‘Why did you ask this? Even if I told you, you won’t understand. You come from a good background, you’re the studying kind. What we have to do to survive, you won’t understand’ – Swee Seng, in Ernest Koh Wee Song, ‘Singapore Memories: Remembering, and the Makers and Keepers of Singapore History’.
‘Lee Kuan Yew had the foresight … he envisioned industrial parks in Jurong and pushed for MNCs [multinational companies] to invest in Singapore … He went around, like a salesman, to various countries to get them to invest. I think without him, we could almost be sure that Singapore wouldn’t be the way it is today. Before that it didn’t look like we could survive economically’ – Mr Loh, in Kevin Blackburn, ‘Oral History as a Product of Malleable and Shifting Memories in Singapore’.
I saw coming
from my window
overlooking the deserted street
the dim light shone listlessly
and the dog had ceased to bark
they came
flashing their torches
in this pre-dawn raid
to seek out the stairs
towards my incarceration.
knowing at long last
they had come
waiting
hearing
the shuffles of ominous feet
that rude knock
piercing
the silent of the night
and opening my freedom
to their identification.
‘You know what it’s all about’
the torch framed my visage
they proceeded to rummage
my papers, books
turning my clothes
and my drawers
silently I turned to change
packed my towel
toothbrush
a cake of soap
silently I followed
the exit into the night
as the rooster awakened
to the first cry of dawn.
- Fajar (‘Dawn’) by Tan Jing Quee, on his arrest in 1963, read out at the ‘Detention-Healing-Writing’ public forum in 2006.
