Still left: Ex-political detainee Poh Soo Kai’s political memoir

by Kwan Jin Yao

THERE is no “standard” or “official” account of Singapore’s history imposed on visitors of National Heritage Board (NHB) exhibitions, Minister of Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu said in Parliament on Thursday, adding that the NHB “takes an objective approach in its curation invites visitors to examine different perspectives and engage in critical thinking.”

She was responding to Workers’ Party Secretary-General Low Thia Khiang, who had a day earlier called for these NHB exhibitions to present different interpretations of history, and these moves will also “reduce students’ and parents’ perceptions of using history as government propaganda.”

Could Ms Fu’s remarks then be applied to historical narratives, even those which may provide counter-balances to ‘The Singapore Story’?

Launched earlier this year on February 13, Living In A Time Of Deception offers one of these perspectives. Penned by ex-political detainee Poh Soo Kai, he offers a first-hand account of his involvement during the anti-colonial movement in the 1950s and 60s, premised upon archival materials and newspapers, memoirs of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, as well as his own memory. Using these documentary references is “necessary” – in the words of historian, Hong Lysa, one of two editors of the book, in the introductory chapter – because “[Dr Poh] is practically overturning the received wisdoms of the [People’s Action Party (PAP)] Story.”

Comet In Our Sky: Lim Chin Siong In History was published in 2001, and it is one of the many books about the events of the 1950s and 1960s which Dr Poh referred to in his 408-page political memoir. In addition, he was also an editor for The 1963 Operation Coldstore In Singapore: Commemorating 50 Years, a book documenting the joint Malaya-Singapore operation which saw the arrest of 113 Barisan Sosialis party and labour union leaders, including Mr Lim and Dr Poh.

Dr Poh – a former Assistant Secretary General of the Barisan Sosialis – disputed the official report which stated that those who were arrested were “hard core organisers [or] collaborators of the Communist conspiracy,” with “armed struggle” remaining a threat.

The maternal grandson of businessman and philanthropist Tan Kah Kee, he presented a chronological account to challenge the “monolithic PAP story”. In this regard, I thought the most poignant chapters came towards the end of his book, when Dr Poh detailed his 17 years of detention – from February 1963 to December 1973 (11 years) and June 1976 to August 1982 (six years) – and its impact on his personal life.

And his emotional reflections highlighted concerns over “solitary confinement, detention without trial without any recourse for effective review, and the importance of having lawyers willing and able to argue their client’s case without concern for extra-legal constraints”, all in relation to the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance (PPSO), which is now the Internal Security Act (ISA).

Besides his addition to the criticisms of the PPSO and the ISA, there were two further instances in which Dr Poh challenged the prevailing narrative.

The first was when Mr Lim, then a trade union leader, was detained in 1956 under the PPSO as a suspected Communist subversive. Then Minister of education Chew Swee Kee condemned then PAP politician, Mr Lim – during a PAP rally in Beauty World – for calling upon those in attendance to pah mata, or to beat up the police. But historian Thum Ping Tjin has uncovered a transcript of the speech delivered in Hokkien in the United Kingdom Archives, which found that Mr Lim had actually “called the crowd which was hostile to the authorities not to pah mata.”

“Lee did not expose Chew Swee Kee’s lie when it was uttered in the legislature,” Dr Poh wrote. “It is obvious that he was not going to stop Lim Chin Siong from being imprisoned on false charges.”

The second challenge was Dr Poh’s alleged visit to Masai in Johor to treat an injured bomber, which was cited as the reason for his second arrest in 1976. “We were supposed to have driven across the two immigration checks at the Causeway in two separate cars, one following the other, stealthily and dramatically, in the middle of the night,” he said at the speech last month. “Evidence from immigration records could easily have proven whether we did go or not. But the evidence was never produced.” This whole story is “pure fabrication”, he added.

Besides these disputes with ‘The Singapore Story’, Dr Poh documented his foray into activism through the University Socialist Club of the University of Malaya. He described the undergraduate paper, Fajar, as reflecting “an important strand of left-wing political thinking”, and how an publication of its editorial Aggression in Asia – which criticised the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation – led to the arrest of eight editorial board members, including Dr Poh. It was also his first encounter with Mr Lee, who offered to be counsel pro bono for the editorial board.

Dr Poh went on to become a founding member of the PAP.

To complement these narratives, perhaps a broader explanation of his socialism – as “a natural extension of being anti-colonial” – would have been enlightening. How has it influenced his socio-political perspectives, and have they shifted over time? Dr Poh conceded that Marxism “does not supply ready textbook answers for how to resist it or overcome the capitalist system”.  For me, it would have been interesting to hear how he has made sense of Singapore’s development over the years. Does he agree with the progress made, or the contributions of Mr Lee? What have we lost in the process of capitalistic modernisation?

