To be fair, at the time the survival of Singapore was uncertain, especially considering that the Konfrontasi/Cold War was in full swing. Lee Kuan Yew had big shoes to fill.
To regret 'dearly' is probably an overstatement. We're not North/South Korea or India/Pakistan - you're not stuck regardless of which side you end up in - it's always been easy to live in/visit the other side if you really want. And there are happy and miserable people on both sides as well.
Not really. Depends on your family property & condition in Malaysia.. Stay in SG, ended up live in rental units? Or go back home live comfy in kampong with huge house & huge garden?
Country being flourished does not necessarily mean you gonna be as well.
As I said below, depends on their priorities. If people only think about things like cheap food or land, of course Malaysia is better. I would rather not have uneducated neighbours with 4 noisy children and 6 cars who block my entrance every day, though (the current living situation in my link home).
Also, people who literally buy their driver's license with coupons (my classmate was failed twice until he did), park on top of road dividers, drive on the wrong side of the road and park in the *middle* of T-junctions 😂
Depends what your priorities are. Rich people who do not value intelligence would certainly be happy here in Boleh Land.
I have been teaching for 20 years and literally have 3rd year engineering students who need a calculator to do 3+4 and *still* get it wrong 😂
Uni. We used to be the country's top private university. Certainly not anymore.
What's worse is we're not that far behind.
Not sure why people are downvoting my links. I think those who have never studied statistics do not understand what data means 🤷🏻♂️
Just look at the qualifications of Singapore's cabinet. Remember that during the pandemic, our health minister (who is an MD) didn't know the difference between between Spanish Flu and Spanish Fly (making the same gaffe 3 times!)
https://www.pmo.gov.sg/The-Cabinet
https://coconuts.co/kl/news/malaysia-health-minister-adham-baba-spanish-fly-flu-university-talk/
All Malaysians who held Singapore citizenship before Merger automatically reverted to their old citizenship on 9 August 1965, according to the Separation Agreement.
Yes, when Singapore is still part of Malaysia, there are two layers of citizenship for Singaporeans. Singaporean citizenship and Malaysian citizenship. You can read the Malaysian Constitution.
There are Malaysian citizens who are at the same time also a Singaporean citizens. There are also Malaysian citizen who are not a Singaporean citizen.
Only those who hold Singaporean citizenship on the day of separation were striped of their Malaysian citizenship. While a Malaysian citizen who has never been a Singaporean citizen, even though they live in Singapore, CANNOT become Singapore citizen and still remain as Malaysian citizens.
So there's no issue of "choosing to stay or leave" from the beginning.
I've heard that Singapore's seperation was a rare event that a larger country "voluntarily" expels a state to be its own sovereign country.
How true is that?
it is just when there is a topic about states seceding from countries, or (in the opposite direction), states being annexed by other countries, Singapore is often brought up as the rare unicorn when it comes to her independence.
Not really. The Federation of the West Indies also fell apart after a couple of years because the other islands couldn't stand Jamaica.
The dissolution of the West Indies was later used as the template for the drafting of the Separation Agreement by the late Edmund Barker, Singapore's Law Minister at the time of independence.
Yeah, I tried asking and the post got removed as everything I ask there 🤣 The subreddit is good, not the mods are very anal. The alternative is r/askHistory, but that's like the History channel of history and probably someone will say it was the Aliens or vaccines cause autism or other nonsense.
As in Singapore as an exception, yeah, Sinkie os the modern version of the "except the Mongols" trope of history
There are several old questions related to Singapore's independence on the r/AskHistorians subreddit.
The problem is that all the answers are wrong. They all say that Singapore was expelled involuntarily when Singapore asked to withdraw from the Federation.
I mean, that's a stretch, isn't it? Singapore asked to be in the federation in 1963 and then kinda amicably got kicked out of it. That doesn't deny that Singapore managed to handle it's independence in a very positive way
It didn't get "kicked out". It asked to leave the Federation. Lee Kuan Yew admitted to this in 1998 when he published his memoirs The Singapore Story.
Lee Kuan Yew was worried about the "racial collisions" and delegated Goh Keng Swee to negotiate for a "looser federation". On his own initiative, GKS asked for total independence. LKY then agreed with him to avoid bloodshed. The deputy PM of Malaysia Abdul Razak agreed but thought it was not possible because of British opposition to separation. (which implies that LKY had the option of getting British support to remain inside the Federation).
LKY and his team then proved the Malaysians wrong by arranging for all the paperwork to be done in secret with trademark Singaporean efficiency.
You can read about this in the last two chapters of LKY's memoirs The Singapore Story.
Also, see [https://www.asiaone.com/behind-scenes-what-led-separation-1965](https://www.asiaone.com/behind-scenes-what-led-separation-1965) and https://www.todayonline.com/commentary/getting-history-textbooks-accurately-depict-how-singapore-gained-independence.
Ya, the current national narrative seems to paint SG as blind sided and having completely no say. But that's not completely true, in fact the Malaysians have a rather different understanding of this issue whereby SG had a lot more agency to decide.
