The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (65 page)

A few days later, I was able to get him to say during a forum at the University of Singapore, “Let us be precise. The Workers’ Party has not changed its stand. The constitutional proposals have been changed to meet the Workers’ Party’s demand in exactly the formula of the Workers’ Party.” Yet in a final futile gesture, he asked the government to postpone the referendum until the draft Malaysian constitution had been submitted to the Assembly. Despite the smokescreen he threw around his motives, his unqualified admission, as an antagonist who was both anti-merger and a lawyer, that Singapore citizens would not be second-class citizens in Malaysia was a crushing blow to the Barisan’s propaganda line.

There were more blows to come. Following the pledge of support given earlier by Ko Teck Kin, the leaders of 12 trade associations signed
a statement on 23 August calling on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to convene a meeting to advise people not to cast blank votes but to vote for alternative “A”. Furthermore, they published their names for easy identification, although their action was in direct opposition to the open letter put out by the MCP.

To give them a further reason for breaking away from the communist line, I decided to add to the fears of the traditional Chinese clan leaders by declaring that if there were large numbers of blank votes, they might well have to be counted as votes for alternative “B” – complete and unconditional merger – for it would mean that the majority had responded to the Barisan’s call for them. But in that case all those not born in Singapore but naturalised through registration could lose their citizenship. That sank in. Three days after the first 12 trade associations signed their statement, three more organisations came out in favour of alternative “A”, among them the Singapore Chinese School Teachers’ Union, which had been communist-dominated.

The next day, Ko led a delegation from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to my office at City Hall to clarify my statement on alternative “B”. I left him in no doubt that he should not take chances with the citizenship of his Chinese-speaking members. He then asked the opposition parties to state categorically what action they would take if at their instigation the number of blank votes cast in the referendum resulted in an acceptance of alternative “B”. Lim Chin Siong responded to Ko’s query with a threat: the Chinese community would know “how to deal with their so-called leaders who betrayed them”, he said, denouncing the chamber for going along with the PAP propaganda line. Not intimidated, however, the council of the chamber itself now asked its members to vote for alternative “A”, and on the same day, six more Chinese organisations came out in support of it.

To counter this trend, Lim Chin Siong got 24 trade unions, and then a further 12, to reaffirm that their members would cast blank votes. But
their leaders carried little weight; they depended on Lim’s prestige, which was fast declining. Exasperated and at his wit’s end, he resorted to more threats, became erratic in his speeches, and on 27 August made a major blunder. At a rally at Hong Lim Green, he said “merger and Malaysia had different meanings for different forces. In the struggle for Malayan and Indonesian independence, the nationalist forces in these two territories have brought up the idea of a Melayu Raya, that is, Greater Malaya, or Malaysia, including Indonesia. …”

This frightened the Chinese-speaking voters, who knew that the Indonesians had been more anti-Chinese than the Malays in Malaya.

Nor did it help when Ong Eng Guan, asked by the press what he would do if blank votes were interpreted as votes for complete merger, refused to comment. It strengthened the traditional leaders’ conviction that the pro-communists and the anti-merger group had been boxed into a corner. Taking courage, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce bought space in all the Chinese newspapers for two consecutive days to announce the support of its members for alternative “A”. Their earlier fear of the communists was overridden by their fear that 330,000 of the Chinese-speaking who were the source of their strength would lose their citizenship and hence their influence on political developments. Their open defiance of communist threats had a bandwagon effect. Other civic leaders also lost their fear and came out to urge their members to vote for “A”, along with 51 commercial firms and trade unions.

The last week before the referendum saw a flurry of street meetings and mass rallies, but I did not believe they would make much of a difference any more. The debate on the merger terms had gone on for a whole year. The issue of nationality and second-class citizenship on which the Barisan had concentrated had been settled. On 30 August, the final rallies were held, the PAP organising its biggest at Hong Lim Green, where we attracted a huge crowd without having to bus them in, as the Barisan had done three weeks earlier. As I started speaking at 9:30 pm,
music suddenly blared forth from three loudspeakers on the veranda of the fourth-floor premises of a pro-Barisan trade union. I quipped, “This is Barisan Sosialis democracy. We gave them a year to do their worst. Now they are afraid of us telling you the truth.” They turned the music up to drown me out, but I continued. After some minutes a police party went into the building. They found the doors on the fourth floor locked, but the music stopped.

Polling started at 8 am on 1 September and ended at 8 pm, when counting began. By 3 am, it was clear that the Barisan’s blank vote campaign had failed. Blank votes amounted to less than 30 per cent of those cast, 70 per cent favoured alternative “A”, and there had been scattered support for “B” and “C”. There were huge crowds outside Badminton Hall at Guillemard Road, and the atmosphere was tense, for although there were 345 polling stations all over Singapore, the ballot boxes had all been brought to this centre for counting. The Barisan had wanted votes to be counted separately in each electoral division, but we had refused that. We did not want them to know which constituencies had cast the most blank votes, useful information for the next election. But they outsmarted us by getting their supporters to drop their polling cards into the ballot box together with their ballot papers. Those cards clearly stated the district they were from.

