In Search of the Singapore Identity
When Singapore became independent on 9 August 1965, a new sovereign country was instantly created.
It wasn't meant to be as Singapore had been part of Malaysia and thought it would always be.
For the less than two million people on the tiny island, it was an anxious period.
How do a disparate people with no unifying histories become one?
How do they now assume a new identity that had been artificially conferred?
Those who study identity say it isn't an easy subject to grasp: It is hard to define, there are endless debates about what it really is and how it is formed.
Singapore is as good a case study as any, of all of these questions, and more.
But the most salient feature of its search for identity was that it was, in the beginning at least, completely driven by its founding political leaders.
They took charge of all aspects of the endeavour – defining the challenges, creating the vision and shaping how the people ought to respond.
Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew set out his thinking in numerous speeches soon after independence. This was a typical example:
"This country belongs to all of us. We made this country from nothing, from mud-flats…But I say to you: here we make the model multiracial society. This is not a country that belongs to any single community: it belongs to all of us…Over 100 years ago, this was a mudflat, swamp.. Ten years from now, this will be a metropolis. Never fear!”
Another example: "Some people think that just because we are a small place, they can put the screws on us. It is not so easy. ..If they could have just squeezed us like an orange and squeezed the juice out, I think the juice would have been squeezed out of us... But it was a bit harder, wasn't it? It was more like the durian. You try and squeeze it, your hand gets hurt.”
There were numerous examples of these identity speeches which he and other leaders made. The Singapore identity they envisioned was this: A newly independent, multi-racial country with no natural resources which had to survive through its own efforts by being open and relevant to the rest of the world.
Over time, as Singapore progressed and its survival was no longer a pressing issue, the identity project became less and less evident. Speeches by its leaders became more policy oriented, less focused on values and aspirations. A new generation had been brought up with little memory of the earlier years of development, and shaped by completely different circumstances of peace and plenty.
​
Yet, the challenges to Singapore’s search for identity have mounted: Globalisation, immigration and technological changes have changed the character of Singapore society and made it more fragmented.
​
What are the implications of these developments and how will Singapore’s search for identity unfold? What will be the areas of contestations and who will be the key players? There are no clear answers to these questions.