Evolution of Singapore

Singapore, though being a young nation of only 46 years, has changed significantly in terms of our landscape and also our culture and in this article, we will be focusing on how our country has evolved from prehistoric times to modern times in terms of our way of life, our food culture, our arts and also our expectations in life. In the beginning: Early History As early as the 2nd century, Singapore has been known to be ruled by different kingdoms including Siam, Java, the Sultanate of Johor and Malacca. Claudius Ptolemy, a Greek mathematician and Geographer located a place which was known as the Sabana in the area where Singapore lies and identified it as a foreign trading port. In the 3rd century, there was also a Chinese record describing Singapore as , which is a direct translation from the Malay Name Pulau Ujong, meaning island at the end (of the Malay Archipelago). In the year 1320, the Mongol Empire sent out an envoy to collect elephants from a place called , which is believed by many historians to be what we know today as Keppel Harbour. 10 years later, a Chinese traveller, Wang Da Yuan, visited Singapore and identified it as or Temasek in Malay. In this time frame, people in Singapore were leading simple lives, with majority of the people engaged in farming and fishing and a portion involved in trade and business. Founding of modern Singapore In 1818, Sir Stamford Raffles came across the island of Singapore and found it useful to act as a trading post for the British East India Company and in 1819, a treaty was signed by Raffles and Sultan Hussein of Johor whereby the Sultan will receive a yearly payment from the British and in return he had to allow the British to govern Singapore and establish a trading base there. Over the years, Singapore developed from a small fishing village to a civilized, modern settlement with a proper administration and the people were engaged in a wider array of jobs. However, living conditions were still generally poor at that time with many people not having access to clean consumable water or proper sanitation. WW2 In 1942, the overconfident British thought that Japans military were no match for theirs and moreover, they were more concerned with stationing their troops to defend their own country in Europe hence, they did not put in a lot of effort in protecting Singapore. True enough, Singapore was occupied by force by the Japanese on 15th February 1942, which was coincidentally Chinese New Year Day. Through these days, Singaporeans went through the toughest time of their life and all they wanted was to survive and this also explains why Singapore citizens who had lived through this period are usually more contended and willing to lead simpler lives compared through later generations of Singaporeans.

Post War Singapore After the Japanese surrender to the British in 1945, Singaporeans lost faith in the British for defending the country and felt the strong need to be responsible for our own affairs and interests. The British also recognized this point and hence, they made some leeway for locals to govern our own country and as such, Singapore saw its first elections and our first chief minister, David Marshall was elected to office. However, at this point, only 63.1% of the voters turned up for election with only 25 072 votes casted. This goes to show how uninterested locals were in politics but of course, we know that today, this has changed and there has been an exponential increase in Singaporeans being interested with politics. This will be discussed in greater detail in the later part of this article. Merger On 1963, Singapore was merged into the Federation of Malaysia because the British Government did not want Singapore to be an independent state, fearing that it will become a hotbed for communism and furthermore, a merger with Malaysia will help to curb the problem of unemployment in Singapore. A Turning Point: Racial Tensions Because the Chinese in Singapore felt that they were being racially discriminated against by the federal policies of affirmative action that granted special privileges to Malays. As a result, the PAP government of Singapore campaigned for a Malaysian Malaysia and all races in the federation to be treated equally but the Malays community saw this as Lee Kuan Yew fighting for Chinese superiority and challenging Malay supremacy and as such, tensions rose between the two races and this eventually amounted to the infamous 1964 racial riots whereby 23 people were killed and around 450 injured. It was also because of this event that caused many Singaporeans afterwards to understand the importance of racial harmony and this is also the reason why the government takes racism very seriously in our modern society and tends to punish perpetrators of racial discrimination.

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