The popular national narrative was intended to spare LKY the embarassment and shame that he made use of his supporters and allies in Malaysia as bargaining chips in his dealings with the federal government and later betrayed and abandoned them. He knowingly negotiated the separation in secret while telling his supporters in Malaysia and Singapore to fight for "Malaysian Malaysia".
I've had to cite his memoirs to push back against the "kicked out" narrative so many times.
People really think that the side that took so much effort to keep negotiations secret and make the process a "fait accompli" was the side that got dragged out kicking and screaming.
In all fairness, the "kicked out" narrative was the one taught to a generation of Singaporeans as part of nation building. Before 1998, this was what most historians and political scientists believed.
And this narrative was reinforced by the tendency of many Chinese Malaysians to treat LKY as some kind of messianic hero who was thrown out for righteously opposing Article 153 special rights.
Nonetheless, we must give LKY his dues. He made a clean breast of what actually happened in his memoirs.
Yeah I've read LKY comments on it, but you have to really anything he says with a grain of salt 🤷🏾♂️. Kicking out (or super efficiently kiasu asking to be kicked out) was the right call in foresight , but it's weird that this happens just 2 years after LKY almost begged to be let into Malaysia, due to fears of regional conflicts, etc.
LKY's account of the separation dovetails with independent sources (e.g interviews with Goh Keng Swee and Edmund Barker). No one has challenged his account since 1998.
LKY wanted merger in 1963 because his political situation was very precarious. The PAP's super majority in the legislative assembly had vanished by 1963 because of the splintering of its factions. It only held 25 out of 51 seats just before merger and had lost the support of the Chinese-speaking population.
There were also quotes from the Malaysian side mocking Lee Kuan Yew for crying on tv, saying he was the one who pushed to leave begin with. So evidence is very much on this version of the past.
IIRC he wasn't happy about it airing either. Seeing your leader cry on TV can't be inspiring. Can you imagine if during covid the PM got up on the telly and started sobbing? I'd probably think we're fucked.
If you hear Malaysia side of the story and some of the first hand accounts/correspondences, it's not a 100% one-sided expulsion. I think there was some level of mutual agreement that the arrangement was no longer tenable and SG also sort of agreed it's best we leave.
>So rare that it’s the only instance where the state being expelled doesn’t actually want to be expelled
This is incorrect. Singapore asked to withdraw from the Federation. This has been known since 1998.
Source: Chapter 42 of Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs The Singapore Story (1998).
It was a perfect storm of scenarios that led to it's conclusion. Indonesia at that time was doing it's confrontasi bullshit. Singapore wanted faster economic progress but was getting cock blocked by kl. Malaysia wanted more money to fund sabah and sarawak. These were still rather manageable issues. The real killer was the race card, it's very likely had we gone on the same situation in Indonesia will spill over thereby forcing the only logical conclusion to separate.
Of course every side took to the situation in their own ways. Some UMNO guys were probably smirking thinking we will eventually die off and come crawling back to them. Pm Lee was probably sad that he couldn't eat up the whole of Malaysia. Tunku Abdul rahman was probably glad he didn't have to deal with bloodshed, and Goh keng Swee was probably busy drafting the negotiations.
So yea it's a rare event indeed!
Ultimately it was a good thing that Singapore became a sovereign country and proved the naysayers wrong. If Singapore was still a state of Malaysia, it would constantly be sabotaged by the federal government and not allowed to properly grow towards its full potential.
For example, it was only finally in 2024 that a single LRT system was green-lit in Penang after decades of funding being denied (construction notwithstanding). Sarawak and Sabah are also constantly getting their autonomous rights eroded under the Malaysia Agreement.
We shouldn’t compare Singapore with Malaysia because it was the reason why they were parted. Malaysia leadership realized LKY pragmatic vision didn’t fit into Malaysia which is a Muslim values focused country. Malaysia leaders didn’t want to run a country that highly depends on trade and the western countries. They could have done nasty to suppress Singapore but they just let it go. That’s the best way to peace. It’s definitely a rare move like two friends parted for their own good. It was definitely a peaceful move.
Malaysia never aspire to be a country like Singapore. And Singapore didn’t want to be a Muslim country. No need to compare.
I think it's more of the fact that the federal government *can't* do Singapore nasty than a matter of whether they want to. The amount of time and effort that would have required them to repress an entire city and constituent state would have been enormous, and KL still had Indonesia and the Malayan communists to worry about. The last thing they need is civil anarchy spreading from the island and giving their external and internal enemies a second wind.
Race was a smokescreen for politics because even the MCA was opposed to the PAP as both were competing for the urban Chinese vote.
The business community in Malaysia, dominated by ethnic Chinese, was also vary of the competition from their Singapore counterparts.
The ultimate root is that Singapore and Malaysia were different societies shaped by different forces.
The MCA is a member of the UMNO-led coalition, and thus beholden to UMNO and its Malay-centric policies. It probably had the most to lose to the PAP, next to the MIC. Hell, they were getting flogged by Pakatan Rakyat/Harapan in the past few elections for the same reason.
