Kuan Yew approached the British on the matter. He proposed to order the release of the remaining detainees, only for the ISC to countermand the release order after. It would leave the impression that it was both Britain and the Tunku’s Malaya that had repudiated his decision. As we have seen, the ISC comprised a non-Singaporean majority with one member being a Malayan representative. The Tunku came to know of this proposition, but did not state any objection.

The British acting commissioner Philip Moore was not in favour of this, and abhorred the idea of the British being cajoled into conspiring with Kuan Yew “for (a) deliberate misrepresentation of responsibility for continuing detentions in order to help the PAP government remain in power.” The British saw Chin Siong’s group to be genuinely concerned with Legislative matters in a democratic and representative manner. However, Kuan Yew had once cast a stigma upon Chin Siong by charging him to be a stooge for the communists. Apparently, this stigma had influenced the Tunku as well, who felt Chin Siong’s rise to be a threat to Malayan security.

When he failed to get support from Philip, Kuan Yew turned to London and more or less threatened to disperse the legislature should he succumb to David Marshall’s left wing avoirdupois just before the looming Anson by-election. He told the British that Chin Siong would emerge as victor in the eventuality, and that they (the British) would have to contend with Chin Siong’s government. With this, he got London riled up over prospects of a ‘communist run government’.

By this time, the British had proposed that Singapore merge with the Federation of Malaya. The Tunku acquiesced to the merger conditionally and for very strategic reasons. It wasn’t long before Singapore officially gained entry into Malaysia on the Tunku’s terms. But we’ll come to that in the next part.

Now, there is a point to all that has been discussed thus far:

1.  Kuan Yew would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. And his ultimate goal was for Singapore to be a sovereign island state free from the clutches of British colonialists. The thought of having the Federation take over Singapore was never on Kuan Yew’s cards. And neither was it he who floated the idea around the region.

2. But when the Tunku (eventually) agreed to the idea of merging with Singapore, Kuan Yew began thanking his lucky stars and contrived a ruse to have his friend-turned-arch-enemy banished to Malaya, thus delivering a problem to the Tunku.

3. Kuan Yew was so suddenly up for the merger, which really was a stark departure from his earlier vision of an independent Singapore with him strapped in the driver’s seat.

4. His pride took precedence over his sense of patriotism and the greater good of Singaporeans when it dawned upon him that an independent Singapore may be run by David Marshall or Lim Chin Siong.

5. Kuan Yew was willing to sell Singaporean’s down the river by forfeiting efforts towards an independent Island Republic for the sake of his personal political pursuits.

6. Likewise, Kuan Yew would go on to use the Tunku for the same political pursuits that had him acquiescing to the Federation of Malaysia proposal on the Tunku’s terms.

7. Getting Singapore to be a part of the Malaysian Federation was never Kuan Yew’s ambition. On the contrary, getting Malaysia out from the newly formed Malaysian Federation became his newfound ambition since 1964.

To be continued…

Mahathirism: The Cancer that Plagues the Nation (Part 4)

Mahathirism: The Cancer that Plagues the Nation (Part 3)

Mahathirism: The Cancer that Plagues the Nation (Part 2)

Mahathirism: The Cancer that Plagues the Nation (Part 1)