9th of august
today singapore celebrates 40 years of independence.
we are an artificial state, and not quite a nation; a freak of circumstance born from the detritus of empire like so many other failed countries around the world.
singapore ought not exist.
we have no real continuous history and no real tradition. we were built by european adventurers, chinese peasants, indian convict labourers, and malay fishermen who got lost. we are the children of rootless immigrants who settled into a great colonial port with no driving force and no ideological underpinnings but mammon. (arguably, today, we still don't.)
we were an unwanted bastard of malayan geography and colonial history. an odd one out to be despised and envied.
our independence was a sob story - it wasn't supposed to happen.
and yet we are still here.
somehow something ties me back to this soil and makes me loyal (most certainly not national education or NDP) and induces me to pledge allegiance to this unnatural plot of land in the south china sea. (quite ironically, the "soil on my face" of the saf soldier contains a significant proportion of indonesian sand.)
happy birthday singapore.
***
meanwhile, a few thousand miles north and sixty years before, a city was flattened by a fat man.
people sure have very efficient methods of killing each other.
we are an artificial state, and not quite a nation; a freak of circumstance born from the detritus of empire like so many other failed countries around the world.
singapore ought not exist.
we have no real continuous history and no real tradition. we were built by european adventurers, chinese peasants, indian convict labourers, and malay fishermen who got lost. we are the children of rootless immigrants who settled into a great colonial port with no driving force and no ideological underpinnings but mammon. (arguably, today, we still don't.)
we were an unwanted bastard of malayan geography and colonial history. an odd one out to be despised and envied.
our independence was a sob story - it wasn't supposed to happen.
and yet we are still here.
somehow something ties me back to this soil and makes me loyal (most certainly not national education or NDP) and induces me to pledge allegiance to this unnatural plot of land in the south china sea. (quite ironically, the "soil on my face" of the saf soldier contains a significant proportion of indonesian sand.)
happy birthday singapore.
***
meanwhile, a few thousand miles north and sixty years before, a city was flattened by a fat man.
people sure have very efficient methods of killing each other.
posted by zhongkai at 11:04 AM
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