Bend the knee to a royal? I’m lucky I don’t have to – though the Singaporeans that came before me did so more than once in their lifetimes

Although not the case any longer, many Singaporeans of a certain age had to swear allegiance to a ruling monarch – for some, to several in their lifetimes
Before its independence, Singaporeans were subjects of Malaysia’s king. Before that, it was occupied by Japan – and before that, they were ruled by UK royalty

Wee Kek Koon

Published: 4:45pm, 11 May 2023

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For anti-monarchists, the past week must have been excruciating as they watched people fawning and simpering over a privileged group of grandees in fancy dress. I am referring, of course, to the coronation of the British king, Charles III, and the expensive pantomime paid for by British taxpayers.

What goes on in the heads of people who eagerly bow and scrape before their emperors, kings and sultans, who have done nothing to deserve their privilege and our deference, other than being born to the right parents?

But they are a link to our past, you say. The British royal family boasts a 1,000-year bloodline. The Japanese emperor, for those who believe in fairy tales, is a direct descendant of the sun goddess.

We are all descendants of bloodlines that stretch back to the earliest humans, except our ancestors did not enrich themselves by waging war, plundering and slave trading. Or perhaps they did, but we are in the furthest fringes of the family tree to reap the fruits of that now.

George VI was king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and sovereign of Singapore, Malacca, Penang among other British imperial possessions from 1936 until his death in 1952. Photo: Getty Images

I am lucky that I have not had to bend the knee before a crowned head of state. I have sworn allegiance maybe once to a president who occupied his office by virtue of his own accomplishments, not his birthright.

My parents, in contrast, were subjects, at least nominally, to four monarchs in their lifetimes – though, if you ask them now, they would probably say they were too young to remember or too busy to care.

Hirohito, the emperor of Japan, in 1945. Singaporeans and others in East Asian territories conquered by Japan in the second world war had to pay obeisance to him. Photo: Getty Images

My parents were both born in Singapore in 1941, when it was part of the Straits Settlements, a British crown colony that comprised Singapore, Malacca, Penang and a few other minor territories. They did not know it, but the sovereign of their birthplace was the British king, George VI.

Within six months after they were born, Singapore fell to the Japanese Imperial Army. In the three-and-a-half years that followed, Singapore was ruled by Japanese occupiers.

My parents were too young to go to school, but if they did, they would have had to pay obeisance every morning to Hirohito, the emperor of Japan from 1926 until his death in 1989 and in whose name war was waged, who some say should have been tried as a war criminal.

Japan surrendered in 1945 and the British returned to Singapore. George VI was still on the throne in London, but the mood in Malaya had changed. Britain’s defeat in Southeast Asia broke the myth of European supremacy and the erstwhile “natural order” of the “white right to rule”.

A street scene in Singapore in the 1940s, when it became a separate crown colony. Photo: Getty Images

In 1946, Singapore was formally separated from its Malay Peninsula hinterland, the first time in its 700-year history, as a separate crown colony. George VI died in 1952 and his daughter Elizabeth II succeeded him as queen. My 12-year-old parents might have watched her coronation on television in 1953, but they do not remember.

The next decade was a tumultuous one, with agitations for independence from British rule foremost among the social upheavals of the time. This was achieved in 1963 through the new nation of Malaysia, which was a merger of the Federation of Malaya with the ex-British colonies of North Borneo (renamed Sabah), Sarawak and Singapore.

My parents, by then in their early 20s, became subjects of Tuanku Syed Putra, Malaysia’s yang-di pertuan agong, or king, at the time.

An official portrait of Yusof Ishak, the first president of Singapore, circa 1963.

After two short, turbulent years in Malaysia, Singapore was out on its own as an independent country in 1965. Although the descendants of local Malay royalty were still living in Singapore, the fledgling nation chose to become a republic with a president as its ceremonial head of state.

My parents married a year later. The government office where they solemnised their marriage would have had on its wall the photograph of Yusof Ishak, accomplished journalist, former chairman of the Public Service Commission, and the first president of Singapore.