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Saturday, Feb 07, 2026 - 00:01 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Ere I Saw Alba

An update's long overdue, so here's a quick recounting of my birthday visit to the new permanent exhibition of the Albatross File at the National Library, after the splash it made in the local media on "reshaping school history lessons". Long story short, the lost-and-found dossier by founding Finance Minister Goh Keng Swee revealed that Singapore's separation from Malaysia in 1965 was a preplanned "bloodless coup" agreed with the (non-Singapore) Malaysian leaders, supposedly "...right under the noses of the British, the Australians and New Zealanders who were defending Malaysia with their blood and treasure", as the always-eloquent LKY put it - while adding that he did not want to do it, as consistent with the former narrative.

As students of the English language might have suspected, Goh intended "Albatross" as an allusion to the maritime avian choker of the same name, which did quite aptly describe Singapore's then-situation. The more-pertinent question here would be why the government took so long to make a big hoo-hah over the documents, seeing as they had been rediscovered in a dusty storeroom some forty-four years ago back in 1982, which was definitely sufficient for high school textbooks to have been corrected* for two generations at least.

Well, this timing might - if I may be so bold - be attributed to recent geopolitical developments, seeing as the primary message of the files was that the Singapore authorities (i.e. the PAP) were cunning and sovereign masters of their own fates (as opposed to being passively expelled by the Tunku), a condition that may be becoming increasingly hard to maintain in the forthcoming Age of Empires II (refer Maduro, and now quite probably Cuba, Iran and Canada etc., with that last perhaps to confront their own separation vote for Alberta[oss?])

[*On this, it may be of interest to examine the evolution of Wikipedia on the matter too; Singapore's wiki page had asserted that "the Malaysian Parliament voted 126 to 0 to expel Singapore from Malaysia; the Singaporean delegates were not present and could not vote" as recently as December 2014, with the "secret negotiations" updated for the current version, though "expulsion from the federation" remains in the second paragraph of the Introduction.]


Able Was I?

American: We have freedom of speech here in America. I can go to the White House and shout that Reagan is an idiot!

Russian: So? I can go to the Kremlin and shout that Reagan is an idiot too!

- old Soviet-era joke, as supposedly recounted by Reagan


I suppose it may not be a bad idea to try and project Strength and "independence", given how a U.S. Presidential advisor has just reconfirmed that "...the real world... [that] is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power... [and] these are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time". That said, it is unlikely that dedicating an interactive display on the tenth floor of a library building would be sufficient to address doubts on this topic, and it might be entirely relevant that the exhibition provided next to no background context on the (anti-)Communist Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960, fought against the mostly-Chinese and China-inspired anticolonial Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA)... which could have been awkward given the PAP's own socialist left-wing roots, and more importantly their greatly increased socialization with the CCP in recent years, after re-establishing formal relations in 1990.

Another takeaway from this is that history is often mutable - who is to say that a janitor won't discover the Bluebird Files in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet at the disused PA headquarters with a sign on the door saying "Nassim Jade Transaction Records", fifty years hence? On this, there has been continued lionization of LKY for supposedly turning down a bribe from the CIA in 1960, though this was apparently at least in part because he thought at the time that "if the Americans and not the British had been in charge in Singapore and Malaya before independence I would have been in jail, probably tortured and died a Commie".

The irony here is, of course, that scarce three years later, LKY would consign many of his former party comrades to jail and torture for supposedly being Communist (which some never admitted to), supporting the old saw that the LKY of 1970 would have imprisoned the LKY of 1960. Which brings us to the key observation: LKY could afford to snub the CIA because, well, he was definitely not a Communist**, and was in fact already actively purging the leftist and suspected-Commie wing of the party. It would have been far more impressive had LKY delivered his "You do not buy and sell this Government" line to the CIA*** while proclaiming his support for Team Red, which might well have led to a promising politician disappearing in darkest Africa, given the ferocity of the Cold War contest then. Frankly, why would the CIA move against somebody who was doing their job for them, far better than they could?


[**Though he did make his kids learn Russian just in case.]

[***On this, the Boston Globe alleged that LKY's whistle-blowing was actually due to the U.S. being unable or unwilling to procure his favoured doctor for his wife, possibly reflecting the reputation of the American medical establishment even then; their claim that LKY had "privately held sympathy" for U.S. policy in Southeast Asia would be justified to an extent, by LKY's staunch support for the U.S. in the Vietnam War.]


Of Spheres And Lines

Take nothing from LKY, though - he amply manifested his (geo)political brilliance**** in bringing together two former antagonists (i.e. America and China), by explicitly supporting the ongoing Sino-Soviet split, without which the (Sino-)Soviet Union might well be still around (but hey, they have got a second chance on that)... with Singapore admittedly being the beneficiary. The challenge for the current national leadership would be adapting to a world where these two powers are not aligned, and let's just say that 7 Strategies For Continued Economic Success may possibly become largely irrelevant, if actual long-term division and bloc formation happens.

Then again, it's not like Singapore didn't thrive the last time empires and "spheres of influence" were in vogue, with said spheres just declared officially back in season by The Diplomat, no doubt influenced by the Donroe Doctrine asserting U.S. preeminence in the Western Hemisphere (over China's objections) by the Emperor of the West, TRUMP the First. Recall, de reden waarom we geen Nederlands spreken***** is because the British and Dutch empires carved the region up back in 1824, with Singapore falling just north of the dividing line. One can only imagine what might have been had Raffles (or his fellow Brits) been a more convincing negotiator (like GEOTUS) - could he have gotten Batam, Bintan and the other Riau Islands thrown into the deal... or maybe pulled Johor in?



Just imagine how much ERP can be collected!
(Source: r/imaginarymaps)


[****With his enduring influence in China leading to him getting mentioned in another (far-hotter) set of secret files, by a former British First Secretary of State and recent Ambassador to the U.S.; this may yet bring down another left-leaning administration, in the U.K. this time.]

[*****Then again, Dutch never quite took root in Indonesia either, so this might be contested; still, had the hypothetical Dutch colonial government included it in exams, I gather we wouldn't be half bad at it eventually!]



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