Imagining Malaya, practising multiculturalism : the Malayan consciousness of Singapore Chinese intellectuals in the 1950s

• Main Author: Quah, Sy Ren
• Other Authors: School of Humanities
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Humanities::Language::Chinese; Malayan Consciousness; Multiculturalism
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/143722
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Singapore in the 1950s had undergone a series of transitions, from 150 years of British colonial rule, followed by Japanese Occupation in the Second World War, to the anti-colonial independence movement, and presented a multifaceted, complex and active state in all social, political and cultural aspects. The Chinese intellectual circle as a community mainly comprised teachers, students, alumni, etc, of the Chinese middle schools established after the War, and intellectuals from the cultural sphere and press industry. This community played an important role in the anti-colonial resistance and movements throughout the 1950s. In the historical context of the struggle for autonomy and independence, the Chinese intellectuals in Singapore—originally as part of Malaya—were promoters and activists in the construction of the imagination of a Malayan nation, as part of the wave of post-colonial struggles and movements taking place in colonies around the world after the War. As such, how the Chinese intellectuals of that period embraced multiculturalism as a mean of practice, to participate in the imagination of a Malayan nation, is a topic worth revisiting.