This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of David Marshall (1908–1995), the celebrated Singapore nationalist, politician, lawyer and diplomat. Born on 12 March 1908 into a Sephardic Jew family, Marshall rose to prominence in the late 1940s as a brilliant young criminal lawyer whose extraordinary legal acumen and oratorical skill left him victorious in numerous court cases. He was so skilled in law that Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong regarded him as “the greatest criminal advocate that has ever graced the halls of justice in Singapore and Malaya – A giant among pygmies at the criminal Bar.”[i

Marshall subsequently entered politics at the head of the Labor Front party and became Singapore’s first elected Chief Minister between 1955 and 1956. As Chief Minister, Marshall was a fearless opponent of British colonialism and led the early political struggles for Singapore independence. A socialist by inclination, he helped found the Singapore Worker’s Party (WP) in 1957 after he left the Labor Front. Afterwards he became a vocal critic of the People’s Action Party (PAP) which came to power in Singapore in 1959.

In spite of this, the PAP government appointed him Ambassador to France in 1978, a post he accepted and held with distinction, and which was later expanded to include the embassies of Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. He retired as in 1993 and passed away two years later on the 12 December 1995. Marshall was, in short, a key figure in Singapore’s post-war history.

Besides his achievements on the public stage, Marshall also left a lasting impression on many prominent people who knew him privately. Professor Tommy Koh, Singapore’s Ambassador-at-large and Chairman of the National Heritage Board, studied under Marshall as a young lawyer and remembered him as “a gifted teacher… [who] brought both learning and enthusiasm to his classes…a truly an unforgettable person”.[ii] Professor Koh Kheng Lian, Emeritus Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore, recalled Marshall as “a man of great humanity and compassion, a man who lived life to the fullest, a man dedicated to his profession, his country and his people”.[iii] Marshall was regarded as by his admirers an exemplary person, both professionally and ethically.

In 1984, the National Archives of Singapore conducted an in-depth oral history interview with David Marshall containing valuable insight into his ethical beliefs and how they were formed. The rest of this article draws on this interview.

Racial Discrimination and Anti-colonialism

Reflecting on his youth in the interview, Marshall pointed to three experiences that were essential to shaping his ethical convictions – the racial discrimination he bore under British colonialism, his reading of the Christian Bible, and his experience as a prisoner-of-war during the Japanese occupation.

When asked what drove him to join politics, Marshall replied, “Politics was an accident. I was thrust into politics by a sense of outrage, a deep sense of anger”.[iv] Marshall’s outrage was directed against the systematic racism he endured as an Asian Jew under British colonial rule. Colonialism was justified by the claim that white men were biologically and culturally superior to men of all other races.

“I used to resent little pin-pricks [which] were, I thought …unfair about you know [the] ‘white man, brown man’ relationship,” he said. “Like you call me ‘Jowdy Jew, brush my shoe’, and next thing I know is I hit you on the nose…I wanted to break the sonic barrier against Asians and especially against Jews.”[v] Marshall’s uncompromising stance against British colonialism correlated to his contempt for their racism.

Marshall’s revulsion at what he termed “the leprous concept of racial superiority”[vi] was reinforced by his study of the Christian Bible, which he read thrice as a youth. Although he was a Jew proud of his Jewish origins, Marshall was inspired by the stories of heroism and human community found in the Bible:

“Frankly, looking back, I consider that [reading the Bible] was perhaps the most formative aspect of my character. Because the King James’ version has an organ sonority of language which sank into me at a very impressionable age. And also the wonderful stories of [a] heroic global view of life and passionate dedication to human rights that you find in the Bible. It appealed to me very much.”[vii]

Of particular influence on the young Marshall were Biblical tales of men who struggled for justice against stronger adversaries, stories which reflected his own later struggles against British colonialism.

The Japanese Occupation: Marshall’s Adulthood Initiation

In his interview, Marshall singled out his experience as a prisoner-of-war during the Japanese occupation as the decisive event that shaped his adult worldview. Marshall had volunteered as a British soldier in Singapore following the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, and was made a prisoner-of-war following the crushing defeat of the British military in Singapore and Malaya by the Japanese in 1941.[viii] Marshall recalled the terrible years that would reshape his thinking:

“[The Japanese Occupation] taught me humility….. Three and a half years as a prisoner taught me humility…..I realized [as a Japanese prisoner-of-war] that man is capable of cold-blooded cruelty. I can be angry, and I have no doubt I can be cruel for five, ten minutes. But the Japanese cruelty was cold-blooded, permanent and eternal. Man’s inhumanity to man in fact, in real life, made its presence really known to me when I became a prisoner, and saw it in action.

