Archives and Heritage in Singapore: The Development of ‘Reflections at Bukit Chandu’, a World War II Interpretive Centre

On 15 February 2002 a new World War II interpretive centre was opened in Singapore. A colonial bungalow was redeveloped by the National Archives of Singapore to commemorate the Malay Regiment and particularly the officers and soldiers who made a heroic stand against Japanese forces in one of the last battles before the fall of Singapore. This centre, Reflections at Bukit Chandu, has significance in terms of local heritage development, public memory of war, national education initiatives, and also in relation to the changing role of archives in Singapore. This paper serves as an exploration of this heritage site and uses this as a starting point for considering public history in Singapore and importantly a new direction for the National Archives of Singapore, as it played the key role in developing this site.     

二十世纪二三十年代南洋华侨在地观念发绪及其动因初探——以新马为中心

论文梳理了前期相关的研究成果,在此基础上对南洋意识的发生和发展、南洋意识的＂具地化＂、在地观念产生和发展的动因等问题进行了分析阐述。认为20世纪二三十年代,新马华侨就一些问题已流露出程度不等的南洋意识、马来亚意识。这表明新马华侨对居住地的认同已有一定程度的发展,其在地观念已开始萌发。新马华侨在地观念发绪的原因是多方面的。适应华侨生存、发展的需要,顺应华侨社会的发展变化,受世界潮流和殖民政策的影响,受新马地区独特的历史特点影响等是主要原因。     

二战前新加坡华人基督教教育探析

论文以二战前新加坡华人基督教教育为研究对象,初步考证了新加坡华人教会创办学校的历史,分析了影响新加坡华人基督教教育发展的主要因素、新加坡华人教会办学宗旨的转变以及这一转变所产生的效果。认为二战以前的华人基督教教育对教会在新加坡华人社会中传播起到了重要的促进作用。新加坡华人社会在各个时期所呈现的不同特点,也成为影响教会教育,乃至基督教传播的关键因素。正是基于华人社会的变迁,1885年前后卫理公会调整了教会学校的办学宗旨,从而使新加坡华人基督教得到了长足的发展。     

Decentralised Institutions and Electoral Authoritarianism: The Case of Town Councils in Singapore

Singapore’s electoral autocracy is well known for its innovative use of political institutions such as Parliament and elections to enhance its durability, but relatively little attention has been paid to decentralised subnational institutions such as Town Councils, which require elected Members of Parliament to manage public housing estates in their constituencies. This paper focuses on Town Councils by examining the motives behind their formation and exploring how they serve as institutions to support authoritarianism. Based on analysis of a range of primary and secondary sources such as parliamentary Hansard, government documents and newspaper articles, this paper argues that the formation of Town Councils was politically motivated and specifically designed to thwart opposition growth. It also argues that Town Councils support authoritarianism in three ways. First, they create extra hurdles and disadvantages for the opposition. Second, they give the ruling party an additional election issue on which to attack the weaknesses of the opposition and allow it to shift the focus of elections in its favour. Lastly, they facilitate more effective and targeted material distribution and create more opportunities for elite co-optation. The implications of the study for Singapore politics and the role of decentralisation in electoral autocracies are discussed.     

Regulating the global illicit economy: Singapore's role in United States' spatial financial surveillance

Illicit transactions are increasingly integrated to legitimate financial flows between international financial centers (IFCs) and offshore jurisdictions (OJs). The United States (US) is actively engaged in regulating illicit transactions through anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) regulations backed by economic sanctions statutes. In this paper, I show how US sanctions regulatory capacity has developed by scaling out compliance and enforcement functions to state regulators and advanced business services (ABS) intermediaries in Singapore. Scaling out draws on a relational scale framework that locates the multiscalar surveillance of IFCs and OJs' entangled financial networks as an instrument for governing the illicit global economy. At the same time, Singapore's enrolment in US financial surveillance benefits the financial center by strengthening the city-state's regulatory functions. Using cases of high-profile illicit financial activities as well as interviews with regulatory agents in Singapore and to a lesser extent the US, the paper shows how multiscalar compliance and enforcement practices support US′ extra-jurisdictional discipline of rogue actors and jurisdictions while augmenting Singapore's stature as a clean and trusted financial center.     

Remembering Lee Kuan Yew: politics,heritage and political heritage in Singapore

The paper discusses issues of political heritage and the commemoration of notable figures within the context of the small city state of Singapore, a former British colony which celebrated 50 years of full independence in 2015. Particular reference is made to Mr Lee Kuan Yew, hailed as the founding father of the modern republic, who also died that year. Heritage overall is shown to occupy an important place in official nation building efforts, including political heritage dominated by the narrative of the success of the government formed by the party created and led by Mr Lee. Approaches to remembering the man and his legacy are considered, focusing on debate about turning his home into a memorial and possibly a national monument. The case confirms the generally observed manner in which formal depictions of political heritage, encompassing stories of influential individuals, are inextricably tied to contemporary politics. It also reveals the particular challenges of heritage management in Singapore arising from its history and official endeavours to shape public and private memories.     

Capitalism,Inequality and Ideology in Singapore: New Challenges for the Ruling Party

Amidst popular concerns about rising inequalities and living costs, reduced social mobility and inadequate public infrastructure, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) suffered significant declines in electoral support in the 2006 and 2011 general elections before regaining support at the 2015 polls. Importantly, these concerns reflect the intensification of contradictions inherent to Singapore’s model of capitalist development. This juncture in the city-state’s political economy has been conducive to greater scrutiny of core PAP ideological notions about the perils of “Western” social welfare and the moral and functional advantages of non-democratic institutions of political accountability and representation. The PAP has responded with creative new defences of its core ideologies in conjunction with social spending boosts, a strategy that will be further tested following the 2015 election.     

Choosing What to Remember in Neoliberal Singapore: The Singapore Story,State Censorship and State-Sponsored Nostalgia

This article interrogates the persistence of heavy-handed censorship of political films in Singapore at a time of cultural liberalisation when the state has generally shown greater tolerance for alternative political expression in theatre, the literary arts, academia and public events. Part of this has to do with the focus of these films on political dissidents and their greater capacity to present a fundamental challenge to The Singapore Story, which is the regime-legitimising official account of Singapore’s history. It also has to do with the power and outreach of relatively low-budget independent films and the documentary genre in particular to evoke alternative histories vividly, give voice to the silenced, and channel these voices digitally into the collective cinematic and social media experience of the present. With the jubilee celebrations of 2015, the ruling party has been working hard to regain hegemony after experiencing its worst electoral losses in the 2011 general elections. Its main approach for achieving this has been to sponsor widespread national nostalgia coupled with highly selective censorship of political films that challenge the dominant official discourse in ways that can erode the government’s electoral dominance and political authority.     

退缩与进取:论新加坡华文知识分子及其角色的演变

本文先论析在特定的历史与现实情境下 ,“新加坡华文知识分子”的语义 ;再从历史发展的角度考察殖民地时代、独立建国时代和踏入二十一世纪后 ,新加坡华文知识分子的出身和特征 ,以及他们所扮演的角色如何从政治、教育和文化舞台上逐步退缩 ,而今后又将会有怎样的转变和突破     

近代以来华侨华人与中医药在新马的传播发展

本文主要分析了中医师南来新加坡和马来西亚的原因,论述了他们在新马的医药活动,并以此来说明他们在弘扬和发展中医药以及促进中医药走向世界为人类的健康服务方面所作的贡献。