There is a brilliant chapter in The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye titled “Days of August”, which imagines a Singapore under Mr Lim. What would Dr Poh make of it, and has he imagined a Singapore under Mr Lim? These musings of mine are – to be fair – beyond the context of a historical memoir, yet for a young Singaporean thinking about the past and the future, views like these can help shape the trajectory for our next 50 years.

The contents of Living In A Time Of Deception will be disputed, as previous publications have been, by the G. But the declassification of previously confidential and secret records of the British colonial authorities, revisionist historical accounts, as well as demands for more primary documents to be made available, would encourage greater discourse about our collective past – and not necessarily in a disruptive manner.

One of Dr Poh’s reasons for writing the book was because he felt he owed “the younger generation [of Singaporeans] a duty to leave a record of our country’s history.” If so, his endeavour has encouraged at least one young Singaporean to pay greater attention to the oft-conflicting claims from different sides, thereby ensuring that his understanding of the past will be more nuanced, and a little more complete.

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LKY in Dr Poh Soo Kai’s Living In A Time Of Deception

In his political memoir, Living In A Time Of Deception, ex-political detainee Poh Soo Kai characterised the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew as “more than a political pimp” and described his alleged “betrayal and treachery”. Here are seven excerpts from the book:

1. Dr Poh first met Mr Lee when the former – along with eight editorial board members of Fajar, a publication by the University Socialist Club (USC) of the University of Malaya – was charged with sedition in 1954. Like Dr Poh, Sandrasegaran (Sidney) Woodhull, who is referred to in the excerpt, was a founding member of the USC.

“We then turned to the club’s honorary legal advisor, Lee Kuan Yew … Harry, as Lee was known in those days, had earlier offered to be an honorary legal adviser to the USC through Woodhull, who was his drinking partner. I told Woodhull that we could not afford to pay, and Harry’s service came gratis. Lee remained a name on paper as, until then, we did not have legal issues that needed his advice.

After the face-off with [David Marshall], we contacted him. Harry was practically pacing up and down his office, waiting for our call. He was prepared to act pro bono for not just the ‘Fajar’ editorial board but subsequently for the seven Chinese middle school students who had been found guilty of obstruction of the police from performing their duties as well. He was keen to present himself as an anti-colonialist, for he had political ambitions and was aware of the sentiments from the ground; he had to connect with the energy of a potential mass movement to make any headway.”

2. On February 2, 1963, Dr Poh was arrested in Operation Coldstore. He would spend a total of 17 years in prison without trial.

“When I was detained in Operation Coldstore, involvement in the USC was one of the allegations stated in the order of detention served on me. It specified that the USC was a pro-communist organisation, and that I was chairman of the editorial board of ‘Fajar’, a pro-communist journal.

I retorted at my representation to the ISA Advisory Board in 1965 that sedition charges against me were thrown out by the court, and that Lee Kuan Yew was then my defence lawyer. It was indeed a farcical situation. But it was no laughing matter.”

3. Then Minister of Education Chew Swee Kee, in 1956, condemned then People’s Action Party (PAP) politician Lim Chin Siong – during a PAP rally in Beauty World – for calling upon those in attendance to pah mata, or to beat up the police. But historian Thum Ping Tjin has uncovered a transcript of the speech delivered in Hokkien in the United Kingdom Archives.

“[Historian Thum Ping Tjin’s] find has exposed the duplicity of the Lim Yew Hock government, but also the betrayal of Lee Kuan Yew, who with Toh Chin Chye and Devan Nair, was on the same stage when Lim Chin Siong made the speech. Moreover, Lee did not expose Chew Swee Kee’s lie when it was uttered in the legislature. It is obvious that he was not going to stop Lim Chin Siong from being imprisoned on false charges.

But that is not all. Chew Swee Kee would not have dared to make the statement in the Legislative Assembly that Lim called for the crowd to beat up the police had he not been certain that Lee Kuan Yew could not challenge the statement. Lee thus must have been in a plot with Chew Swee Kee and Lim Yew Hock to remove Lim Chin Siong from the political stage and the constitutional talks, and in a larger context, to cripple the left-wing movement through the mass arrests that begun on 18 September 1956.”

4. After the Second Constitutional Talks in March 1957, where delegates accepted an internal security council and Clause 30 – which banned political detainees from standing for elections – Mr Lee was challenged by David Marshall to a by-election on the proposed constitution.