“Of course, I have known cruelty before. But wide-spread, long-term, cold-blooded, permanent cruelty, I’ve never experienced before, not even from the British Imperialists no matter how arrogant they were. That was a major shock, the feeling that here were human beings who were not on the same wavelength as me at all, who were not even human from my point of view.”[ix]

The war experience was to solidify Marshall’s political faith in socialism. It was during this period that Marshall’s belief in human community, his distaste for class-distinction and his faith in the common man’s capacity for goodness were more fully developed:

“The cohesion of disparate prisoners, from different parts of the United Kingdom, from different parts of Europe……was something touching…..There were some egoists who cracked under pressure. There were some who even committed suicide because they couldn’t take any more.

“But by and large, there was an unspoken…comradeship…..It kept the humanity alive within me, and made me perhaps recognize more clearly that great qualities….qualities that I appreciated in human beings, were not necessarily confined to the wealthy or educated…. That the rough, semi-educated laborer, odd-jobs man had human qualities which were good and which felt good and which were of value to its fellow prisoners. Where, some of the educated and intelligent cracked up or went about whining….”[x]

The war experience would also disenchant Marshall to the value of status symbols as accurate measures of human worth:

“Perhaps I learnt most of all the frailty of human beings, the absurdities of the status symbols of carrying a Captain’s star or a Major’s crown and turning out to be a long streak of piss. Whereas the cook who was the Lance-Corporal turned out to be a really worthwhile human being.”[xi]

Marshall’s brand of Socialism, which he briefly explained in the interview, was in many ways a reflection of the lessons he learnt as a Japanese prisoner:

“My…understanding of socialism, my own approach was an effort to create the foundations for the opportunity of all our people to attain the conditions of living compatible with human dignity. Why did I call it socialist? Because it moved away from the concept of wealth to the concept of human qualities and respect for the human individual, and not respect for his bank account.”[xii]

Marshall as Loyal Critic of Singapore Society

Marshall’s critique of materialism and status anxiety, and his concern for human dignity and community which he considered to be universal ends, expressed themselves in several critical observations he made of Singapore society. In the interview, Marshall commented that there was a tendency in Singapore’s culture to devalue goods of utmost importance that could not be measured in utilitarian terms – like wisdom and culture; and conversely, an inclination to overvalue goods that were quantifiable – like money and intelligence.

This he thought encouraged a culture of selfish egotism which undermined national unity and bonds of trust between Singaporeans:

“I think it’s very important to make [the] distinction today [between intelligence and wisdom] when there is so much emphasis on the genetic inheritance of intelligence. I think it’s very dangerous to over-emphasize the value of intelligence…..as a prisoner of war….I learnt a deep respect for the qualities of the humble. The innate wisdom, the loyalty, the decency which, from the point of view of intelligence, is possibly an aberration.

“Because, intelligence requires, seems to compel, an egoistic approach, an egocentric approach to life. And if you really look at that in the long term, egocentrism is very, very limited and very destructive in the long term. And we are, in my view, creating an ethos of egocentrism in Singapore and the concept that intelligence is the be all and end all of all virtues. Well, that’s totally wrong.

“The wisdom of centuries which are stored in the treasure house of religion and ancient philosophies of need for an understanding of the unity of humanity, cooperation with fellow beings. You know the lovely remark of Dostoevsky “God and the devil can live alone, but man needs his fellow man”….that we all have a duty to contribute to the common good. But we haven’t got any of that in Singapore. In Singapore you scramble for what you can achieve for yourself. And status symbols of Mercedes Benz, swimming pool, a string of women and horses and that is, those are the symbols of success. I think we are going through a dangerous phase.”[xiii]

Marshall also expressed reservations about Singapore’s work culture:

“We [in Singapore] have the constant drum beat now for productivity. My criticism is that this is a little lop-sided. We work to live, we don’t live to work. And the [Singapore] approach is one that is [of] a purely productive animal…..I think that [this] is now going beyond the bounds of reason…this constant driving and nagging about productivity and failing to recognize that people have a right to live as well as a need to work……we’re not seen to have any cultural existence.

