Malays and Singapore's settler colonisation.

Has Singapore really been decolonised?  Or are we in another phase of colonisation?

Colonisation refers to the act of taking over and establishing control of an indigenous community’s land for the benefit of the colonising entity. 

The problem for us is the tendency to think of colonisation as acts done by the Western powers.  When the British, Dutch or Portuguese took over our land, we recognise their actions as colonisation.  

But when it is done by people from the East, we do not use the same term.  We are blinded by national proximity.

There are various types of colonisation.  There are settler colonialism, exploitation colonialism, plantation colonialism and others.

America, Australia, Brazil (and other Latin American states) were colonised by settlers.  The colonisers set up structures to allow them to live permanently in these lands.

Veracini (2013) explains that settler colonialism is a condition where “colonisers ‘come to stay’ and to establish new political orders for themselves, rather than to exploit native labour…”. 

Gareth Knapman (2021) argued that we should understand British colonisation in Singapore and their destruction of the Malay socio-political structure as reflective of a settler colonial system.  He further suggested that the tension of settler colonialism was only eased when the British took over the sovereignty of Singapore from the Sultan.

The problem with our current understanding of colonialism is that we train our lens only on the west. 

But why?

We know that there was an existing political system in Singapore prior to the British dismantling of the Malay political structure. 

And yet, what happened when the British left?  Did sovereignty revert to the Malays? Or did another set of settler colonisers take over?

We need to remember that the Chinese community did not initially migrate to Singapore to be Singaporeans. Or to be Malaysians. They did not attempt to be part of the existing society.  

Their initial intention was economic and for some, it was exploitative.  The Chinese leaders exploited the resources found within Malay land.  Their intention was to extract resources, create wealth for themselves and their community and return to China.

These are the exact characteristics of colonialism.

When the British left our shores, they did not return the land to its indigenous owners.  Instead, they chose another group of setter colonialists to take over.

Lee Kuan Yew and his group were chosen by the British because they were ideologically acceptable to the British colonial officers. Like the British, Lee Kuan Yew was a colonial settler.

We know that Singapore is a Sinified Malay land.  

As Veracini stated, settler colonialists “establish a new society that replicates the original one (without its perceived shortcoming)... premised on the possibility of controlling and dominating indigenous peoples”.

The PAP has declared Singapore's ideology as Confucianism.

The PAP has declared that they will maintain the Chinese numerical majority.

The PAP has declared that the Chinese are culturally superior to the other races and will remain leaders of the government.

Singapore has not been decolonised. 

We merely changed one set of colonial settlers for another.

References:

Knapman, Gareth. "Settler colonialism and usurping Malay sovereignty in Singapore." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 52.3 (2021): 418-440.

Veracini, Lorenzo. "‘Settler colonialism’: Career of a concept." The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 41.2 (2013): 313-333.