Singapore Stories: Language, Class, and the Chinese of Singapore, ...

discourse as the age of European empires drew to a close. It is widely recognised in Singapore’s broader historiography that many within the Chinese-medium schools looked to Mao’s victory over the Nationalists in 1949 for inspiration in the class struggle that, in their opinion, was taking place in Singapore. ⁵¹

The Chinese-language communities were not alone in their labour towards independence. Key figures among the local English-literate upper middle class saw their opportunity in the grab for power, ⁵² while from abroad, members of the English-educated intelligentsia began to return with plans and hopes for a Singapore free of its colonial yoke. “Returnees” educated in the United Kingdom, such as Toh Chin Chye, Goh Keng Swee, and Lee Kuan Yew, sought to establish their credentials in the political cauldron of the day. Regardless of their backgrounds, one consistency was clear to all parties: the key to political power, especially after the passing of the Citizenship Ordinance in 1957, which gave voting rights to a mass of non-English-literate Chinese, would rest on gaining the vote of the numerically dominant Chinese speaker. ⁵³

By 1953, a small group of English-literate middle- and upper-middle-class acquaintances soon began meeting on a regular basis in Lee’s bungalow to discuss Singapore’s political future after the empire. ⁵⁴ As Michael Barr observes, what would eventually become the People’s Action Party (PAP) was in fact a gathering of two ideologies. There were the technocrats, with Toh Chin Chye, Goh Keng Swee, S. Rajaratnam, K. M. Byrne, and Lee himself on the one hand; on the other were the English-educated pro-Communists, such as S. Woodhull, James Puthucheary, Samad Ismail, Devan Nair, and Jamit Singh. ⁵⁵

Despite being infused with considerable talent, the group lacked an obvious appeal to the numerically dominant Chinese Left, especially to the influential Chinese middle schools and trade unions. Goh Keng Swee would relate to Dennis Bloodworth of The Observer, “If we formed a new political party and could get the Chinese-educated Chinese on our side, we would have a winning combination”. ⁵⁶ Hence, keen to avoid portraying themselves as merely “white men in a yellow man’s skin”, ⁵⁷