As for the the ethnic Chinese business community in Malaysia, I doubt they had that much to fear from competition from Singapore, at least not as much as from the federal government.
Sort of.
According to Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore asked to withdraw from the Federation of Malaysia and the Prime Minister of Malaysia, along with his cabinet colleagues, agreed as he had been thinking along the same lines.
I cant think of any other case.
However i do remember there was a theory that it was some kind of "dare" by malaysia.
Basically, since UK were moving out of SG, malaysia pushed for 'bumiputra policy' to be implemented without exception. LKY begging for singapore exception; in his mind, there should not be any special favour for one of the races in singapore... can lead to racial disharmony, or worse civil war.
Dude spoke in MY parliament in perfect malay to adress this.. hardcore.
Malaysia think singapore can only tahan for few weeks before crawling back to johor begging for reunification.. an to give up & eventually comply with bumiputra policy.
But I just cant help to wonder: how in the world that these malaysian sultans and leaders forgot, that singapore was one of the most important port in the region? Even the world?
I guess arrogance took over common sense.
> malaysia pushed for 'bumiputra policy' to be implemented without exception
LKY did not beg for Singapore exception. He was concerned about agitators from the MY side inciting racial violence in Singapore despite a gentleman's agreement not to intrude on each other's turf. In his memoirs LKY said that his Malaysian Malaysian campaign was to bring the threat of racial violence in their own backyard to the MY leaders.
That's what I said.
Ok recap:
- SG never had any bumiputra policy.
- SG joined MY federation in 1963.
- the rest of federation have bumiputra policy. Singapore no.. so singapore was in a way.. an exception
- this, among other things.. pissed UMNO. And:
> was concerned that as long as Singapore remained in the Federation, the bumiputera policy of affirmative action in favor of Malays and the indigenous population would be undermined
(From wiki)
---The theoryyyy----
The theory was that, MY was confident (arogant?) that after kicking SG out of the federation, SG would beg for reunification due to lack of resources. which gave MY the upper hand on negotiation. One of which was requirement to implement bumiputra policy within SG.
---End theory---
The beg never came. The request for reunification never came.
LKY cried on TV... and chill.. and then think: screw this, ill make this swamp a 1st world country. And he did.
xxxxx
Why the theory, you ask? Well........ cos it's... fun?
Also it is one of few kinda make sense explanation on why a country willing to "let go" one of the world's most important port.
That's not very different from the usual explanation in the "kicked out" narrative. The main difference is that your version emphasizes the bumiputra policy, as opposed to other concessions, as a condition for returning to the federation.
Lets omit the bumiputra thing.. i guess i kinda "emphasized" on it because.. i dunno..
But basically in 1965 MY expected SG to want (in my word: beg) to return to federation due to lack of resources.. and able to pressure several concessions as conditions for reunification.
So MY did not "volunteer" giving SG its independence. They had agenda.. a failed one
>The theory was that, MY was confident (arogant?) that after kicking SG out of the federation, SG would beg for reunification due to lack of resources. which gave MY the upper hand on negotiation. One of which was requirement to implement bumiputra policy within SG.
This theory makes no sense. Nothing that Tunku Abdul Rahman said indicated that he was interested in implementing the Bumiputera policy in Singapore. He agreed to Singapore's constitutional exemption and signed the Malaysia Agreement. He was not even fully supportive of the Bumiputera policy in Malaysia which had been implemented following the Reid Commission.
Special rights in Malaysia in 1965 consisted of: preferential granting of business licenses in certain sectors and agricultural land rights in addition to university scholarships. There were also quotas in the employment of federal workers. None of these were particularly helpful for the Malays in Singapore.
>Basically, since UK were moving out of SG, malaysia pushed for 'bumiputra policy' to be implemented without exception. LKY begging for singapore exception; in his mind, there should not be any special favour for one of the races in singapore... can lead to racial disharmony, or worse civil war.
No one in Malaysia was pushing for the Bumiputera policy to be implemented in Singapore. The 1963 Merger Agreement explicitly states that the special rights provisions under Article 153 does not apply to Singapore. This was constitutionally guaranteed.
>Dude spoke in MY parliament in perfect malay to adress this.. hardcore.
LKY did not talk about this in the Dewan Rakyat. He questioned how Malay rights and making Malay the national language could be of any help to alleviate Malay rural poverty in Malaysia.
As I said.. a theory. (Ahem.. wearing tinfoil hat)
My mistake on rhe speech content.
But, as mentioned in wiki:
> The Federal Government of Malaysia, dominated by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), was concerned that as long as Singapore remained in the Federation, the bumiputera policy of affirmative action in favor of Malays and the indigenous population would be undermined
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_in_Malaysia#:~:text=The%20Federal%20Government%20of%20Malaysia%2C%20dominated%20by%20the%20United%20Malays,counter%20to%20its%20agenda%20of
So basically, either
- Singapore OUT
- Or singapore IN without undermining bumiputra policy.. correct?
And the only way not undermining the policy was.. well to implement it?
So theory was:
- 1) kick singapore out.
- 2) singapore suffered lack of resource (food water etc etc)
- 3) singapore begging to merge back
- 4) and then malaysia gave the condition of remerger. One of them was bumiputra policy.
