Mr Lee Kuan Yew's first-ever National Day Rally speech at the National Theatre on Aug 8, 1966.
Friends and fellow citizens:
This time last year, my colleagues and I had already made a fateful
decision on your and our behalf. In the nature of the circumstances,
there was no time for consultations - we could not find out what the
consensus would have been had we refused to acquiesce and had we
insisted on going on with the kind of Malaysia which we envisaged it
was, at the time when we agreed to join.
It is useful this
evening not so much to go back to the past - the whys and the wherefores
- to apportion blame but more to search deep into our hearts to ask if
the things we set out to do were right or wrong, were good or bad. And I
say that we have no regrets. We are completely unrepentant that we set
out to build a multiracial and, for some time, a multilingual,
multicultural community, to give a satisfying life to the many different
kinds of people who foregathered here in over 150 years of the British
Raj.
And we, in the end, on balance decided to carry on with our
multiracial experiment - if you like to call it - just in Singapore
alone rather than be forced into large-scale conflict in Malaysia.
Nothing has altered, not the basic data nor our basic thinking.
What has altered are the circumstances in which we now find ourselves.
I think it is reassuring on an anniversary to weigh the odds to see how
we have performed, the promises against the performances. And my
experiences of Singapore and her young, active, energetic if somewhat
exuberant people is that given honest and effective leadership, an
honest administration within which to bring forth themselves, they will
make the grade.
It has been a year of great and sudden change.
Very few countries in the world go through the kind of climacteric we
have gone through. From 1961 to 1963, we fought for merger, to sink
ourselves in the identity of a bigger whole. Between 1963 and 1965, we
found ourselves gradually embroiled in something which we half suspected
but never quite admitted was possible within such a multiracial
situation. And in 1965, with decisive suddenness, we found ourselves
asunder.
All the while, despite all the political unpleasantness
that followed, we were making progress. Imports went up and so did
exports. These are facts and figures, not fictions of the imagination of
my colleague, the Minister for Finance. They have checked against every
indent that goes in and out of the Port of Singapore Authority. They
have checked against our revenue on the same rates of taxation; the
number of factories, the people they employ, the goods they produce,
their value; the housing being built. And they tell a story which we
have very little to be ashamed of. Almost in spite of ourselves, we have
forged ahead; revenue has gone up 10 per cent, the economy is surging
forward.
I am not saying that this will be so for all the time
with no effort on our part. But we will progress so long as we reward
initiative and resourcefulness; and as long as whenever we face peril,
courage and resolve are never found wanting.
But more than just
making material progress, like other groups of human beings wherever
they are found in the world, we seek permanent salvation, security to
time immemorial, to eternity. We believed and we still believe that that
salvation lies in an integrated society. I use the word advisedly -
"integrated" as against "assimilated". I would not imagine for one
moment a Singapore government trying to assimilate everybody. You know,
75 per cent Chinese trying to convert 10 per cent Tamils and Hindus and
Tamil Muslims and Northern Indian Muslims into good "Chinamen" - or not
even good old Chinamen: good old "Overseas Chinese", Singapore brand,
Singapore type.
I would not try it; it is not worth the effort.
Nor would I try it with the other groups. Certainly, not my colleague
like Encik Othman Wok (whose family) has been here for many, many
generations; or even my colleague like Tuan Haji Ya'acob from Kelantan
where he was born. Why should we try the impossible?
But I say
integration is possible - not to make us one grey mass against our will,
against our feelings, against our inclinations, but to integrate us
with common values, common attitudes, a common outlook, certainly a
common language and eventually, a common culture. It is most important
that we should understand what it is we are after in the long run. And,
if we are after a permanent and secure future for ourselves, then this
must be done - to build a society which as it progresses, improves,
flourishes and gives an equally satisfying life to one and all.
If groups are left behind either on the basis of language, race,
religion or culture, and if with these groups the line of division
coincides with the line of race, then we will not succeed in our
long-term objective of a secure future. For so many other countries in
this part of the world are faced with the multiracial societies that
gradually formed themselves over the period of colonial rule.
TWO WAYS TO SET THE PACE
Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which we in Singapore can set
the pace. First, prove that the migrant element is dynamic, is trustful,
is industrious and can get on - of that, I have no doubt - but that in
the process of getting on, it is unmindful of its wider responsibilities
and its long-term interests, leaving in its train a whole trail of
frustrations and bitterness which must have its repercussions throughout
the whole region as men's minds begin to ponder on the unpleasant
consequences of what we have done or what we have manifested.
The
other way is to demonstrate that we are a forward-looking, not a
backward-looking society, not looking to the past for examples of
patterns of behaviour and conduct completely irrelevant in the modern
society that we now find ourselves... Man reaching out for the moon and
the stars... It is to show we do not find our solutions by turning over
the dusty pages of some chronicle of some ancient time telling us about
some incident, customs more relevant to his day, but that we have the
forward, the inquiring outlook, and are keen to learn, keen to make a
success of the future.
If we can give everyone - regardless of
race, language, culture - an equally satisfying life, then surely that
must be a benevolent or a beneficial influence on the whole region as
other people turn their eyes towards us and say, "It is not true...
Given the right political attitudes and the aptitudes and the framework
of a good, effective administration, all can thrive and prosper."
It is in the nature of things that we must talk in parables. And the
older I become, the more I am convinced that sometimes, perhaps, the
prophets spoke in parables because they had also to take into account so
many factors prevailing in their time. But I would like to believe that
we are a people sufficiently sophisticated to understand parables and
the value of ever searching for new solutions, new ways to achieve old
targets.
Never be depressed, never be deflated by setbacks. We
suffered setbacks. In 1964, there were two communal riots. And we do not
pretend to ourselves they were not communal riots - they were.
We face facts. And this is one of the greatest strengths about Singapore
- its willingness to face reality including the 9th of August. We used
to celebrate the 3rd of June (the date Singapore became a self-governing
state); then it was the 16th of September, when we promulgated
Malaysia. Then it went back to the 31st of August (Malaysia's National
Day) because other people celebrated the 31st of August.
And then it had to be the 9th of August, and the 9th of August it is, not because we wished it to be but because it was.
NOT LIKELY TO GO UNDER
This capacity to face up to situations, however intractable, however
unpleasant, is one of the great qualities for survival. A people able to
look facts squarely in the face, able to calculate the odds, to weigh
the chances and then to decide to go it, are a people not likely to go
under.
And when this time last year, before the news was broken
to the world, my colleagues and I carried that heavy burden in our
hearts of having made the decision on your behalf, we consoled ourselves
with this thought: that whilst thereafter the multiracial society that
we had set out to create could be implemented only within the confines
of Singapore, we knew, deep down, that ultimately its impact must spread
far beyond its shores.
No geographic or political boundary can
contain the implications of what we set out to do when we succeed. And
there is no reason why given patience, tolerance, perseverance, we
should not, in this hub, in this confluence of three, indeed four great
civilisations, create a situation which will act as a yeast, a ferment
for what is possible given goodwill, forbearance and good faith.
Every year, on this 9th August for many years ahead - how many, I do not
know - we will dedicate ourselves anew to consolidate ourselves to
survive; and most important of all, to find an enduring future for what
we have built.
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