Squatters into Citizens: The 1961 Bukit Ho Swee Fire and the Making of Modern Singapore

Chapter 10: Memory, Myth and Identity

Memory, Myth and Identity 243 243 10 Memory, Myth and Identity In 2006 Ng Hoot Seng, a Chinese cobbler in his seventies working in the Tanjong Katong area, had on the sides of his shoe rack historical photographs of Singapore, including an image of men hauling away cupboards from the Bukit Ho Swee fire. Ng, who had gone along to watch the spectacle that day, recalled that the blaze was impossible to fight because the wooden houses were too closely built together. There were unsubstantiated rumours of the fire’s cause. The photographs, Ng said, would help his customers know about Singapore ’s history.1 The mix of history, memory and identity in this author’s chance encounter with Ng provides a useful starting point for discussing the three myths of the Bukit Ho Swee fire that came to define the shape of belief about modernity in Singapore. The first myth, powerfully invoked by the People’s Action Party government, depicts Bukit Ho Swee rising triumphantly, like the proverbial phoenix, from the ashes of the fire, an account generally accepted by fire victims and the public at large. This belief coexists with the myth of the harmonious kampong, revealing a deep sense of personal loss among elderly Singaporeans of their identity and historical agency. The final myth is the unwritten “countermyth” of the inferno, of the rumours of government-inspired arson — what James Scott calls “hidden transcripts” — circulating in the private sphere and countering the official myth over the meaning of modernity in Singapore.2 1 Author’s interview with Ng Hoot Seng, 18 Oct. 2006. 2 James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). 244 Squatters into Citizens The nostalgia and rumours were the last traces of a more autonomous way of life in the 1950s. It was in striving to remember critical or unmentionable pasts and speaking of them in social circles that former kampong dwellers also sustained their historical social autonomy. Like a Rising Phoenix: The Official Mythology To speak of the officially sanctioned myth of the Bukit Ho Swee fire is not to treat it as a historical fabrication but to demonstrate how the inferno became a metaphor for the progress of Singapore under the PAP government. The myth constitutes a celebratory account of success, which forms the template for the official narrative of the city-state’s history, the Singapore Story. It is a selective account that leaves out the contested history of rehousing before and after the fire, including the rumours of government-inspired arson and the dissatisfaction of many fire victims with the Housing and Development Board flats. Illustration 10.1 Ng Hoot Seng and his photographs of the Bukit Ho Swee fire, 2006. Photograph by author Memory, Myth and Identity 245 The official myth first emerged in public consciousness in the 1960s, when Singapore was depicted as a showcase state for both international and local audiences. Foreign dignitaries visiting Singapore were frequently given on-site tours of the HDB’s estates or construction sites, showing how a modern city was being built in place of “insanitary” and “dangerous” settlements. A number of Asian leaders, accompanied by HDB officials, viewed the ongoing construction at the Bukit Ho Swee fire site in 1961–62. In addition, the use of photographs to convey positive messages on the state of modernity in Singapore was instrumental to the creation of the myth. Photographs taken by the Royal Air Force (and subsequently the Republic of Singapore Air Force) before and after the 1961 fire reinforced this image of HDB’s public housing programme. The aerial photographs, while useful for public exhibitions, also provided vital topographical information on unauthorised housing and enabled the HDB to plan future clearance programmes. In early 1963, Chief Architect Teh Cheang Wan ordered the various stages of the Board’s construction work to be photographed.3 The images produced were used later in the year in an international conference in Berlin to highlight Singapore ’s recent industrial and housing achievements and promote its tourism industry. In 1970, aerial photographs of Bukit Ho Swee and Tiong Bahru Estates provided the HDB with vital information on the “extensive slums around the housing estates”.4 These images facilitated the Board’s clearance of the remaining unauthorised wooden housing at Covent Garden, on Kim Seng Road, and in the southern part of Si Kah Teng near the...