A rapidly modernising Singapore, and the redevelopment of many pre-war estates in the 70s and 80s, led to significant public discussion and soul searching about the importance of preserving our national heritage.
This was evident even at the highest levels of leadership. In this September 1981 article from the Petir archives, Ong Pang Boon, founding PAP member, old guard Minister and proud Telok Ayer MP from 1959 to 1988, sets down his thoughts on the importance of maintaining our national memory and identity.
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Ong Pang Boon | MP Telok Ayer, Minister for Labour
Sept 1981
ONCE AGAIN, we celebrate National Day in Telok Ayer Constituency. Another year has passed, bringing with it changes in our landscape, as urban renewal rapidly transforms traditional Singapore into the most advanced financial and industrial port city in Southeast Asia.
Slide 2: “Telok Ayer Market, as the renovated centre of hawkers food is still called, holds nostalgic memories for the older generation who used to eat there.”
Slide 3: “A sense of history has persuaded the shareholders of Raffles Hotel to preserve that august landmark of Singapore.”
Yet change is not something new in this part of Singapore. For centuries, Telok Ayer was like any coastal strip in the tropics, studded with coconut trees and other lush greenery. Then it was allotted for development by the Chinese when Singapore became a British port.
A thriving Chinese settlement sprang up — the Chinatown of colonial Singapore — because the Singapore River flowed through the Telok Ayer area. For it is on this River that the economic life of modern Singapore began and then spread out to bring about eventually the present-day economy of our Republic.
Around the river developed Empress Place, Boat Quay, and Commercial Square. About 100 years ago, Telok Ayer Street still fronted this area. Then, the coastal hills were pushed into Telok Ayer to reclaim the large area of land through which now pass Robinson and Anson Roads.
The Old Cultural Life
MP Ong Pang Boon (Telok Ayer) at his ward’s National Day celebrations on 8 August, 1981
Thus, our Constituency is full of history that stretches more than 160 years back into the past. In the next few years, the demolition experts with their bulldozers will erase almost all the buildings and other environmental evidence of this long history.
In a nation where land is the most scarce resource, such a development is inevitable. However, where we can we should preserve some historical landmarks, like the Old Market, the Thian Hock Kheng (temple) and the mosques, the architecture of which is both unique and distinctive.
In addition, we should also make a serious effort to preserve or renovate certain areas and streets with distinctive features of the old social and cultural life of Singapore. At present, we seem to be in an indecent haste to obliterate our historical heritage in the name of rapid economic progress and GNP growth.
Admittedly in a land-scarce Singapore, we have to use more rigorous criteria to balance the needs between preserving our historical memory and preparing for the future. In any case, we cannot depend too much on monuments because we only have a few of them. Our forefathers were not great builders of monuments. Neither did they keep records for the benefits of their descendants.
Preserve Our History
Slide 1: “Thian Hock Kheng, a Chinese temple in Telok Ayer Street built in the early days of Singapore, has also won the distinction of being a national monument”
Slide 2: St Andrew’s Cathedral and Sri Mariamman Temple are among the buildings named by the Preservation of National Monuments Board for keeping for posterity.
Yet, it is important for us to preserve as much of our history as possible if we are not to become a rootless and transient society. There are records of individuals, families and associations in the non-English languages waiting to be collected to supplement the colonial records of pre-independent Singapore. And collection and compilation of this part is part and parcel of the longer historical identification with our Republic.
We can search our roots for at least 160 years in this island. We have inherited at least 16 decades of historical commitment in Singapore.
We cannot limit our memory resources to our own brief lives. We have to study our whole span of history for self-knowledge. For, with this knowledge comes the security of belonging that will enable us to work for the future and to weather difficult times. This knowledge will also enable us to know the peculiarities of our society, what distinguishes us from others, what kind of people we are, and why we are what we are and nobody else.
In brief, we should study our past so that we know what it is to be a Singaporean. With this self-knowledge, we know what we can do to face the future.
Identity Still In The Making
Studying the past is important for every nation. It is even more important for us because we are still a very young nation. Our identity is still in the making. And we are facing rapid societal changes, the kind of change Alvin Toffler has catergorized as the great cultural shock of the post-war world. These rapid changes, made even more rapid as the microchip era comes of age, tend to force us to examine the present, think of the future, and forget the past. History has no immediate practical use. It does not tell us about the future. It does not help us to compute our way through life. Thus, in schools, history, together with geography, is being pushed out of the curriculum to make room for more immediately attractive and useful studies.
We all know the study of history can promote and nourish group consciousness. We are a nation made up of descendants of immigrants. When our forefathers gathered in this island, they took the first step to sever the links with a more remote past. With independence, we have taken the final step to become a different people and a separate nation. We have a commitment to a territory consecrated by more than 160 years of sweat and toil. We should not cut our cables to this past, for we may have to pay the consequences of breaking loose from our historical moorings, and anchoring our future on the unsettling foundation of rapid changes.
For this reason, we should pay more attention to the study of history in schools, develop a wider awareness of our past through the mass media and popular publications, museum exhibitions, and public talks. We should strive to increase the means to develop and nurture an interest in our past. We should strike our roots deep into 160 years of history in Singapore.
