The China History Podcast · Laszlo Montgomery

Ep 356 | The History of Singapore (Part 8)

·45 min·3 clips

Malaysia’s parliament voted 126 to 0 to expel Singapore, and Lee Kuan Yew broke down on live television.

The China History Podcast opens on June 3, 1959, when Britain granted Singapore sovereignty. Montgomery returns to Lee Kuan Yew's election win and the speech at City Hall on that day. He points out that Singapore had full internal self-government from 1959 to 1963, even while British ties stayed in place. The story then widens to January 1959 and Fidel Castro's victory in Cuba. That, Montgomery says, rattled Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's Prime Minister. Singapore's own image as a hotbed of communism, Marxism, and far-left agitation only added to the pressure. The merger plan that followed was part of the Tunku's larger design for a wider Federation of Malaysia. That plan also depended on bringing in the North Borneo territories, later known as Sabah and Sarawak. The political bargain soon turned into a struggle over race and power. Lee Kuan Yew pushes for equality for all, regardless of race or religion. Abdul Rahman argues for special rights and privileges for Bumi Puteras, the Malays and indigenous peoples. The episode treats that divide as the basic fault line of the merger project. The first major post-election flashpoint comes at Singapore's Padang, where about 20,000 Malays gather for the Molid holiday. Some in the crowd support UMNO's alliance, and some are Muslim PAP supporters. Days earlier, Syed Jafar Albar had spoken at a Pasir Panjang theater on UMNO's behalf and attacked Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP in vicious terms. His call for Lee's arrest and execution is framed as an effort to stir up a crisis. On July 21, 1964, the speeches and anger spill into the streets. The crowd moves toward Arab Street, something is thrown, and the situation breaks into violence between Chinese and Malays. The worst of the riot is centered in Geylang and Kalang, and the episode uses that violence to show how fragile the settlement had become. It closes by contrasting Singapore's later prosperity with its 1965 GDP per capita of $516 and by pointing toward the country's 60th anniversary of nationhood in 2025.

As heard by us

A brisk, unsentimental march from merger politics to the riot that exposed the fault lines.

The episode moves cleanly through Singapore's path to merger with Malaysia, from Lee Kuan Yew's 1959 victory to the racial dispute that simmered beneath the surface.

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Why you'd press play

Follow Singapore's merger bargain as it hardens into a 1964 race dispute and riot.

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