At about 6:45 am, just before the results were to be announced, Dr Lee Siew Choh sent a letter to the superintendent of the referendum demanding a recount. The superintendent consented to his demand half an hour later, but the delay prompted Dr Lee to send a second letter at 7:45 in which he claimed that the superintendent had taken his earlier one to the prime minister before answering it, and was therefore no more than his page boy. Moreover, since the first count had been irregular and the same procedure would be adopted for the second, the whole business was as farcical as the referendum itself and he would have none of it. The superintendent had his reply ready an hour later, but on my
advice read it out over the loudspeakers for the benefit of the press before he handed it to Dr Lee. It said that the ballot boxes had been opened and the ballot papers mixed and counted before Dr Lee, who was present during the entire procedure but had voiced no objections as to its propriety until it was completed and it only remained to announce the results. However, the superintendent ordered another recount as requested.

Dr Lee’s was a futile gesture of protest, and as the recount proceeded he stormed out of the counting station and told the press, “It’s lousy. It’s farcical.” Lim Chin Siong walked out with him and crossed the road towards his cheering supporters to say, “We shall continue unabated our struggle for equal rights for the people of Singapore.” But the signal went out for them to disperse. They had lost and they went home with their tails between their legs, not willing to face defeat.

At half past eleven on Sunday morning, the recount was finished: 71 per cent had chosen alternative “A” and 25 per cent had cast blank votes. I was overwhelmed with joy when I spoke to the waiting crowd, and my eyes filled with tears. My words were broadcast live by Radio Singapore from the Badminton Hall:

“The verdict of the people is a terrifying thing for the politically dishonest. This verdict is decisive. It is the seal of public and popular approval for merger and Malaysia. … Not to have held the referendum would have been a tragic error, for we would have allowed the communists to make people believe that the so-called masses were against merger. With time and explanation, we can whittle down the remnant pockets of support that they have got by lying, smearing and by intimidation.”

“Merdeka Malaysia!” Leading victory cheers outside the Singapore Badminton Hall on 2 September 1962, after winning the referendum on Malaysia. My Hokkien teacher, Sia Cheng Tit, is on my right.

28. Europe Beckons Britain

I left for London on 5 September to attend the 1962 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference convened to discuss Britain’s application to join the European Economic Community (EEC). Singapore was not independent, but since the colonies could be affected, we were invited as advisers to Duncan Sandys; I had no right to speak and could only make my views known through him. It was an opportunity for me to renew contacts with the Labour Party. I had met Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the opposition, during my earlier visits to London through John Strachey, the party’s shadow colonial and Commonwealth secretary. Strachey was an intellectual, well read and interested in theories and philosophies. He was friendly and wanted to help the colonies make the grade. Keng Swee had invited him to Singapore to witness our referendum campaign. After listening to me speaking at our lunchtime rally at Fullerton Square, he told me I was too intellectual, more of a lecturer than a rabble-rouser. Gaitskell had a different cut of mind: he was less interested in theories, more into practicalities, brisk in his arguments.

The Labour Party held its own conference of Labour and socialist prime ministers of the Commonwealth on Britain’s entry into the EEC. Nehru did not attend, but the Indians, represented at a high level, protested strongly that they and the former colonies were being abandoned: Commonwealth preferences for their exports to Britain, especially textiles, would be jeopardised once she was in the EEC. All the other leaders made pleas for continued links and privileged access to the British market, and special consideration by the EEC for their exports. It was interesting to watch them interact. Walter Nash from New Zealand was the only prime minister from the white dominions; the others were from
the non-white countries, most of them not yet independent. They all looked to Gaitskell for sympathy and support, since he was against Europe and favoured retaining close economic ties with them.

Addressing the Labour conference, I said that the future was inevitably one of change, but that the changes should not be an excuse for Britain to slough off the responsibilities she had inherited with the empire. If they were abandoned, the consequences could be disastrous, threatening small countries like Singapore. Our closest link with an industrial power was with Britain. If we lost that link, we would suffer a severe setback. I added simply but sincerely that Britain and the empire constituted the world that I had known all my life, a world in which the British were central to our survival; whilst we wanted freedom to decide what we should do with our lives, we also wanted and needed our long historical, cultural and economic ties to be maintained. We especially valued our association with the Labour Party, which had helped us during our struggle for independence.

I struck a chord. After I spoke, Denis Healey, who was the party’s secretary for international relations, came up to me to say, “Harry, who taught you to speak like that? That was a powerful speech.” I was cheered that I had friends among the Labour leaders. I had dealt amicably enough with Sandys, Maudling and Lennox-Boyd (with whom I got on best), but they were Tories and represented monied interests; they never sympathised with the colonial students who aggressively sought independence. The Labour Party shared our aspirations. They had a similar basic philosophy of support for the underdog and moral principles of equality between men of all nations and races, underpinned by a belief in socialist brotherhood. I had not been in office long enough to understand that when Labour got back into power, their responsibilities would be to the British people and not to the brotherhood of men, that although it might hurt their conscience to abdicate or downgrade their principles, they would nevertheless do so.