Kah Seng Loh, Edgar Liao, Cheng Tju Lim, and Guo Quan Seng. The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya: Tangled Strands of Modernity. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2013. 347 pp.

• Main Author: Yean, Soon Chuan
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2014
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/stjgs/vol2/iss2/5; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/stjgs/article/1056/viewcontent/ST_202.2_205_20Book_20review_20__20Yean.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Excerpt: The main thesis of the book is this: There are “tangled strands” of modernity between the state (Malaya, but more of Singapore/People’s Action Party) and the socialist groups in the post-colonial Malaya and Singapore. !e contest and convergence for being “modern” in the aftermath of independence (or separation of Singapore from Malaya) directs the book’s narratives and description for an alternative Malayan historiography. !e authors’ frame of analysis is clear: Most, if not all, political actors—whether they are the British, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Lee Kuan Yew, Dr. Poh Soo Kai, Lim Ching Siong, or many others—were engaging in a politics of nation-building in its most rationalist sense, a realpolitik using strategies and apparatuses for power. Power in this aspect refers to both the structural construction of the state in lieu of Singapore’s quest for industrialization, as well as the making of Singapore’s history (a power relation at the discursive level). Modernity is conceptualized as a quest for upgrading the quality of life of citizens within the nation, based on “post-Enlightenment and rationalist principles” (210)—namely, development, either based on the Fabian-welfarist-capitalist orientation or on socialist ones.