It was Chinese New Year but there was absolutely no joy in celebrating it. The country was in shambles.
A Japanese flag could he seen flying from the top of the Cathay Building! Was this the end?
9.30 am:
Gen. Percival convened his most senior officers at the Battlebox for the latest status reports.
Brigadier Simson reported that water supply could not be maintained for
more than a day due to breakages everywhere which could not be
repaired. Water was still flowing despite the pumps and reservoir being
in enemy’s hands!
The only fuel left were what remained in each vehicle and at a small pump at the Polo Club.
Reserved military rations could last for only a few more days.
With unanimous concurrence of all present, the decision to cease hostilities and to capitulate was made.
A deputation comprising Brigadier Newbigging, HQ Chief Admin Officer,
the Colonial Secretary Mr Fraser and Major CH Wild as interpreter, left
Fort Canning for the enemy lines at Bukit Timah Road.
At the
junction of Farrer Road, they proceeded on foot with Union Flag and a
white flag across the defence line for 600 yards where they were met by
the Japanese soldiers.
They were later met by Col Sugita who
refused their ‘invitation’ to the City for negotiations. Instead, Col
Sugita demanded that Gen.Percival was to personally surrender to
Gen.Yamashita.
To acknowledge this condition, the British were to fly a Japanese Flag from the top of the Cathay Building.
5.15pm:
The British surrender party drove up to the Bukit Timah Ford Motors factory.
The delegation was made up of Lt-Gen AE Percival, Brigadier Newbigging,
Brigadier Torrance, Gen Staff Officer Malaya Command, and Major Wild,
the interpreter from III Corps.
Though Gen.Percival tried to
negotiate for some terms for his men, Gen Yamashita thought that he was
playing for time and pressed Percival for an unconditional surrender,
telling him that a major attack on the City was scheduled for 10.30pm
that night and any delay, he might not be able to call off the operation
in time.
“The time for the night attack is drawing near! Is the British Army going to surrender or not?”
Banging the table he shouted in English “Answer YES or NO.”
6.10 pm:
Gen.Percival signed the surrender document, handing Singapore over to the Japanese Empire.
Photo: 15 February, 1942 The Surrender (photo Imperial War Museum London)
bit.ly/1PW5F5b
The always awake has fallen peacefully asleep
The holding hands have to let go
The final verse of a poem read a thousand times
Follows the last leaf falling
Be it in the era of flames of war
Or in the homeland of emerald green
All have ceased to remain
Save the virtuous and wise leading all virtues
To remain forever in the sky
None has ever heard you make a saying in public
Beyond the Women's Charter
Or the blissful Singapore River banks
In the shining classics of Asia
You have only found a long contained footnote
That after the complete equal of both genders
You say you are a traditional Asian wife choosing
To take respectfully two steps slower than him
The sky is a looking up
At a model a distance far and skywards
The standing is as monumental
The gait as wearing jade ornaments
And the holding fragrant orchids
Looking at the time and space where life changes
Just no one has ever returned from there
As it just can't be helped
Sorrow knows no end for the motherless children
Sorrow knows no end for the remaining parent
Tan Swie Hian is one of Singapore's most successful painters.
In Jan 2013, there was a fire in a unit neighbouring his at Telok Kurau Studios.
Mr Tan did what he could. He grabbed six works from his collection - including a painting of Mr and Mrs Lee Kuan Yew and fled.
Several other works in his studio were ruined when firemen doused the fire with water.
More than a year after the fire, the partially damaged artwork was finally complete in June 2014.
Recalling the fire, Tan, 71, says in Mandarin: "Back then, the water
and soot resulted in some of the painting's colours smudging. This
artwork has gone through a baptism of fire and water. I'm glad it's
finally complete."
Titled A Couple, the painting shows former
prime minister Mr Lee and his late wife, Madam Kwa Geok Choo, in their
youth. It was inspired by a black-and-white photograph of the young
couple on the campus of Cambridge University in 1946.
Tan had started work on the painting in 2009 on Valentine's Day.
He says: "I chose to paint them because everyone can learn from their
love, especially in this day and age where life expectancy is rising and
divorce rates are high. Here is a couple who entered into marriage and
lived together happily."
He adds: "Mrs Lee once said she was a
traditional Asian wife who always walked two steps behind her husband.
Those words left a strong impression on me."
Mrs Lee died in
October 2010 at the age of 89. After her death, Tan, who is also known
for his poetry and calligraphy, wrote a poem - in English and Chinese -
in her memory. He incorporated the poem into the painting's background
to give it an "added dimension".
He says: "I've always felt she
was a great woman who, despite her intelligence and capability, was
also a humble and dedicated wife."
To further show his
admiration for the couple, Tan added two Vanda Miss Joaquim orchids,
connected by a twinned stem, next to Mrs Lee.