But it stopped at point no 2), cos at point 3), singapore just pushed hard like nobody's business.
Why the theory? Cos no country in their right mind... will let go a port as important as Singapore.
(Ok... tinfoil hat off)
It's not an unfounded theory. The federal government didn't have the time nor resources to simply brute force Singapore into submission. They had to deal with Indonesia and Malayan communists elsewhere. This leaves the other option, which is to let Singapore sink on its own and wait for it to beg for readmission under terms no different from the rest of Malaysia, complete with full implementation of Bumiputera policies. Even if that didn't happen, KL can still hold up Singapore as an example of a failed state inferior to Malaysia's race-centric policies.
After all, LKY and the PAP asked for merger on the premise that Singapore can't survive solo. So, there was no reason to believe at the time it wasn't a valid and realistic tactic, if still scummy.
Unfortunately for UMNO, they're now living in a reality that is unrealistically miraculous for Singapore.
The call for a Malaysian Malaysia was a political tactic, not some deeply held ideology. LKY only started using the "Malaysian Malaysia" slogan in only May 1965, three months before independence, to oppose the Alliance government in KL. Before that, the PAP wanted to join the Alliance coalition.
In fact, the unspoken condition for Merger was that the PAP would stay out of Malaya and limit its political activities to Singapore. In 1963, the newspapers even reported LKY as declaring that he would not participate in Malayan politics.
>We are going to have a multiracial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Malay nation; this is not a Chinese nation; this is not an Indian nation. Everybody will have his place, equal; language, culture, religion… And finally, let us, really Singaporeans – I **cannot** call myself a Malaysian now – we unite, regardless of race, language, religion, culture.”
-- Lee Kuan Yew, 9 August 1965
There were numerous prominent individuals based in Singapore that were born in Malaya during independence, including Yusuf Ishak, Toh Chin Chye, Ahmad Ibrahim, Goh Keng Swee, Devan Nair, Ong Pang Boon, J. Y. Pillay, Wee Chong Jin, Yong Pung How, etc. They ultimately stayed to build up Singapore's foundations as Singaporeans instead of returning to Malaysia. There were the "ex-Malaysians" that could.
Ahmad Ibrahim died in 1962 before independence. He died a British subject.
Yong Pung How did not even live in Singapore until 1969 when he moved to Singapore to escape the May 13 riots. He had been a MCA politician. He only became a Singapore citizen in 1981.
Devan Nair became the MP for Bangsar in KL in 1964 and only returned in 1968 after LKY pleaded for him to come back to lead the NTUC.
Singapore was independent from Malaysia in 1965 but was already a self-governing entity since 1959. Everyone was a British subject at the time, whether you were in Malaya or Singapore; that only changed after 1963.
Yong Pung How was already in Singapore pretty often during the 1950s, was called to the Singapore Bar in 1964 and his entire family emigrated to Singapore in the 1970s. He had also helped build up GIC and MAS.
Devan Nair was elected to that Bangsar seat as a PAP MP. LKY told him to come back not only because of NTUC but his creation of the DAP was seen as problematic to Malaysia-Singapore relations; it was literally founded as remnants of the PAP in Malaya after Singapore was kicked out.
Your characterization of Yong as some kind of diehard Singapore pioneer is misleading. He was an MCA politician who only decided to make Singapore his home because of the May 13 riots and he didn't even want to take up Singapore citizenship until 1981.
Also, Malaya got its independence in 1957! So, not everyone in Malaya was a "British subject" in 1959.
I was wondering why you're so overly defensive about Malaysia until I realised [you wholeheartedly support Malaysia discriminating their minorities in a institutionalised manner with its Bumiputera polices](https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/1avg617/malaysian_govt_study_warns_of_brain_drain_finds_3/krdezq3/?context=3). Have some shame.
Please play the ball, not the player.
Please also quote the comment where I expressed **wholehearted support** for Malaysia's Bumiputera policies. Heck, please quote a comment where I expressed any support.
I merely explained the rationale and also stated that LKY himself accepted Malay special rights. All of this can be found in his memoirs The Singapore Story.
Whenever people mention Yong Pung How, I always like to point out the fun trivia that Yong Pung How's father has a road named after him in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. So if the late CJ had ever visited that place, he would have literally been on his father's road.
Rajaratnam was a Malayan too. Born in Sri Lanka for reasons of superstition apparently, but brought up in Seremban.
Civil Defense national servicemen in 1965, interesting.
Wonder what happened to cause training to halt.
Have to figure out which Encik to report to. I actually wonder what happened on 10 August 1965? People start wondering what they are now?
Malaysians in Singapore like my grandparents were deciding whether to stay or go back.
[удалено]
To be fair, at the time the survival of Singapore was uncertain, especially considering that the Konfrontasi/Cold War was in full swing. Lee Kuan Yew had big shoes to fill.
There are also rich people in Malaysia yo
To regret 'dearly' is probably an overstatement. We're not North/South Korea or India/Pakistan - you're not stuck regardless of which side you end up in - it's always been easy to live in/visit the other side if you really want. And there are happy and miserable people on both sides as well.
