It must have seemed so easy for the Singapore
Government back then, when the established historical narrative was well enough
known and widely accepted. In 1819 Sir
Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore, claimed it for the British, and thereby
set in progress a chain of events which led to this tiny island, which seems
physically to be dropping off the bottom of the Malay Peninsula, becoming the
modern city-state it is today. Modern
Singapore has an economic wealth, a stage of technological development and a
visible infrastructure which is the envy of the world. Even the former colonial power has in recent
years looked on Singapore as an icon, especially in the fields of education and
financial management. What could
possibly be wrong with celebrating that turning point in Singapore’s history by
having a grand bicentennial in 2019?
As everyone who dabbles in history knows only too
well, history is not about dates and people, it is about a continual
reinterpretation of events as viewed through the prism of contemporary ethics
and sensitivities. At school we may have
been taught dates, but in life we learn that history is not about what happened
in the past but how we view in our time what happened in the past. History, as they say, never stands still.
So the inevitable happened. As soon as the events of 1819 were put into
the spotlight in the run-up for the bicentennial, questions were asked and the
old narrative shown not to be as straightforward as we once thought. Forgetting doubts raised over Raffles’
physical involvement in 1819, or the questions raised over the year itself –
did not a Scot named Hamilton come here earlier and try to claim Singapore for
the British? – there were two elements in that narrative which no longer sit
comfortably with the ethics and sensitivities of 2019 Singapore. For a start, there is the idea that a “foreign”
race should be responsible for Singapore’s development over the past 200
years. That certainly does not play out
with the current conviction that Asian people are fully equipped to handle
their own destinies and can most certainly not be regarded as the chattels of,
or inferior to, a peoples from Europe.
Then there is the very uncomfortable concept for a Chinese majority 21st
century population, that it was the British who settled here before the
Chinese. Who can blame anyone for
wanting to reassess history when the current narrative suggests that those who
regard themselves as Singaporeans actually have shallower historic roots in the
land where they live than those whom they regard as foreigners?
Consequently, we now have the ridiculous spectacle of
the bicentennial desperately searching around to give credibility to Chinese
roots in Singapore above British ones.
The world must find it extraordinarily funny when they see the banners,
the posters, the postal frankings which advertise the Singapore bicentennial as
celebrating “700 years of history”. It’s
unfortunate that just as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of what
was once considered an important milestone in Singapore’s history, contemporary
ethics and sensitivities demand that this was neither important nor a
milestone.
But in one area we can still recognise 1819 as a
turning point in Singapore’s history which had a beneficial effect on
subsequent generations of whatever race and creed. Whoever it was landed here in 1819 and
claimed Singapore for the British crown, that person brought with him his
military garrison which included a military band, and thus was brought into Singapore
the first Western Music and the concept of music as an international,
cross-cultural, non-ethnically-specific entertainment medium. The rest is, as they say (wilfully ignoring
the horrible implications of the word) history.
I read in one of the desperate strivings to distance Singapore’s
last 200 years of development from European influence, that what came with
Raffles was “English music”; as if, by some quirk of society, English music was
of less significance than music from other countries. (To give the exact quote from Loretta Marie
& Audrey Perera’s Music in Singapore:
from the 1920s to the 2000s; “With Sir Stamford Raffles came the first
English music, and shortly after that, came Chinese and Indian music, with the
immigrants of those two countries”.) In
1819, nationalism had yet to rear its ugly head in music (ugly it most certainly
was, since nationalism in music implies a supremacy based purely on nationality
and a consequent diminution of other nationalities’ musical worth). Certainly the Indian military bands which
first provided musical entertainment to Singaporeans – and one of the first I
can find recorded was the 58th Regiment Bengal Native Infantry Band who were
stationed here in 1823 – may well have played some marches by English-born
composers. But I imagine they also
played music by composers born elsewhere, and would not have felt that they
were promoting a purely English music.
What defines Western music and effectively separates
it from “Chinese and Indian music”, and equally the music of the once indigenous
people of this island who are largely ignored in the popular narratives –
perhaps because they were comprehensively overrun by invading Arab traders
who took for themselves the term bumiputera (“people of the
land”) – is that it is
universal. It uses a widely understood system
of notation to transmit it across national, physical, cultural, ethnic and
linguistic barriers. Equipped with the
ability to read musical notation, a Sierra Leonean, a Syrian, a Swede, a
Singaporean are all equally able to recreate in sound not so much a musical
idea as a whole art form, complete with its emotional significance. There may be nuances of interpretation which
differ, but in essence the original is recreated in sound every time anyone reads
the notation. That is unique to Western
Music. Other musics may have their own
notational systems, but where these exist they are largely confined to those of
the culture from which the music originates.
And the vast majority of non-Western musics (often loosely lumped
together as “ethnomusic”) do not have a written system of notation, but rely on
inter-generational one-on-one communication within the specific culture in
which the music originated.
So, while we argue about who did what, when and why in
Singapore’s history, let us celebrate 200 years during which one of the world’s
most wonderful art forms embedded itself in Singapore society and has so greatly
enriched the lives of Singaporeans, regardless of their ethnic, cultural or
linguistic origins. The best thing that
could possible come out of this bicentennial is an awareness that Singapore has
developed into a global power within the world of Western Music. It is a huge part of the Singaporean heritage
and needs to be celebrated as such.
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