Reflection of Singapore’s 2018 Bicentennial Commemoration

Terence Chong, in his reflection of Singapore’s 2018 Bicentennial Commemoration, examines how “national histories” are told and “imagined” – that “all societies, regardless of age and civilization, imagine their history” (p. 324). This seemingly paradoxical notion – that histories are not factual re-tellings of events, but rather an imaginative and entrepreneurial exercise – can be seen in the evolution of Singapore’s own conceptions of its national “self” over the last 50 years.

Drawing on examples given in Chong’s piece, as well as your own experience as subjects of the Singapore “nation building project”, discuss and examine the different drivers and interests which shape and constrain notions of nationhood and nation identity in Singapore. How has history been interpreted and re-interpreted in Singapore? Who gets to do the interpreting and re-interpreting? Why have certain facets of history been emphasised, and others “forgotten”?

Read: The Bicentennial Commemoration: Imagining and Re-imagining Singapore’s History