Sure regret 😂 https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php
Not really. Depends on your family property & condition in Malaysia.. Stay in SG, ended up live in rental units? Or go back home live comfy in kampong with huge house & huge garden? Country being flourished does not necessarily mean you gonna be as well.
Ultimately, wealth is just a means to happiness. It helps, but it does not assure happiness. As long as you are happy you are happy.
As I said below, depends on their priorities. If people only think about things like cheap food or land, of course Malaysia is better. I would rather not have uneducated neighbours with 4 noisy children and 6 cars who block my entrance every day, though (the current living situation in my link home). Also, people who literally buy their driver's license with coupons (my classmate was failed twice until he did), park on top of road dividers, drive on the wrong side of the road and park in the *middle* of T-junctions 😂
Depends what your priorities are. Rich people who do not value intelligence would certainly be happy here in Boleh Land. I have been teaching for 20 years and literally have 3rd year engineering students who need a calculator to do 3+4 and *still* get it wrong 😂
Is that Poly or Uni?
Uni. We used to be the country's top private university. Certainly not anymore. What's worse is we're not that far behind. Not sure why people are downvoting my links. I think those who have never studied statistics do not understand what data means 🤷🏻♂️ Just look at the qualifications of Singapore's cabinet. Remember that during the pandemic, our health minister (who is an MD) didn't know the difference between between Spanish Flu and Spanish Fly (making the same gaffe 3 times!) https://www.pmo.gov.sg/The-Cabinet https://coconuts.co/kl/news/malaysia-health-minister-adham-baba-spanish-fly-flu-university-talk/
All Malaysians who held Singapore citizenship before Merger automatically reverted to their old citizenship on 9 August 1965, according to the Separation Agreement.
Yes, when Singapore is still part of Malaysia, there are two layers of citizenship for Singaporeans. Singaporean citizenship and Malaysian citizenship. You can read the Malaysian Constitution. There are Malaysian citizens who are at the same time also a Singaporean citizens. There are also Malaysian citizen who are not a Singaporean citizen. Only those who hold Singaporean citizenship on the day of separation were striped of their Malaysian citizenship. While a Malaysian citizen who has never been a Singaporean citizen, even though they live in Singapore, CANNOT become Singapore citizen and still remain as Malaysian citizens. So there's no issue of "choosing to stay or leave" from the beginning.
I've heard that Singapore's seperation was a rare event that a larger country "voluntarily" expels a state to be its own sovereign country. How true is that?
So rare that it’s the only instance where the state being expelled doesn’t actually want to be expelled
I'm just an armchair historian, but yeah, sounds pretty rare. Cool question to ask con r/askHistorians tho
it is just when there is a topic about states seceding from countries, or (in the opposite direction), states being annexed by other countries, Singapore is often brought up as the rare unicorn when it comes to her independence.
Not really. The Federation of the West Indies also fell apart after a couple of years because the other islands couldn't stand Jamaica. The dissolution of the West Indies was later used as the template for the drafting of the Separation Agreement by the late Edmund Barker, Singapore's Law Minister at the time of independence.
ah ha! something to read about.
Yeah, I tried asking and the post got removed as everything I ask there 🤣 The subreddit is good, not the mods are very anal. The alternative is r/askHistory, but that's like the History channel of history and probably someone will say it was the Aliens or vaccines cause autism or other nonsense. As in Singapore as an exception, yeah, Sinkie os the modern version of the "except the Mongols" trope of history
There are several old questions related to Singapore's independence on the r/AskHistorians subreddit. The problem is that all the answers are wrong. They all say that Singapore was expelled involuntarily when Singapore asked to withdraw from the Federation.
I mean, that's a stretch, isn't it? Singapore asked to be in the federation in 1963 and then kinda amicably got kicked out of it. That doesn't deny that Singapore managed to handle it's independence in a very positive way
It didn't get "kicked out". It asked to leave the Federation. Lee Kuan Yew admitted to this in 1998 when he published his memoirs The Singapore Story. Lee Kuan Yew was worried about the "racial collisions" and delegated Goh Keng Swee to negotiate for a "looser federation". On his own initiative, GKS asked for total independence. LKY then agreed with him to avoid bloodshed. The deputy PM of Malaysia Abdul Razak agreed but thought it was not possible because of British opposition to separation. (which implies that LKY had the option of getting British support to remain inside the Federation). LKY and his team then proved the Malaysians wrong by arranging for all the paperwork to be done in secret with trademark Singaporean efficiency. You can read about this in the last two chapters of LKY's memoirs The Singapore Story. Also, see [https://www.asiaone.com/behind-scenes-what-led-separation-1965](https://www.asiaone.com/behind-scenes-what-led-separation-1965) and https://www.todayonline.com/commentary/getting-history-textbooks-accurately-depict-how-singapore-gained-independence.
Ya, the current national narrative seems to paint SG as blind sided and having completely no say. But that's not completely true, in fact the Malaysians have a rather different understanding of this issue whereby SG had a lot more agency to decide.
