Flammable Cities: Urban Conflagration and the Making of the Modern World

14. The Politics of Singapore’s Fire Narrative

14 The Politics of Singapore’s Fire Narrative N H. K The Bukit Ho Swee fire of May 25, 1961, holds a special place in the lore of modern Singapore. Although small fires broke out all too frequently in urban communities overcrowded with self-made wooden structures, this conflagration was epic in scale: it leveled an entire community of sixteen thousand people, forcing a newly ascendant government to account for their needs. Typical histories paint this devastating fire as an important ordeal for the newly installed People’s Action Party (PAP), a “major undertaking” that “tested the full machinery of the government.”1 If PAP leaders failed to care for the homeless, if they took a long-term approach to Bukit Ho Swee residents’ needs, they would appear little better than the British colonial officers who had preceded them; likewise competing political factions would undoubtedly hold the PAP accountable for poor crisis management. Fortunately, PAP leaders passed the unexpected test with flying colors; party leaders proved themselves both extraordinarily effective and compassionate in this literal trial by fire. “Believe it or not,” one Ministry of Culture film crowed, the PAP successfully transformed charred ruins into rows of orderly, modern public-housing flats in nine months.2 What further proof did the people need that the PAP could capably lead the city through politically and economically uncertain times? 295 Yet this simple story unravels in the details. First, urban fires were hardly unusual in this Southeast Asian island town. Much like other entrepôt cities that required large numbers of unskilled laborers to live in concentrated centers, Singapore had cheap, roughly constructed shelter clustered around the Singapore River near the quays. Not surprisingly given the limited resources of unskilled laborers and the inconsistent access to water and cooking fuel, self-made homes burned quickly and often.3 Bukit Ho Swee itself burned repeatedly, most notably again in 1968. If large fires raged before and after 1961, did that year truly mark a watershed in Singaporean history, a pivotal moment when the PAP earned the trust of most residents and began building what would become an unquestionably wellmanaged city (and after 1965, nation)? Or—more likely—did the fire belong in a longer historical trajectory of housing reform and regulation beginning with the preventative measures instituted by the colonial agency, the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT)? A second sticking point arises in the PAP’s decidedly unwelcome stance vis-à-vis any public debate about housing form and finance. PAP leaders like Lee Kuan Yew reduced a rich variety of housing options to the simplistic binary of old “traditional” urban “slums” versus modern publichousing units designed by the Housing and Development Board (HDB).4 The HDB repressed those who disagreed, eventually putting architects like Tay Kheng Soon to flight and forcibly removing reluctant families.5 These less savory incidents clash with the image of a grateful public rehoused by a generous, well-established ruling party. Third, the history of the fire brigade remains nearly totally absent from a story at base about flammable buildings, devastating fires, and rescues. If the PAP intended to end vulnerability to fire, why did it focus so single-mindedly on rehousing, leaving, for instance, the modernization of the Singapore Fire Brigade, sprinkler installation, and emergency traffic management on the back burner until the early 1970s? Why have the heroic actions of firefighters been nearly erased from historical recollections of 1961? Although firefighters fought impossible odds carrying malfunctioning hoses attached to erratic hydrants, although they wrestled with unruly looters, burned themselves trying to squelch jumping flames, and worked with police to cordon off the area amid total mayhem, they did not sit in the limelight afterward. Instead, the stark image of the Yang-di-Pertuan Negara and Prime Minister Lee, both dressed from head to toe in white, remain vivid in the national imagination and in nearly every history of the time period. Fireman Jaafar bin Sidek’s hand blisters and burn marks mean nothing to most.6 The Bukit Ho Swee fire narrative offered by the PAP cannot be swallowed whole, then, but rather should be scrutinized as a political event birthed amid 296 N H. K intense anxieties over regime change. The PAP became particularly adept at using fire narratives—stories explaining the origins and resolution of fire disasters—to cement political authority. When the PAP assumed power in 1959, one of its top priorities was...