Mr Lee’s centrepiece during the Tanjong Pagar by-election campaign was firm opposition to Clause 30. But Dr Poh contended that the British archives reveal “irrefutably that [Mr Lee] had come up with the anti-subversion clause.” 

“The wise and worldly would quip that ‘politics is dirty’ and Lee’s ‘tricks up his sleeve’ are just typical of what politicians do to get and stay in power as their political opponents are not above such moves themselves. However, Lee’s ‘tricks up his sleeves’ were played, no less, on his own party members. As a former member of the PAP, I see it as nothing short of a betrayal and a treachery.

Most despicable of Lee’s ‘tricks up his sleeves’ is his betrayal of the trust of the people of Tanjong Pagar who returned Lee Kuan Yew in the by-election on the platform of ‘accept[ing] the constitution and reject[ing] the clause’ as Lee himself put it in his campaign. He had been the person most ostentatiously critical of the draft constitutions.

Yet even Lee himself knew that such sophistry made his Tanjong Pagar by-election campaign and his abetting with the Lim Yew Hock government to arrest the left, in particular the fabrication of a ‘Pah Mata‘ speech, a display of his utter contempt for the people, which was unacceptable. Otherwise, he would not have had to keep covering up his ‘tricks’ all his life, a job that his successors have continued to do.”

5. In a reply in the Legislative Assembly in 1962, Mr Lee made reference to Mr Lim’s attire of a polka-dotted silken scarf and a coat imputing, in words of Dr Poh, “that the unionists were communists, who were passing themselves off as defenders of democracy”. The attire, according to Mr Lee, was “not becoming of a representative of the workers, students, rural dwellers, and professional organisations.”

“Aside from Chin Siong himself, I am likely to be the only person who knows what was behind Chin Siong’s unusual attire that day. At the time, Chin Siong was staying with me as he had found that intruders had broken into his rented room without leaving any trace of their visit. We were afraid that they might plant false evidence the next time.

One morning as he was setting off for a meeting at the Legislative Assembly, my wife Grace commented that he and his friends should take a break from their routine white shirt and pants. She handed him one of my cravats. Without hesitating, Chin Siong put it on. He and I immediately realised that it worked as a political statement: that he was not just the leader of peasants and proletariat, but could also appeal to middle classes. Not many of his comrades would have been as open and confident as Chin Siong was in readily putting on an item of dress which marked the English-speaking upper middle class circles. This message was evidently not lost on Lee.”

6. Dr Poh was critical of merger, how the referendum was conducted, as well as the moves towards separation. He said Tunku Abdul Rahman – Malaya’s first Prime Minister – best summarised Mr Lee’s role in “rushing in and out of Malaysia” when the Tunku wrote in his memoir, Looking Back: Monday Musings and Memories, published in 1977: “Mr Lee Kuan Yew: The friend who had worked so hard to found Malaysia and even harder to break it up.” 

“Lee Kuan Yew’s television broadcast breaking the news of Separation to the people of Singapore, complete with tears, has been replayed ad nauseam to emphasise the profound trauma he suffered at Singapore’s ‘expulsion’ from Malaysia. He declared with emotion:

‘For me it is a moment of anguish because all my life … I have believed in merger and the unity of these two territories.’

Yet nothing in either the path towards merger, or Singapore’s Malaysia years indicated that he had even remotely cherished a concept of unity of Singapore and Malaya. The tears he shed were at best tears of relief. He had managed to rush out of Malaysia with British support intact, and his political opponents locked away.”

7. Dr Poh’s wife, Grace, was arrested and interrogated following the ‘Masai episode’. It was reported then that the couple had travelled to Masai in Johor to treat an injured bomber, an account which Dr Poh described as “pure fabrication”. 

“The buck stops at Lee Kuan Yew. I had called him a political pimp in our 1973 joint press statement for his pro-Western policy. I was attacking his politics. But he was more than a political pimp when he attacked me through my wife.

Grace and I were both too badly hurt for our marriage to survive.

Our divorce was finalised in 1992, after the requisite period of three years of separation.

I cannot pretend that it no longer hurts. It still does very much.

But I do not feel humiliated.

I refuse to be destroyed.

It is the pimp who should have been ashamed and made accountable. And so should those who sat at his feet, and who continue to repeat his lies, defending the use of the Internal Security Act.”

 

Featured image book sale loot by Flickr user Ginny. CC BY-SA 2.0. 

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The post Still left: Ex-political detainee Poh Soo Kai’s political memoir appeared first on The Middle Ground.

- Jin Yao Kwan