Fo宜eword The day Singapore , a small island at the tip of peninsula Malaya , became an independent state can be marked precisely, 9 August 1965. It was an ignoble birth. The local understanding is that ‘we , Singaporeans' were kicked out, after three ye征s of difficult membership in the federation of Malaysia. Its newly- minted citizens were either descendents of or poor immigrants themselves who had flocked to the British colony in search ofbetter materiallife. This past was not something that could be dusted off and valorised at the point of independence. Meanwhile , there was the pressing need to survive as a city-state. Under the People's Action Party govemment , Singaporeans immediately ploughed into surviving the future with frenzy. Everything that stood in the way of economic development was removed without any sentimentality, as creative destruction necessitated by capitalist development. History was of little concem. The past is
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