Asia Times: RAFFLES, OLD BOY Sun sets on the 'the sons of Singapore'


	November 11, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

RAFFLES, OLD BOY
Sun sets on the 'the sons of Singapore'
By Tay Kok Yat

Sport is said to be war in practice. The Battle of Waterloo, after all, "was won on the playing fields of Eton". For Singapore's premier school, Raffles Institution, its recent poor performance in its trademark sport of rugby is a mirror image of the sad state of affairs in the wider arena of national politics.

For the past 10 years, Raffles alumnus Goh Chok Tong has been seen as an appointee prime minister in the one-party state of Singapore, which is well-known for its phenomenal economic success gained at the expense of developing democratic institutions. Next year, it is rumored, Goh will step down to make way for Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 48, the son of Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, to fill the role that he has been groomed for since boyhood.

It upsets Raffles Institution alumni no end to hear it being said that Old Boy Goh is a mere seat warmer for the younger Lee. But what cannot be denied is that Goh, even as prime minister, has not been at the center of power, whether in affairs of state or in the ruling People's Action Party.

What, then, is bugging Old Rafflesians? Is it mere nostalgia for the colonial past? The school was founded in 1823 by none other than Sir Stamford Raffles, the British colonial founder of Singapore itself. It has a long, proud tradition of producing Singapore's ruling and administrative elite. And in true British tradition, sport - in particular rugby - was seen as a vital part of a character-building education.

Rugby became Raffles Institution's "religion". Now, the school is suffering the same decline on the rugby field as its alumni in Singapore politics. Such is the impact of the double whammy that even non-sportsmen, non-politicians and non-Rafflesians are drawing a link between rugby and politics. It is no longer just a matter for social banter.

The school's performance on the playing field has reached a nadir after a 15-year decline. Its main rival, the Anglo Chinese School - not historically a rugby or political nursery in the Raffles mould - provided both teams in the latest championship finals (a classic win-win situation). Raffles did not even make it to the semifinals, stopped in its tracks in one instance by novices in the sport, Chinese High School.

Perhaps Raffles Institution has never recovered from the initial blow to its psyche - the demolition in 1969 of its original school complex on Bras Basah Road. That was where Sir Stamford laid the foundation stone in 1823. Since the demolition of its original home, the school has led a gypsy existence, moving three times so far.

For Rafflesians, the bitter pill is more difficult to swallow since across the road from the original school the world-famous Raffles Hotel has stood in all its splendor since 1887. Now vastly expanded, the hotel has kept most of its historic character. In particular, the Writers Bar continues to pay tribute to literary luminaries like Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham who stayed at the hotel or who have written about it. Raffles Hotel is now a national monument and the most famous landmark in Singapore these days - and that is all the more hurtful to Old Rafflesians as Sir Stamford did not found the hotel as he did the school.

The creation of Raffles Institution was a visionary act surpassed only by Sir Stamford's founding of Singapore itself. Against the advice of his superiors in the British Colonial Office in India, Raffles led an expeditionary force to the tip of the Malay Peninisula in the heart of Southeast Asia, sensing history in the making. He landed at the mouth of the Singapore River and planted the British flag on an island that had deep anchorage, a sheltered harbor and a position at the crossroads of Asia.

Sir Stamford's vision for Raffles Institution was to produce a ruling and administrative elite. And it did. During the British colonial era it staffed the top echelon of the Singapore administration. In the first flush of Singapore's self-government, the then chief minister, David Marshall, was an Old Rafflesian. In 1965, on gaining full independence, another Old Rafflesian became the first prime minister of Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew is still the state's de facto ruler, with the title of Senior Minister.

Ever since independence, the character of the school has changed, till it is now almost beyond recognition. Created to produce the "sons of Singapore", it appears to have lost its nerve. The "sons of Singapore" allusion comes from the school song, but as a recent paper written for the school's Board of Governors laments: "RI [Raffles Institution] was meant to produce the sons of Singapore, not choir boys." The paper continues: "In both rugby and the socio-political arena we have not competed, merely abdicated."

In the words of another Old Rafflesian, Tan Eng Leong: "It used to be said our rivals ACS [Anglo Chinese School] - coming as they do from the monied class - owned Singapore, and we from the state sector ruled the place. Now we neither rule nor own Singapore."

In fact, a further major change in the character of Raffles Institution came in the early 1980s when it was privatized. That meant the end of strict meritocracy at the school, and a focus by the school administration on marketing it as a commercial product rather than staying true to the original vision.

All these goings-on regarding Raffles Institution have led to the irresistible rise of conspiracy theories. But before one jumps to fanciful conclusions, it must be said that civil society is nothing much to talk about in Singapore. Alarm bells have been ringing about social inertia and apathy for years. By 1998, the Singapore government was so concerned that it spent huge sums of money on a survey to find out what the problem was.

A dispirited lot outside money-making activities, Singaporeans are clearly lacking in leadership qualities and are moved more by crass personal ambition rather than social or humane concerns. The Rafflesian family's inability and unwillingness to fight back and defend its historic legacy is part of this general malaise, and it is by no means only the school that is suffering: the same thing is happening to all Singapore's institutions that have the potential to provide coherent intellectual challenges to the authorities.

If Raffles Hotel has been spared such desecration, it is because it has been a purely commercial venture, tied to international money, since its inception.

Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew is left in an ambivalent position. On one hand he feels the need to motivate the people to embrace a higher purpose. For instance, as long ago as 1965 he said: "You have got to believe in something. You are not just building houses in order that people can procreate and fill these houses up because there is no point in that." To Lee it is anathema that people live and work merely for themselves or their families. There must be a "higher" ideological purpose, otherwise people are "just like animals".

Lee expects his elite to be world-class in everything they do. Yet he also expects them to be compliant toward the political leadership, and to this end, initiative and independent thought have been quashed.

Being closer than other schools to the establishment, Raffles Institution has suffered the brunt of this ambivalence the most. It has even manifested itself in the school's "religion" of rugby. And so the school's superior buildings and facilities, teaching staff and pupils count for little in Lee's terms - the need for "a higher purpose".

The dynastic serial that is Singapore politics has one final twist in the tail, adding insult to Rafflesians' injury: prime minister-in-waiting Lee Hsien Loong has a rugby-playing heir at the Anglo Chinese School - Raffles Institution's rugby nemesis.

(Special to Asia Times Online)

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