A Moment of Anguish

The island of Singapore’s secession from Malaysia on August 9th, 1965 was a partition that resulted in great sadness, but not in war. That such force of opinion existed between the leaders of two states, strong enough to perpetuate a jarring partition, but not passionate enough to cause military conflict of any kind sets this secession apart from most others in recorded history. All-out conflict never erupted because the essentially moderate leaders in Singapore saw little to be gained by war, and had few means to wage it, but, above all, were not driven to hatred. The key elements for conflagration were present and simmering, but failed, alone or in combination, to reach the flash-point: prevailing perceptions of fundamental cultural and ethnic disparity divided them, but brought about no deep or long-standing loathing; economic disputes catalyzed the partition, but did not drive it out of control; differences in political stance made direct cooperation nearly impossible in the context of the time, but did not rule out peaceful coexistence.

The stereotyped differences between the two populations, so inherently part of Singapore’s separation, were, though exaggerated at the time, still rooted in historical fact. Singapore and Malaysia1 had both been under direct British colonial rule until Japanese occupation in the Second World War2, but were essentially different types of colonies. Malaysia’s primary function as a resource extraction colony meant that locals were recruited primarily into manual labour, and Malays in positions of power were situated where they could line their pockets with British appeasement (Hirschman, 1987: 558). By contrast, Singapore’s sole existence as a trading port and its shortage of indigenous population necessitated the import of primarily ethnic-Chinese foreign labour for far more varied and entrepreneurial jobs3.

It is not difficult to see how racial stereotypes could stem from these contrasting histories, or how such cultural views could lead to instability. Today, many Singaporeans look down on their neighbours to the north as lazy, as I have personally noted from my seven years living on the island. Even Singapore’s first and longest-reigning Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, has shown strong elements of pro-ethnic Chinese racism4. As a culture with such prominent racial typecasting, therefore, Singapore was highly susceptible to race riots from both sides of the dispute. With the Indonesian Confrontation5 supplying “the catalyst needed to provide a violent explosion”, the Singaporean riots in July and early September of 1965 would become the “bloodiest in the city-state’s bloody history” (Starner, 1965: 113). Malaysians felt their “special privileges” – from favouritism in school-entrance exams to pro-Malay tax policies – becoming increasingly threatened as a direct result of the rioting (Young, 1994: 779).