Chapter 23 Chapter 23

In two days, Dr. Li Shaozu spoke continuously for seven and a half hours.After speaking for half an hour, he began to babble.He has a group of writers who write a lot of repetitive and boring things in the opposition lounge, and then the Barisan MPs send them to the Chamber of Deputies and hand them over to him.Many times he couldn't even read what was written to him... But Dr. Li's lengthy speeches made many good arguments drowned in nonsense. I have to hope that the people of Singapore will be satisfied with being a federal citizen because my first goal is to reach an agreement with the Tunku on the terms of merger so that the people of Singapore can vote on the terms of merger.We have promised to hold a referendum in September.A merger based on a majority vote in the Legislative Assembly is never feasible, and the people of Singapore will think we have betrayed them, whether the terms are fair or not.Therefore, they must be told the truth, explained to them about alternatives, and allowed to make their own choices.Also, doing so would ensure that the Tunku would not take us for granted.

In order to do this, it is vital that the PAP remains in power and therefore has a majority in the House of Representatives.We have 26 votes in the House, just one more than the opposition's 25.At this critical juncture, I believe that apart from Marshall (one vote), and perhaps Ong Yong Yuan and his two supporters (now known as the People's Unity Party), it is unlikely that the non-communist wing of the opposition will support Barisan.Furthermore, after I made a series of broadcasts setting out the context of the current conflict, I was in a better position to follow through on my arguments.

Now we have to force the communists to say what kind of merger they want.We cannot allow them to repeat their call for an independent Singapore again.But they still come and go.After the split, for weeks they were ambiguous, playing delaying tactics and urging the people to focus first on the struggle against colonialism. On August 13, when a mass meeting was held at the Happy World Stadium to celebrate the establishment of Barisan Barisan, Lim Chin Siong addressed the 10,000 cheering crowd, announcing that colonialism was the biggest obstacle to the realization of the merger of Singapore and Malaysia, and that it was British colonialism that divided Malaya into two parts. a different entity. "Therefore, eradicating colonialism will bring you closer to merger. If merger means real reunification, we will happily support it." When he spoke in Malay and Hokkien, there was thunderous applause in the audience, but for what he said Whether the masses support this point enthusiastically, I am not sure.True or not, reunification would weaken the majority of the Chinese-speaking or dialect-speaking population and make them more vulnerable to security operations.

The Barisan Barisan is not the only uncertainty.In the development of the situation this time, the British play the most important role, because everything depends on whether they can reach an understanding with the Tunku and convince him that he must play the most important role in the future of Singapore. A real merger is not just an "alliance". The same Moore report to Wallace on October 18 said: "Of course, as far as we are not going to deal with the communists in Singapore in the short term, no one will question it. But we have to convince the Tunku. In the long run, in the current climate of international opinion, only he can deal with Singapore's problems...Tongku I have illusions that I can leave Singapore's problems to Britain indefinitely without problems, and such illusions must be dispelled."

I thought that when we lost the Hong Lim and Teluk Intan by-elections and the communists came to power themselves by attempting to get rid of the PAP by constitutional means, the Tunku must have found himself with no choice but to accept Singapore on special terms , that is to keep a certain distance from us so that the Malay voter majority in the Federation will not be affected.That means he must control internal security, defense and foreign affairs. Tunku agreed with me when he made a speech on October 27.By 1963, he said, "the United Kingdom will probably give Singapore a constitution that will make Singapore an independent country. Once Singapore becomes independent, it will establish diplomatic relations with countries we oppose. China, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and other Communist bloc countries will Set up an embassy, ​​and the communists will be close at hand."He also said that the Prime Minister of Singapore, whose political party is "arguably an extremist", is also worried about what will happen between Singapore and Malaysia if Singapore becomes independent. "We must try to do everything in our power to reverse this situation so that such a conflict does not occur."

But the Tunku had to pay a high price for accepting Singapore.Back in August, his government gave the UK notice to quit the Internal Security Council after six months.The British therefore reasoned that if it needed the Malayan government to take over Singapore in order to control the communists, the Tunku would demand that the three states of Borneo be fully incorporated into the federation first.I certainly know the timing is a question.Based on my experience in handling cases in these three states, I know that their level of political awakening is not high, and their political leadership has not yet been formed.I left these matters to the British, thinking that the British had settled them with the Tunku.

lOn 16th, Tunku departed from Singapore Airport to London, preparing to negotiate the Malaysian issue with the British government.He was in a good mood and told the press that it was safe to assume that Malaysia was "in the bag", that is to say, the three states of Borneo and Singapore would join Malaysia. The Straits Times reports he added with a reassuring smile: "I'm going to be pretty honest. I hope it's at the same time, otherwise people in the federation will get nervous. The federation thinks Singapore is like a problem child... the constitutional proposal is not a full merger , or more correctly, a very close union." This statement made it harder for me to do things.

In London, his negotiations with Macmillan lasted just 80 minutes and he left with a smile on his face.He told reporters: "We don't have to wait until 1963." The British and Malaysian governments issued a joint statement on November 20, saying: "The main points of the agreement reached by the governments of Singapore and Malaysia on the issue of Singapore's merger with the Federation. Recorded with satisfaction." Why did the Tunku change his position? Macmillan had lied to him and actually promised him the three states of Borneo, pending the report of the Commission of Inquiry.

In Singapore, we put forward the main projects of the merger agreement in the Legislative Assembly through a white paper.The gist of it is: Greater Singapore will gain 15 seats in the lower house and two seats in the upper house. *624,000 Singapore citizens will not lose their state citizenship in Singapore.After the merger, they will automatically become nationals of the Grand Federation and receive the same passports as other nationals of the Grand Federation.They will enjoy equal rights, be equally protected, and have the same duties. *Singapore's free port status will be maintained.