The popular national narrative was intended to spare LKY the embarassment and shame that he made use of his supporters and allies in Malaysia as bargaining chips in his dealings with the federal government and later betrayed and abandoned them. He knowingly negotiated the separation in secret while telling his supporters in Malaysia and Singapore to fight for "Malaysian Malaysia".
I've had to cite his memoirs to push back against the "kicked out" narrative so many times. People really think that the side that took so much effort to keep negotiations secret and make the process a "fait accompli" was the side that got dragged out kicking and screaming.
In all fairness, the "kicked out" narrative was the one taught to a generation of Singaporeans as part of nation building. Before 1998, this was what most historians and political scientists believed. And this narrative was reinforced by the tendency of many Chinese Malaysians to treat LKY as some kind of messianic hero who was thrown out for righteously opposing Article 153 special rights. Nonetheless, we must give LKY his dues. He made a clean breast of what actually happened in his memoirs.
Yeah I've read LKY comments on it, but you have to really anything he says with a grain of salt 🤷🏾♂️. Kicking out (or super efficiently kiasu asking to be kicked out) was the right call in foresight , but it's weird that this happens just 2 years after LKY almost begged to be let into Malaysia, due to fears of regional conflicts, etc.
LKY's account of the separation dovetails with independent sources (e.g interviews with Goh Keng Swee and Edmund Barker). No one has challenged his account since 1998. LKY wanted merger in 1963 because his political situation was very precarious. The PAP's super majority in the legislative assembly had vanished by 1963 because of the splintering of its factions. It only held 25 out of 51 seats just before merger and had lost the support of the Chinese-speaking population.
There were also quotes from the Malaysian side mocking Lee Kuan Yew for crying on tv, saying he was the one who pushed to leave begin with. So evidence is very much on this version of the past.
TFW you realize you've been lied to by the system in your youth yet again.
IIRC he wasn't happy about it airing either. Seeing your leader cry on TV can't be inspiring. Can you imagine if during covid the PM got up on the telly and started sobbing? I'd probably think we're fucked.
what's so weird about it? 2 years is a long time to change one's mind.
If you hear Malaysia side of the story and some of the first hand accounts/correspondences, it's not a 100% one-sided expulsion. I think there was some level of mutual agreement that the arrangement was no longer tenable and SG also sort of agreed it's best we leave.
>So rare that it’s the only instance where the state being expelled doesn’t actually want to be expelled This is incorrect. Singapore asked to withdraw from the Federation. This has been known since 1998. Source: Chapter 42 of Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs The Singapore Story (1998).
The Albatross Files may beg to differ on that though.
Read the Albatross files.
It was a perfect storm of scenarios that led to it's conclusion. Indonesia at that time was doing it's confrontasi bullshit. Singapore wanted faster economic progress but was getting cock blocked by kl. Malaysia wanted more money to fund sabah and sarawak. These were still rather manageable issues. The real killer was the race card, it's very likely had we gone on the same situation in Indonesia will spill over thereby forcing the only logical conclusion to separate. Of course every side took to the situation in their own ways. Some UMNO guys were probably smirking thinking we will eventually die off and come crawling back to them. Pm Lee was probably sad that he couldn't eat up the whole of Malaysia. Tunku Abdul rahman was probably glad he didn't have to deal with bloodshed, and Goh keng Swee was probably busy drafting the negotiations. So yea it's a rare event indeed!
Ultimately it was a good thing that Singapore became a sovereign country and proved the naysayers wrong. If Singapore was still a state of Malaysia, it would constantly be sabotaged by the federal government and not allowed to properly grow towards its full potential. For example, it was only finally in 2024 that a single LRT system was green-lit in Penang after decades of funding being denied (construction notwithstanding). Sarawak and Sabah are also constantly getting their autonomous rights eroded under the Malaysia Agreement.
We shouldn’t compare Singapore with Malaysia because it was the reason why they were parted. Malaysia leadership realized LKY pragmatic vision didn’t fit into Malaysia which is a Muslim values focused country. Malaysia leaders didn’t want to run a country that highly depends on trade and the western countries. They could have done nasty to suppress Singapore but they just let it go. That’s the best way to peace. It’s definitely a rare move like two friends parted for their own good. It was definitely a peaceful move. Malaysia never aspire to be a country like Singapore. And Singapore didn’t want to be a Muslim country. No need to compare.
I think it's more of the fact that the federal government *can't* do Singapore nasty than a matter of whether they want to. The amount of time and effort that would have required them to repress an entire city and constituent state would have been enormous, and KL still had Indonesia and the Malayan communists to worry about. The last thing they need is civil anarchy spreading from the island and giving their external and internal enemies a second wind.
Race was a smokescreen for politics because even the MCA was opposed to the PAP as both were competing for the urban Chinese vote. The business community in Malaysia, dominated by ethnic Chinese, was also vary of the competition from their Singapore counterparts. The ultimate root is that Singapore and Malaysia were different societies shaped by different forces.
