Re-examining Nantah's History (using Google Books)

Re-examining Nantah's History
Using Google BookSearch

Political autobiographers have vested interests. Just today, the New York Times reported that Hillary Clinton contradicted events described in her autobiography.

According to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's autobiography From Third World to First (Google BookSearch), Nantah suffered negative externalities from being a Chinese-medium school. He recalls that Nantah had to lower "requirements for both admission and pass standards for graduation, further diminishing its academic reputation and market value for its graduates." He characterized himself as a passionate savior of Nantah, with a practical outlook and the support of MPs who were Nantah alumni. Against the sentiment of "most of [his] cabinet colleagues," MM Lee decided to "stir up a hornet's nest"to arrest the problem of Nantah graduates' lack of fluency in English at its infancy. In summary, he led the government to save Nantah from its unavoidable demise against the irrationality of Nantah's emotional alumni.

Wang Gungwu, currently Director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, offered a different take when interviewed for the book Diasporic Chinese Ventures: The Life and Work of Wang Gungwu (Google BookSearch). He said, "Nantah...suffered active discrimination...neither [Malaysia/Singapore] government was prepared to recognize them." That was before Singapore gained independence from Malaysia. Later in the interview, he attributed the decline of Nantah to Singapore no longer admitting Malaysian students, when at Nantah "three out of five students were graduates of Malaysian middle schools, some of which were stronger than their counterparts in Singapore."

Wang's account does not directly negate Lee's, but highlights that Nantah's situation then was more complex than just of its medium of instruction. Unfortunately, almost all secondary official Singapore accounts have followed Lee's story without mention of Wang's portions. (for example: the Library Board's and news reports on Channel News Asia etc)

I have great respect for MM Lee - he is a shrewd politician who has led Singapore decisively for decades. Yet the history of many cannot be written by a single hand, and we as Singaporeans need to understand our history in holistic ways.

The blind anger against MM Lee for subsuming Nantah under NUS has faded, the Nantah alumni probably have college-age kids by now. I believe MM Lee's good name will stand to gain further with more re-examining of our history. Right now his name is sullied (mostly abroad) by the extremist-anti-PAP camp who has the argument that Singaporeans are ignorant of "the truth." These anti-PAPers go around fashioning themselves as martyrs liberating us ignorant masses. It is time to remove their weapon of accusation, to open up and re-examine the history books, so they can no longer argue that PAP is popular because of its singular grip on history. As the Nantah story tells us, history is more complex than that.

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This is the first in a series examining the ideas of "Singapore" and "Diaspora," in anticipation of DiaS'pura at Penn. Prof. Chan Heng Chee, Singapore's Ambassador to the US, Prof. Janice R. Bellace, Founding President of Singapore Management University, and Francis Seow, will speak at the event. Although the website of DiaS'pura lists Francis Seow as a Fellow at both Harvard and Yale, I failed to find information from either Harvard's or Yale's website that indicates he is still currently of those positions.

There is no official partnership between HoViVo and DiaS'pura, I'm just writing with an interest as a Penn alumnus and Singaporean.