*Command and control of the Singapore Government will remain as it is, with the Prime Minister and a cabinet of ministers appointed on his recommendation...Singapore's existing Legislative Assembly will continue to operate as the State Assembly, but will not have the power to make decisions on defense, foreign affairs, Laws on security and other federal matters. *Singapore will enjoy autonomy in education and labor policy while receiving greater reserved powers than other states in the federation. *Singapore will retain most state taxes. *The special status of Malays who become Singapore citizens will be guaranteed.

Orles is timid On November 20th, Ahmad Ibrahim filed a motion: "This House confirms that the primary goal of all true patriots in Malaya is to merge Singapore and the Federation of Malaya and reunite the two places." I panicked for a while.Seeing that the merger was accelerating and seemed unstoppable, they resorted to obstructive measures to delay the meeting.In two days, Dr. Li Shaozu spoke continuously for seven and a half hours.After talking for half an hour, he started talking nonsense.He has a group of writers who write a lot of repetitive and boring things in the opposition lounge, and then the Barisan MPs send them to the Chamber of Deputies and hand them over to him.Many times he couldn't even read what was written to him.We didn't know at the time what the point was of him deliberately delaying the meeting by a day or two, because we didn't have to meet any deadlines.In the end, Du Jincai, me and other ministers stood up and asked the speaker Sir Oleus whether we should let Dr. Li repeat it endlessly on procedural issues.But Oles was timid.To our amazement, the communists were able to intimidate him to such an extent that they relaxed the restrictions as much as possible, allowing the Barisan Barisan to drag the debate on.We decide that if we win the next election, we must elect a bold speaker. However, Dr. Li's lengthy speech made many good arguments buried in nonsense.One of his strongest arguments was that Singapore was not properly represented in the Federal Parliament in proportion to the number of voters.Singapore should have 25 to 30 seats in the 100-seat parliament, but it only got 15, he said.I explained that I asked for 19 seats and the Tunku was only willing to give 15 at most.Kuala Lumpur and Malacca are allotted only 15 seats. But the main difficulty I encountered was not with this, nor with the problem of full merging.The people of Singapore do not want to fully merge anyway, the main difficulty is the issue of citizenship.Dr. Li described that Federation married three wives in Borneo, and Singapore was not the fourth, but just a mistress.All children of mistresses were regarded as illegitimate children and could not enjoy federal citizenship.This argument hits home.The suspicion that "Malaysian nationals" are not the same as "Malaysian citizens" has caused great unease.This gave the Barisan Barisan an ideal point of contention to reinforce their already determined campaign of disruption. The debate was interrupted by the boycott of the HKCEE by Chinese secondary school students. l On January 29th, Li Jiongcai, political deputy minister of the Ministry of Education and governor of the ruling party, was stopped by student pickets outside the Ministry of Education and was unable to leave his office to attend a meeting of the Legislative Assembly.Rajah immediately moved a motion in the House asking the police to ensure that those who stop him are brought to justice.The motion passed with 43 votes in favor and 3 against; the Barisan Barisan let the pickets quietly disband.The incident started in June.At that time, the Minister of Education proposed to unify the examination system of English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, which was a change for Chinese school students.In the past, they could still go to high school if they failed the junior high school exam. Now we require them to pass the middle school diploma before they can take the advanced diploma.People influenced by the Communist Party began to oppose the new system. On November 27th and 28th, the incident reached its climax, when 300 people picketed outside the test center, holding hands to prevent other students from taking the exam. This is part of the confusion the communists managed to create.They want to make the Chinese school students take action, just like they did with Lim Yew Hock in the past.But we avoided using the police to break up the pickets.We tell all parents that if their children miss the union exam, they have to wait a year before they can take it again.We suggested that the police protect their children to break through the pickets to take the exams, and it turned out that 60% of the students took the exams.I didn't let the communists in like Lim You Hock did, they couldn't stir up the masses on this issue.Newspapers, including Chinese-language newspapers, published photos of police escorting parents and students.They pushed aside the pickets who were present.The pickets covered the lower half of their faces with handkerchiefs like gangsters, so as not to be photographed by the Political Department. I never allow communists to take advantage of issues such as Chinese language, education and culture.Chi and I have decided to educate our children in Chinese, which puts me in a good position to do so.In this way the communists will not be able to use this powerful weapon against me.They had to find other means, like targeting my middle-class background.But the emotional force that can be aroused by doing so is very different from portraying the enemy as destroying Chinese culture. On the issue of civil rights, though, their arguments were largely flimsy, and there was a vigorous pushback.Instead of calling for full merger, they emphasized that Singaporeans would be reduced to second-class citizens.I asked the Tunku to refute Barisan Barisan's suggestion that Kuala Lumpur has the power to decree that Singapore citizens automatically become federal citizens, and that would help matters.But the Tunku remained silent, that's why we encountered problems and had to ask Raja to dispatch multiple groups of people to convey our message. After 13 days of tedious and repetitive debates, the motion on the agreement items in the white paper was put to a vote on December 6.The result was 33 in support (including two Umno MPs, three MPs from the People's Alliance of Singapore and an independent MP), 18 absent and no opposition.I believe that since the Barisan Barisan had signaled their intention to merge, they found it more convenient to be absent than to vote against the agreement project. The second motion was debated on January 24, 1962, which was to support in principle the Tunku's proposal to establish a Federation of Malaysia consisting of 11 states in Malaya, Singapore and Brunei, as well as Sarawak and North Borneo. Voted on 30 January, 35 votes in favor (PAP, Umno, and Singapore People's Alliance), 13 votes against (Sositia Barisan), 3 abstentions (Ong Yong Yuan's People's United Party), Marshall and two other MPs were absent.