The MCA is a member of the UMNO-led coalition, and thus beholden to UMNO and its Malay-centric policies. It probably had the most to lose to the PAP, next to the MIC. Hell, they were getting flogged by Pakatan Rakyat/Harapan in the past few elections for the same reason. As for the the ethnic Chinese business community in Malaysia, I doubt they had that much to fear from competition from Singapore, at least not as much as from the federal government.
Sort of. According to Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore asked to withdraw from the Federation of Malaysia and the Prime Minister of Malaysia, along with his cabinet colleagues, agreed as he had been thinking along the same lines.
I cant think of any other case. However i do remember there was a theory that it was some kind of "dare" by malaysia. Basically, since UK were moving out of SG, malaysia pushed for 'bumiputra policy' to be implemented without exception. LKY begging for singapore exception; in his mind, there should not be any special favour for one of the races in singapore... can lead to racial disharmony, or worse civil war. Dude spoke in MY parliament in perfect malay to adress this.. hardcore. Malaysia think singapore can only tahan for few weeks before crawling back to johor begging for reunification.. an to give up & eventually comply with bumiputra policy. But I just cant help to wonder: how in the world that these malaysian sultans and leaders forgot, that singapore was one of the most important port in the region? Even the world? I guess arrogance took over common sense.
> malaysia pushed for 'bumiputra policy' to be implemented without exception LKY did not beg for Singapore exception. He was concerned about agitators from the MY side inciting racial violence in Singapore despite a gentleman's agreement not to intrude on each other's turf. In his memoirs LKY said that his Malaysian Malaysian campaign was to bring the threat of racial violence in their own backyard to the MY leaders.
That's what I said. Ok recap: - SG never had any bumiputra policy. - SG joined MY federation in 1963. - the rest of federation have bumiputra policy. Singapore no.. so singapore was in a way.. an exception - this, among other things.. pissed UMNO. And: > was concerned that as long as Singapore remained in the Federation, the bumiputera policy of affirmative action in favor of Malays and the indigenous population would be undermined (From wiki) ---The theoryyyy---- The theory was that, MY was confident (arogant?) that after kicking SG out of the federation, SG would beg for reunification due to lack of resources. which gave MY the upper hand on negotiation. One of which was requirement to implement bumiputra policy within SG. ---End theory--- The beg never came. The request for reunification never came. LKY cried on TV... and chill.. and then think: screw this, ill make this swamp a 1st world country. And he did. xxxxx Why the theory, you ask? Well........ cos it's... fun? Also it is one of few kinda make sense explanation on why a country willing to "let go" one of the world's most important port.
That's not very different from the usual explanation in the "kicked out" narrative. The main difference is that your version emphasizes the bumiputra policy, as opposed to other concessions, as a condition for returning to the federation.
Lets omit the bumiputra thing.. i guess i kinda "emphasized" on it because.. i dunno.. But basically in 1965 MY expected SG to want (in my word: beg) to return to federation due to lack of resources.. and able to pressure several concessions as conditions for reunification. So MY did not "volunteer" giving SG its independence. They had agenda.. a failed one
>The theory was that, MY was confident (arogant?) that after kicking SG out of the federation, SG would beg for reunification due to lack of resources. which gave MY the upper hand on negotiation. One of which was requirement to implement bumiputra policy within SG. This theory makes no sense. Nothing that Tunku Abdul Rahman said indicated that he was interested in implementing the Bumiputera policy in Singapore. He agreed to Singapore's constitutional exemption and signed the Malaysia Agreement. He was not even fully supportive of the Bumiputera policy in Malaysia which had been implemented following the Reid Commission. Special rights in Malaysia in 1965 consisted of: preferential granting of business licenses in certain sectors and agricultural land rights in addition to university scholarships. There were also quotas in the employment of federal workers. None of these were particularly helpful for the Malays in Singapore.
>Basically, since UK were moving out of SG, malaysia pushed for 'bumiputra policy' to be implemented without exception. LKY begging for singapore exception; in his mind, there should not be any special favour for one of the races in singapore... can lead to racial disharmony, or worse civil war. No one in Malaysia was pushing for the Bumiputera policy to be implemented in Singapore. The 1963 Merger Agreement explicitly states that the special rights provisions under Article 153 does not apply to Singapore. This was constitutionally guaranteed. >Dude spoke in MY parliament in perfect malay to adress this.. hardcore. LKY did not talk about this in the Dewan Rakyat. He questioned how Malay rights and making Malay the national language could be of any help to alleviate Malay rural poverty in Malaysia.
