A crucial twenty-four hours in Singapore's history : the May 13th incident from the students' perspective

• Main Author: Ng, Alessia Hui Qin
• Other Authors: Chen Song-Chuan
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69742
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This essay hopes to examine the May 13th Incident of 1954 through the perspective of the Chinese students in Singapore, who participated in the May 13th Incident, which is also known as the National Service Riots of 1954. It seeks to fill in the gap in existing literature, which mostly attributes the Incident to specific ideologies – Communism or Anti-colonialism. I will do so by approaching the event from a humanistic perspective, through the understanding of the participants’ intentions and emotions – in particular, during the twenty-four hours of 13 May 1954. This will be achieved through the interweaving of oral accounts from the participants as well as English and Chinese newspaper reports that detail the event. The essay essentially aims to re-visit this fateful day through the eyes of the Chinese students and sets out to encourage a re-think of the Incident.