Major events of this period
The Straits Times, July 11, 1997Mr Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hongkong, was captured in print and on film fighting back unshed tears in his final public appearance at last month's ceremony to return the territory to China.
Cynics might say his sadness was due to the imminent loss of a "life support system" provided by those who cleaned his shoes or kept his things pressed. The Times of London reported that he was given "a 250,000 tax-free pay-off to soften the blow of his departure".
Despite the cynical noises, I don't really know if Mr Patten was on the verge of tears for less than noble reasons.
What I can state with some confidence is why someone else, 32 years ago, was, like Mr Patten, holding back tears and, like him too, had that lip-biting moment captured for posterity by the world's media.
SM Lee, then Prime Minister, in tears after the Separation. That someone was our Senior Minister, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, announcing that Singapore had been evicted from Malaysia, less than two years after joining the Federation.
Mr Lee's eyes brimmed with unshed tears, not because he and his people had been thrown off a comfortable ride or that, like the British in Hongkong, we had come to the pre-ordained end of the road.
Rather, his deep sadness arose, I believe, from the frustration at seeing a Malaysian Malaysia - embodying what was good and positive for all in that union - being aborted without having been given half a chance to work.
And all because the Central Government and Singapore had different approaches to solving "the problem of nation-building in a multi-racial and multi-religious society".
The words I've put in quotation marks come from a 65-page booklet of about 18,000 words long called Separation. It was published by the then Ministry of Culture soon after Singapore was "untimely ripped" from Malaysia.
Serendipitously, I came upon the booklet the other day while picking up after my part-time maid, whose idea of tidying the bookshelves is to put books of similar thickness and size together, irrespective of the subjects involved.
I discovered Separation sandwiched between American beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Back Road To Far Places and journalist Betty Khoo's Conversations with My Spirit Guide.
Separation, written as it was immediately after the event, is a rather raw account of Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia. The wound was too fresh for the Culture Ministry's compilers to adopt a diplomatic gloss over many of the contentious and sensitive aspects. Thus a spade is often called a spade.
The document is divided essentially into two parts.
The first part comprises Singapore's proclamation of independence, Malaysia's proclamation of the island state's secession, swearing to "always work in friendship and co-operation" with it and immediate events leading up to the bust-up.
The second part is an attempt to look at the strategic, economic and political implications of Singapore without Malaysia - and indeed Malaysia sans Singapore - but in effect it turns out to be mostly a compilation of contemporary press reports and opinions of the break-up.
However, short though the account is and flawed though it may appear to be to some - it lacks the perspective which time, according to some historians, is supposed to confer - Separation scores, in my view, because it speaks in a Singaporean voice about the very reason for the nation's existence.
Re-reading Separation proves to be instructive because, like most Singaporeans, my recall of the events of 1963 - 65 is hazy.
My excuse: I was a teenager when Singapore merged with Malaysia. When it was thrown out, I had barely turned 21. Not the best years for taking an interest in how the nation was being shaped, even if that shaping is as historic for us as the Civil War is for the Americans.
Given my copy of Separation in 1968 when I was briefly a civil servant, it made less impact than materials dealing with the re-organisation of the British bases as the British forces pulled out or the rationale for Singapore offering the flag of convenience to foreign-owned ships.
Almost 30 years on, however, the story assumes a new excitement because now I am keen to know how my country has come to be where it is. Further, Separation pricks me with a sense of deja vu in reverse.
The role it ascribes to Umno Youth in particular in bringing about the separation cannot but remind me of recent events vis-a-vis Singapore that involve the same movement.
Back in June 1965, Umno Youth passed a resolution that the Malaysian Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister not meet with Mr Lee to clear the air on certain basic differences between the central and the state governments, if he did not apologise to the Malays.
He was alleged to have insulted them because he was one of those "young men who want to rush things".
In the words of Tengku Abdul Rahman, "instead of doing what they want in a quiet and practical way, they tread on everybody's toes, knock everybody's head and bring about chaos, suspicion, misunderstanding, hatred and trouble".
There is much more in Separation, including the fact that as Singapore grappled with the Central Government, it had to face internal efforts to weaken and embarrass it, as the Hong Lim by-election forced by the resignation of Mr Ong Eng Guan was intended to do.
Instead, it became the ideal chance for voters to show their support for Mr Lee. However, only a first-hand reading of this document - if any copies are still in circulation - will yield the full flavour. A mere summary will not explain why Mr Lee almost cried.
First published in The Straits Times, July 11, 1997
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