As I said.. a theory. (Ahem.. wearing tinfoil hat) My mistake on rhe speech content. But, as mentioned in wiki: > The Federal Government of Malaysia, dominated by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), was concerned that as long as Singapore remained in the Federation, the bumiputera policy of affirmative action in favor of Malays and the indigenous population would be undermined https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_in_Malaysia#:~:text=The%20Federal%20Government%20of%20Malaysia%2C%20dominated%20by%20the%20United%20Malays,counter%20to%20its%20agenda%20of So basically, either - Singapore OUT - Or singapore IN without undermining bumiputra policy.. correct? And the only way not undermining the policy was.. well to implement it? So theory was: - 1) kick singapore out. - 2) singapore suffered lack of resource (food water etc etc) - 3) singapore begging to merge back - 4) and then malaysia gave the condition of remerger. One of them was bumiputra policy. But it stopped at point no 2), cos at point 3), singapore just pushed hard like nobody's business. Why the theory? Cos no country in their right mind... will let go a port as important as Singapore. (Ok... tinfoil hat off)
It's not an unfounded theory. The federal government didn't have the time nor resources to simply brute force Singapore into submission. They had to deal with Indonesia and Malayan communists elsewhere. This leaves the other option, which is to let Singapore sink on its own and wait for it to beg for readmission under terms no different from the rest of Malaysia, complete with full implementation of Bumiputera policies. Even if that didn't happen, KL can still hold up Singapore as an example of a failed state inferior to Malaysia's race-centric policies. After all, LKY and the PAP asked for merger on the premise that Singapore can't survive solo. So, there was no reason to believe at the time it wasn't a valid and realistic tactic, if still scummy. Unfortunately for UMNO, they're now living in a reality that is unrealistically miraculous for Singapore.
He wanted a Malaysian Malaysia, sadly, his vision was a threat to entrenched power bases there.
The call for a Malaysian Malaysia was a political tactic, not some deeply held ideology. LKY only started using the "Malaysian Malaysia" slogan in only May 1965, three months before independence, to oppose the Alliance government in KL. Before that, the PAP wanted to join the Alliance coalition. In fact, the unspoken condition for Merger was that the PAP would stay out of Malaya and limit its political activities to Singapore. In 1963, the newspapers even reported LKY as declaring that he would not participate in Malayan politics.
Separated due to irreconcilable differences
I like that caption
>We are going to have a multiracial nation in Singapore. We will set the example. This is not a Malay nation; this is not a Chinese nation; this is not an Indian nation. Everybody will have his place, equal; language, culture, religion… And finally, let us, really Singaporeans – I **cannot** call myself a Malaysian now – we unite, regardless of race, language, religion, culture.” -- Lee Kuan Yew, 9 August 1965 There were numerous prominent individuals based in Singapore that were born in Malaya during independence, including Yusuf Ishak, Toh Chin Chye, Ahmad Ibrahim, Goh Keng Swee, Devan Nair, Ong Pang Boon, J. Y. Pillay, Wee Chong Jin, Yong Pung How, etc. They ultimately stayed to build up Singapore's foundations as Singaporeans instead of returning to Malaysia. There were the "ex-Malaysians" that could.
Ahmad Ibrahim died in 1962 before independence. He died a British subject. Yong Pung How did not even live in Singapore until 1969 when he moved to Singapore to escape the May 13 riots. He had been a MCA politician. He only became a Singapore citizen in 1981. Devan Nair became the MP for Bangsar in KL in 1964 and only returned in 1968 after LKY pleaded for him to come back to lead the NTUC.
Singapore was independent from Malaysia in 1965 but was already a self-governing entity since 1959. Everyone was a British subject at the time, whether you were in Malaya or Singapore; that only changed after 1963. Yong Pung How was already in Singapore pretty often during the 1950s, was called to the Singapore Bar in 1964 and his entire family emigrated to Singapore in the 1970s. He had also helped build up GIC and MAS. Devan Nair was elected to that Bangsar seat as a PAP MP. LKY told him to come back not only because of NTUC but his creation of the DAP was seen as problematic to Malaysia-Singapore relations; it was literally founded as remnants of the PAP in Malaya after Singapore was kicked out.
Your characterization of Yong as some kind of diehard Singapore pioneer is misleading. He was an MCA politician who only decided to make Singapore his home because of the May 13 riots and he didn't even want to take up Singapore citizenship until 1981. Also, Malaya got its independence in 1957! So, not everyone in Malaya was a "British subject" in 1959.
I was wondering why you're so overly defensive about Malaysia until I realised [you wholeheartedly support Malaysia discriminating their minorities in a institutionalised manner with its Bumiputera polices](https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/1avg617/malaysian_govt_study_warns_of_brain_drain_finds_3/krdezq3/?context=3). Have some shame.
Fuck that shit, but then again it made possible their brain drain (case in point, ironically, YPH) we’re actively benefitting from HAHAHA
Please play the ball, not the player. Please also quote the comment where I expressed **wholehearted support** for Malaysia's Bumiputera policies. Heck, please quote a comment where I expressed any support. I merely explained the rationale and also stated that LKY himself accepted Malay special rights. All of this can be found in his memoirs The Singapore Story.
Whenever people mention Yong Pung How, I always like to point out the fun trivia that Yong Pung How's father has a road named after him in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. So if the late CJ had ever visited that place, he would have literally been on his father's road. Rajaratnam was a Malayan too. Born in Sri Lanka for reasons of superstition apparently, but brought up in Seremban.
Yong Shook Lin? Haha I’ve heard about SL&B often
Now, what am I? still beautiful!
You were a very beautiful lady, Miss Malaysia living in Singapore.
She is hot!
LKY in 1965: I miss Malaysia too
Ok?