MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew made an interestingly significant
remark about Singapore's separation from Malaysia in his eulogy at
Sunday's state funeral for his colleague-in-arms, former Deputy
Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee.
MM Lee said he had asked Dr Goh to negotiate a looser
rearrangement for Singapore, but to keep Singapore within
Malaysia.
Added MM Lee: 'He (Dr Goh) decided that the best alternative was
a clean break. After (Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister) Tun Abdul
Razak and (Minister for External Affairs) Tun Dr Ismail Abdul
Rahman agreed, (Law Minister) Eddie Barker and I worked furiously
to settle the terms of the separation.'
MM Lee's remark is intriguing in the light of the conventional
narrative of the events leading up to Separation in 1965. From all
that historians have gleaned prior to MM Lee's remarks on Sunday,
MM Lee, who was then Prime Minister, played the pivotal role
involving Separation.
His remarks suggest that the decision to break away from
Malaysia was decided unilaterally by Dr Goh at the crucial moment;
against the proposition MM Lee, and perhaps the collective Cabinet,
had decided; which was at the very least, to still remain a part of
the Malaysian federation of states.
If the above is true, the apparent contradiction should be
resolved. A key question that arises from MM Lee's remarks is this:
What was the extent and significance of Dr Goh's role in
Separation? Furthermore, MM Lee's remark also suggests that the key
Malaysian leaders - Tun Razak and Dr Ismail - agreed to Dr Goh's
proposal of a clean break.
This would imply that it may well have been Singapore which
precipitated the idea of Separation, rather than Malaysia, as has
been the notion all this while, stemming from first Malaysian Prime
Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman's view. He reconfirmed, when I
interviewed him a few years before he died, that he overruled the
strident objections of his extremist colleagues in Umno in deciding
to sack Singapore from Malaysia.
It would be informative, if not instructive, if MM Lee or Dr Toh
Chin Chye (then chairman of the PAP and the only key surviving
member of the Old Guard today) shed more light on this critical
turning point in the history of Singapore and Malaysia.
Associate Professor Hussin Mutalib