His biggest
challenge was making out the expression on her face as a shadow is cast
on it in the photograph. Another challenge was imagining the colours
from the black-and-white shot. Tan adds: "The photo's background is also
filled with buildings and very complicated. I veiled the background
with clouds to bring the figures into full focus."
Source: ST
From rivals to lovers, best friends and confidante.....till Madam Kwa's death do them part.
In October 2008, after Madam Kwa suffered her second stroke, Mr Lee
knew that if she survived, she would never be able to walk
independently.
Dr Lee Wei Ling, his daughter, wrote:
"...he felt that so long as she knew she was an important part of his life, she would still find life worth living.
He told her: ‘We have been together for most of our lives. You cannot
leave me alone now. I will make your life worth living in spite of your
physical handicap.’
She replied: ‘That is a big promise.’
Papa said: ‘Have I ever let you down?’ "
At Madam Kwa's funeral service, Mr Lee walked to her casket and placed a stalk of red rose.
Then, gripping the sides of the casket for support, he reached for his beloved Choo's face with his right hand.
He brought his hand back, kissed his fingers and placed them on her forehead. Twice.
In his eulogy to her, he said, “Without her, I would be a different
man, with a different life. She devoted herself to me and our children.
She was always there when I needed her.
“She has lived a life
full of warmth and meaning. I should find solace in her 89 years of life
well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy
with sorrow and grief.”
Madam Kwa's death left a great void in his heart.
For a week after his wife died, Mr Lee Kuan Yew fussed over her
photographs on the wall of the living room at their Oxley Road home.
He placed pictures of their favourite moments together at the foot of
his bed and by the treadmill which he used every day. A few days later,
he would move them around again.
He repositioned his grey
plastic chair at the dining table to have the best view of her pictures
on the wall. As he ate his dinner, he listened to classical music, which
she enjoyed - her favourite composer was Johann Sebastian Bach.
But nothing seemed to comfort Mr Lee in the days after Madam Kwa Geok
Choo, his wife of 63 years, his best friend and confidante, died on Oct
2, 2010.
He slept erratically. A memory would bring tears to
his eyes. When her ashes arrived at Oxley Road in a grey marble urn
three days after the funeral, he wept.
It took three months before he began returning to normal.
"Slowly, he accepted that Mrs Lee was gone," said his youngest and only surviving brother, Dr Lee Suan Yew.
It was nine months before his health stabilised, said his only daughter Wei Ling.
One day, Dr Lee Wei Ling saw a note at home that is addressed to all three of Mr Lee's children.
The note read:
‘For reasons of sentiment, I would like part of my ashes to be mixed up
with Mama’s, and both her ashes and mine put side by side in the
columbarium. We were joined in life and I would like our ashes to be
joined after this life.’
In his death, they were united again - never to part.
In any social change that affects a particular community, we must be
careful because it not only impacts that community but also society’s
perception of that community.
This is not unique to the tudung
issue. We can also look at how the Government views the gay rights
issue, for instance. The Government did not budge on this matter.
We should not just be concerned with what we want. We should know that
every community wants its rights to be met. As Deputy Prime Minister Teo
Chee Hean has said, we have remained a harmonious society not because
every community is given its rights, but because each community has
sacrificed something that is very precious to them for the sake of that
harmony. This is something that we truly hold dear.
Hence, I
hope that in all these matters, we must be wise. We must think long and
hard, we must go with those who are learned in these matters - what is
the religious issue, its impact on religion, its social impact, its
impact on society and so on.
Think it over carefully because when we solve an issue, and if the issue is a complicated one, we must tread lightly.
- Masagos
SINGAPORE
- Founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew will be awarded one of Japan's
top honours for foreign leaders on the first anniversary of his death on
March 23.
He will be posthumously conferred the "Grand Cordon
of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers", Japan's Cabinet Secretary
Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference held after a Cabinet meeting
on Tuesday (Feb 2).
"Mr Lee strived to strengthen relations with Japan and was successful in building a friendship between the two nations," he added.
A spokesman for Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on
Wednesday (Feb 3), in response to media queries, that it is deeply
honoured and appreciates the decision.
Said the spokesman:
“This is in recognition of Mr Lee’s contributions to the development of
relations between Singapore and Japan over several decades.”
- ST
Last
Friday’s combative parliamentary debate on filling Ms Lee Li Lian’s
vacated Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) seat offered a foretaste of the dynamics between the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and the Workers’ Party’s (WP) in the 13th Parliament.
The transfer of an NCMP seat within an opposition party has no
precedent. The closest similarity happened in 1985, when the People’s
Action Party (PAP) moved a motion to fill the vacated NCMP seat after
WP’s M P D Nair had declined it after the 1984 General Election (GE). It
was then offered to Singapore United Front’s Tan Chee Kien, who also
declined the seat. Parliament then opted to keep NCMP seat empty even
though it was the first time the NCMP scheme was introduced.
