An exhibition and launching ceremony for this book
We created a series of the panels using nostalgia radio during the era to portrait the content of the book, the radio talks.
The exhibition journey starts from a gigantic version of the book.
Laid out over several panels, the exhibition featured audio recordings of Mr Lee’s radio broadcasts, spread over 12 different “Talks”, as well as key artefacts preserved during that period.
Each of the panels were shaped like an old-school radio, with audio recordings that you can listen to, and key highlights of each talk laid out in text. Photographs of the different players were also displayed.
These original artefacts were never displayed before. The three hand-written documents in Chinese were determined to be written by Lim Chin Siong after careful handwriting analysis by forensic chemists despite being signed with a different pseudonym.
A closer look at the faded and mottled document, circa 1953-1954, which was later deduced to be a note which Lim Chin Siong made of a talk he gave in commemoration of the death of Stalin. The talk was made to his immediate subordinates in the Anti-British League cell.
Some of the books you can read about the “Merger” era, written and published by authors both for and against the PAP-led government. The idea here is to make available all the facts, perspectives and views surrounding this issue so that readers can decide for themselves.
For some of the panels, infographics (ala social media age) were used. Reading through this panel, I learned that the PAP then was in imminent danger of losing its seat in Parliament as large numbers of cadre members and unionists defected from the party to join their communist sympathetic counterparts.
A closer view of the action then. 82 unions switched allegiance from the PAP to Barisan Sosialis, while 33 of the 51 PAP branches changed sides. Perhaps the only person who believed that the PAP would prevail then was LKY himself.
The sentiment of the day can be captured by this quote from Mr Lee:
“But we knew that there were severe trials ahead of us. And it was better to face these trials with men who are prepared to face up to them.”
Through multi-media screens like this, the story behind individual incidents could be presented. What appeared to be just a car crash in Katong was actually deemed to be the work of communist terrorists in 1974.
This chart showed that almost a million man-days were lost due to strikes in the mid 1950s. According to Mr Lee, many of these were initiated by unionists working in cahoots with the pro-Communist cadres led by Lim Chin Siong and his allies.
Quoting once again from his speech:
“The Communists always do this. Exploit a real or imaginary grievance through cadres and sympathisers not generally known to be connected to them. We will always view with sympathy any genuine unhappiness of the English school teachers over the six-day week (a response to strikes by teachers initiated by the Singapore Teachers Union), but we cannot be expected to view with sympathy the efforts of pro-Communist cadres to heat up and exploit this unhappiness.”
This panel narrating Mr Lee’s final talk outlining the vision for Singapore if it were to merge with Malaya. It was the pièce de résistance which helped seal the fate of PAP’s Communist-leaning opponents.
Hearing it once again in Mr Lee’s forceful and direct voice:
“You judge the truth for yourselves from what I have said, and also what the persons involved have not been able to deny. You will notice that yesterday, October 8, these persons about whom I had told you in disclosing the Communist conspiracy have only said that all this is a smear. What we want to ask them is: which particular part or statement in any one of my talks is untrue and therefore just a smear?”
This final panel details a key timeline of the events, outlining the historical contexts behind Communism and its spread across the Asian sub-continent.
in English, Mandarin and Malay from the National Archives of Singapore:
