Context: Many people think that Singapore was unwillingly expelled and suddenly thrusted upon independence by Malaysia after a ill-fated union that lasted less than three years. However, this perception was shaped by a lack of detail regarding the separation talks and the sudden announcement of independence.
In fact, especially from the Albatross file, for some weeks prior, Singapore's deputy prime minister Goh Keng Swee recognised the Malaysian leaders' reluctance to keep Singapore within the Federation. While Goh was actually tasked by Singapore's leader Lee Kuan Yew to negotiate other alternatives, Goh instead only raised the idea of Separation to his old college friend Tun Razak (who was then Malaysia's deputy prime minister and future prime minister) as the only way to resolve the escalating political and racial tensions between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Much of the talks were in fact kept secret from the British, who once vetoed any form of constitutional rearrangements during earlier talks between the Singapore and Malaysian leaders in 1964
LKY only learned of this in 1994, when he read Goh's oral history account of the separation
by Zkang123
6 Comments
We agreed to separate because of malay racism isn’t the winning argument u think it is
I don’t think anyone is under any illusion that Malay expelling Singapore “with heavy heart”…. Malay politicians basically celebrate expelling Singapore.
Also, Goh Keng Swee having different thought than Lee Kuan Yew is interesting…. but not that big of revelation. Singapore STILL wanted to be in Malaysia in general, but the problem is with the Malay, not Singapore.
Finally someone said it; it was clear even before the race riots that reactionaries on the mainland wanted to drive Singaporeans out of Malaysian politics but the exact separation mechanism was indeed moderates working together
So why was he crying on television tho?
I dont get why people think Malaysia lose big time after the seperation. I mean we kinda happy that they are successful? It’s either we stay and explode like Balkan or we seperate, deal with each others race riot and be successful in our own way.
The fact that both Malaysia and Singapore are developed country with stable gov unlike the rest of the SEA (barring Brunei) means the seperation was a good idea tbf. Plus, both MY and SG has a strong economic ties. What kind of messy seperation has a strong degree of ties with each other? This is only possible if both sides choose to mutually split while retaining close contact with each other.
The meme of malaysia having “kicked out” singapore is incredibly overdone and I’m glad to see someone addressing it.
People like the quirky idea of singapores reluctant independence and subsequent economic prosperity as an incredible rags to riches or underdog story.
The truth is much more complicated. It’s understandable why many people believe the “kicked out” version of events as that was the narrative that both malaysia and singapore wanted to showcase at the time. Both the singaporean and malaysian political leadership were extremely wary of the union. The chief supporters of the union were the British as well as many Singaporeans who did not see an independent singapore as realistic.
Both singaporean and malaysian political leadership hoped compromise could maintain the union but as both sides continued to breach agreements they quickly realised that the union was untenable. Had singapore wanted to stay in the union they could have. There were many areas which singapore refused to compromise with malaysia. The fact that singapore refused to budge on these issues shows that singapore would choose independence over compromise.
However at the time, had singapore declared independence, the British would have stopped the movement and forced the Singaporeans to renegotiate into the union. At the same time if LKY had declared independence he would have been the leader who betrayed Singaporeans as many Singaporeans believed they would not survive without malaysia. This would likely have lead to a revolt against his rule and re-entering malaysia under worse terms. At the same time malaysia was nervous about thr political and economic strength of singapore and how it would change the balance of power in putrajaya.
This lead to the elegant solution agreed upon by both sides: Malaysia would finalise the separation in private but make a public announcement that they were kicking singapore out. This way the British did not have time to step in. While at the same time LKY’s position within singapore had changed. Now he was the one Singaporeans turned to in their moment of crisis. They believed they were headed for imminent catastrophe so gave him unchecked political power to rebuild singapore into a functional nation. Had LKY declared independence instead, he would not have had such support amongst his people as he would have been seen as the reason for the said imminent catastrophe.
TL;DR Things are much more complicated than most memes make it out to be. Singapore was not kicked out. It was a smart political manouvre managed by singaporean political leadership and malaysian political leadership.