The Severed British Net

Hi all,

In the spirit of discussion/treating this blog as a forum for the exchanging of ideas, I would like to respond to Samantha's post for my entry this week, partly because the quotes she used in her entry were precisely what jumped out at me too.

Samantha states, 'I think we've undergone that same kind of ideological colonization through 'english-style education', and are still trapped in it today to a certain degree.'

Dr Koh, in reply to Samantha's post, wrote 'I wonder, so what do you think of the 'educated Indian class' vis-a-vis the Raffles schools and boulevards of Singapore? Does it indeed 'contaminate', or does it create a subservient class?'

My response to this is that the two outcomes offered, 'contaminat[ion]' or the 'creat[ion of] a subservient class', are too restrictive- I would like to propose that a third outcome, that can be seen in the context of Singapore, is possible: that another step towards the evolution of a national identity is taken.

Unlike Samantha, I do not think that the existence of current Singapore roads with British names indicates that we are still caught by the British 'net', but that they are instead simply markers of our colonial past. I do understand the discomfort one may feel from the knowledge that the memory of the oft-exploitative British remains today (street names, statues, school systems, etc). However, I feel that re-naming the streets Lorong Merlion just so that it is distinctly Singaporean (opening Pandora's box- what is 'distinctly Singaporean'?) results in a sort of historical amnesia, where we deny the fact that we were once a British colony. I think these vestiges of British influence are, while sometimes frustrating, essentially a part of Singapore today. In fact I could perhaps go so far as to say that the very fact that these British markers still exist encourage me in a warped way. They show that Singapore has progressed- insecurities no longer plague one enough to feel 'Alamak, British reminders everywhere, cannot cannot, must be nationalistic'. This sort of nationalism is, to me, unthinking and extreme; I am encouraged that we can today look at these roads and influences and feel secure in our identity as Singaporean, even if that means we remember that we were once a British colony.

Perhaps I come to this with a personal agenda- I am Peranakan, and since taking Prof Holden's module on Singapore Literature in my first year, I have felt a push to interrogate my own 'Singaporean-ness' like never before. We learned about how the Peranakans benefited pretty well from being under British colonial rule (as compared to other locals). They were often middle-class locals who took most easily to English customs, including the English language, and were often in civil servant positions. Effectively, they were people strategically used by the British to further their interests in the region, perpetuating the Anglicization of the country through local help. After learning about this in greater detail, I started seriously questioning how 'authentic' of a Singaporean I am- after all, my first language is the language of the colonizers. I can't say I fully understand my position still, but I have at least gotten to the point where I realize I cannot rail against the fact that my forefathers were arguably un-Malayan/Singaporean, that they belonged to a class that was created by the British for British ends. Bemoaning this would be unproductive and denying it means the denial of fact. I think that it is more productive instad to acknowledge this past and accede that the British left some of their entrails behind (sorry for the hantu penanggal image) even after Singapore attained independence. And that even whilst this may be true, we can simultaneously assert that these remnants in no way diminish our credibility as an independent nation, and as a country with a national identity that is constantly re-imagined.

As a side-note, I suppose this is why I am so interested in post-colonial, especially Singapore, literature- it (arguably) acts as aspirin for the colonial hangover.

Please let me know if anyone has any thoughts. I should also probably say that I'm not usually this 'RAH RAH GO SINGAPORE'.

Thanks!

-Kelly Tay