It
is perhaps timely to relook the law governing the filling of vacated
NCMP seats. Currently, the law provides that Parliament may fill a
vacated NCMP seat. This should be changed to make the filling of a
vacated seat automatic without Parliament having to decide whether to
fill the vacated seat or not.
Secondly, the law should prohibit
“intra-party” transfer of seats (as with the Lee Li Lian and Daniel Goh
situation). This precludes parties engaging in a “political manoeuvre”,
in the words of Government Whip Chan Chun Sing in last Friday’s debate.
The overall intent of both proposals is to ensure the integrity of the
NCMP scheme. The first avoids a situation where an NCMP seat is left
vacant for whatever reasons at the will of the ruling party. The second
prevents a situation where an opposition party can act
anti-democratically by thwarting the expressed political choice of the
electorate.
There is a tendency to overlook the democratic
element that underpins the NCMP scheme. The Parliamentary Elections Act
provides that the NCMP seats are to be filled on the basis of the
percentage of the votes polled in a general election (the so-called
“best losers” requirement). Clearly, the voters’ preference is
determinative with regards to the filling of NCMP seats.
Opposition parties should not be allowed to go against the choice of
voters in filling NCMP seats because that is tantamount to letting a
party, rather than the voters, decide on the NCMPs. This enables an
opposition party to place a NCMP out of self-interest rather than
respecting the expressed will of the voters, contrary to what the
Constitution requires.
This was the essence of PAP’s amendment
of WP’s parliamentary motion for Associate Professor Daniel Goh to fill
Ms Lee’s vacated NCMP seat at last Friday’s debate.
In a
tactically shrewd move — cognisant of public sentiment supporting
Parliament having its full complement of three NCMP seats — the PAP took
advantage of its numerical dominance in Parliament to amend the WP
motion to reflect the point that the WP was making a “political
manoeuvre” to take full advantage of the NCMP scheme, even as WP
secretary-general Low Thia Khiang had been dismissive of the scheme.
In so doing, the PAP also sought to establish it was acting from a
principled stance in which the WP should not ride roughshod over the
preference of Punggol East voters.
It is worth recalling that
in the September 2015 GE, 48.23 per cent of voters in Punggol East voted
for then-incumbent Ms Lee, while only 39.27 per cent of East Coast GRC
voters supported the WP team there, which included Dr Goh and three
candidates.
To the extent that the NCMP derives its currency
from seeking to maintain Parliament’s relevance in a one-party dominant
system, it is clear that the NCMP has benefited both the PAP and the WP.
For the PAP, having a nominal, if not minimum, representation of
opposition parliamentarians helps ensure that Parliament is more
representative than it otherwise would be, and is better able to act as a
check and balance in our constitutional system of government.
Most significantly, the NCMP scheme also helps assure the Singaporean
electorate that it should not be overly concerned with Parliament being
dominated by the PAP, since there will be a guaranteed minimum number of
non-PAP MPs.
For all intents and purposes, the WP has
benefited from strategically utilising the NCMP scheme even as Mr Low
derisively described NCMPs as rootless “duckweed on the water of a
pond”. Its official stance — faithfully and consistently reflected in
the party’s election manifestos — is that it is opposed to the scheme
and would abolish the scheme if it were the Government. The WP’s premise
is that elections should not dilute the individual voter’s voice and
should therefore only be run on single member seats, with individual MPs
fully accountable to constituents.
However, in reality, the WP
adopts a different reasoning when it says that it would accept an
eligible WP candidate’s decision to take up a NCMP seat so as to
contribute to parliamentary debates and because “the struggle for a
functional democracy … must be fought from within the existing system”.
The scheme has enabled the WP to profile itself and its NCMPs while
also providing more opportunities toraise parliamentary questions,
debate Bills, file motions and speak on PAP motions.
Besides M P
D Nair and Ms Lee, WP losing candidates in the past have accepted NCMP
seats: Lee Siew Choh (1989-1991), JB Jeyaretnam (1997-2001), Ms Sylvia
Lim (2006-2011), Mr Yee Jen Jong and Mr Gerald Giam (2011-2015), and
their current three NCMPs.
There needs, in my view, to be
greater clarity and consistency in the WP’s position on the NCMP scheme.
In light of the Government’s proposal to increase the number of NCMPs
(from nine to 12) and for them to have the same voting rights as elected
MPs, the WP should not permit its members to accept NCMP seats when
offered in future. Given the WP’s severe criticisms of the scheme,
surely it cannot have its cake and eat it, too.
This will raise
the stakes for voters in constituencies where the WP’s best candidates
are contesting. It will also make the WP’s objection to the NCMP scheme
principled and not self-serving. The artificial distinction between the
party’s vehement objection to and an individual WP member’s inclination
to take up an NCMP seat is an untenable proposition going forward.
By:
Eugene K B Tan is associate professor of law at the School of Law,
Singapore Management University, and a former Nominated Member of
Parliament.
