Speaking Truth to Power: Singapore’s Pioneer Public Servants ed. by Loke Hoe Yeong (review)

This collection of edited transcripts of oral history interviews of Singapore’s top civil servants may be read one of two ways. Plausibly, it is a look at governance from the vantage point of eleven bureaucrats who had commandeered the departments or agencies of economic, judicial, urban, diplomatic, healthcare, and cultural affairs. This was what editor Loke Hoe Yeong had in mind with the evocative title. He also compared the book with Lee’s Lieutenants: Singapore’s Old Guard (ed. Lam Peng Er & Kevin YL Tan), which examined the roles played by Lee Kuan Yew’s ministerial colleagues, though it was based on academic research and not oral history.

In this light, Speaking Truth to Power contains interesting accounts of matters such as the independence of the civil service (especially the judiciary) from political interference, of difficult initial relations with the People’s Action Party government, of controversial policies (such as abortion), and of the process of Malayanisation in what was originally a colonial administration. I read with pleasure JY Pillay expressing how proud he was to have been a civil servant.

However, as a text on governance, the edited interview transcripts have some shortcomings. A number of civil servants spoke about being intimidated or in awe—at least initially—of the Prime Minister of Singapore. Winston Choo’s transcript was virtually an account of his minister, Dr Goh Keng Swee. This is not totally a bad thing as Goh did not write his memoirs before he passed away, but Choo’s memories are largely impressionistic.

The choice of civil servants in the book is also narrow, restricted to the highest echelon of administrators. At least one good interview has not been included: that of the late Chief Fire Officer, Arthur Lim Beng Lock, who had interesting things to say about urban renewal. Of the eleven bureaucrats selected, four—Ngiam Tong Dow, Chan Chin Bock, Tommy Koh, and Alan Choe—have/had written their memoirs or spoken publicly about their professional life. There is only one woman among the men—Hedwig Anuar, Director of the National Library; her transcript begins with an account of gender discrimination in the civil service. There are also no civil servants who had strongly disagreed with or fallen afoul of the government.

The second way of reading the book—as a source of oral history—is arguably more interesting. The transcripts offer a way of doing history away from (or at least, in addition to) the archive. This is especially salient in the Singapore context, where the state archives largely remain classified. This approach takes us to questions such as: What did the civil servants relate, or not relate? What new things did they tell us about Singapore in the last 60 years? How far and in what ways did the oral histories depart from the official record? How does official oral history differ from social oral history?

The gold standard for official oral history in Singapore would be Melanie Chew’s book, Leaders of Singapore. In his interview transcript there, Dr Goh had said, ‘Now I am going to let you into what has been a state secret up to now’. He pulled out an archival file, which he called ‘Albatross’, before telling her— too briefly—that he had secretly worked with Malaysian leaders Tun Razak and Dr Ismail to separate Singapore from Malaysia. Was there a comparable interview among the civil servants?

The question is difficult to answer within the limits of a book review, but we can address it briefly from several angles. The oral histories in the present book were conducted by the National Archives of Singapore (specifically the Oral History Unit/Department/Centre), mostly in the 1990s and thereafter; the exception is Goh Koh Pui’s interview from 1983. Generally, the Archives’ interviewees were adequately prepared, perhaps overly so, for their questions seemed to be ticking off a list of policy milestones and personal accomplishments. While...