“We’re not seen to be able to contribute to the finer graces of living. But we are viewed as economic animals with the same awe as we view robots…It’s a question of recognizing that work is an integral part of individual identity and essential for true enjoyment of living. But concurrently, to recognize that work is not the only element in living. That there are other elements to life. The joy of children. The joy of marriage. The pleasure of travel. The pleasure of study….Life is such a miracle, it is multi-faceted [in] the opportunities it gives for the uplift of the human spirit.”[xiv]

But Marshall was not a blind critic, raging at the world. He held himself to the same standards he held others to, recognizing his own limitations, and paying tribute where it was due – even to his opponents. Commenting on his own leadership ability, he said:

“I don’t think I had leadership qualities….for me a leader is a great administrator, organizer….I’ve been a vivid personality. But that doesn’t mean I have leadership quality. I had the fire of anger, the excitement of great ideas, emotional approach almost uninhibited, but not the intellectual organizational approach of great leaders. That I didn’t have, and don’t….frankly, I don’t think I would have been equal to the ramifications of running the country.

“Watching now from outside, the activities of the [Singapore government], all in all they deserve the highest praise: with no background, no real aid from outside to guide their infant steps, to have achieved so much stability, international respect and economic growth.”[xv]

Marshall also paid tribute to the personal qualities of Dr Goh Keng Swee, a leading member of his long time political adversary, the People’s Action Party:

“Keng Swee was a pragmatic top-notch civil servant, a genius as an administrator, a man of ‘sea-green’ integrity, a man of personal charm and warmth if you got close to him, very humble. Genuinely, no showmanship about it, genuinely humble….he speaks to the high as well as to the low….with the same approach.

“He had an extraordinary….total freedom from arrogance, from superiority, from any inferiority; he just was….a natural human being. And to me, a perfect human being…..it’s so much part of the air he breathes….to serve his country and his fellow human beings. And never a lie from him, never any malice from him. Even when I was the black plague to the PAP…”[xvi]

Marshall was a vocal critic of Singapore yet he remained a loyal Singaporean. His opinions were controversial, contestable and perhaps fool-hardy at times, but few can doubt his sincerity, courage and personal integrity. He was always ready to stand up for what he thought was right, and it is the memory of his nobility that his friends and admirers celebrate on his birthday centenary.

Adapted from ‘David Marshall: Singapore’s First Chief Minister’ taken from the National Archives of Singapore’s online ETC (Entering The Collection) Newsletter 2008 (http://www.a2o.com.sg/a2o/public/html/etc/index.htm), with permission from author. Kevin holds a Masters in History from the National University of Singapore, and is currently an Assistant Archivist at the National Archives of Singapore.

[i] Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, “David Marshall and the Law – Some Reflections on his Contributions to Criminal and Civil Justice in Singapore”, speech given at the Symposium in Commemoration of the 100^th Birthday of Mr David Marshall, 12 March 2008.

[ii] Professor Tommy Koh, “The Rich Legacy of Singapore’s First Nationalist”, Keynote address at the Symposium in Commemoration of the 100^th Birthday of Mr David Marshall, 12 March 2008.

[iii] Professor Koh Kheng Lian, “A Man of Humanity and Compassion”, The Straits Times, 13 March 2008.

[iv] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 2.

[v] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 2.

[vi] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 3.

[vii] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 1.

[viii] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 2 and 3.

[ix] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 3.

[x] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 3.

[xi] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 3.

[xii] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 4.

[xiii] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 19.

[xiv] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 19.

[xv] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 2.

[xvi] David Saul Marshall, Oral History Interview, Acc 000156, Reel 4.

One of my on-going pet projects is putting together a collection of oral interviews with old folks on their war experiences. This interest is the direct result of Professor Kevin P. Blackburn’s history graduate module at the Nanyang Technology University (NTU). Part of the requirements was to conduct an oral interview with any octogenarians I could find. Obviously for a six thousand-word essay, you cannot very well fudge the issue by doing a perfunctory half-hour interview. You would have nothing to write. Another reason is my command of the dialects is a disaster – thanks to our government’s language policies, which did not really have a place for dialects. Hence, it was with great trepidation that I interviewed my first subject, Mr. Tang S. Y.

But before delving into the interview proper, I would like to highlight a significant change in the search and retrieval of archival information as the result of the Internet revolution. As far back as 1999, the Internet portal offered by the National Archives of Singapore (NAS) was primitive and unfriendly. In other words, keyword searches will turn out irrelevant material. Many wasted hours, perhaps even days, had to be spent sifting through the search results.

Another charming feature of the 1999 version was that the search engine would irrationally reset itself after you had painstakingly gone through a couple of pages! One other alternative at that time was to plough through the catalogue, Syonan: Singapore under the Japanese: a catalogue of oral history interviews (1986), which is also published by the NAS. As a general sign of amateurish endeavors, the catalogue only has name entries with a brief description of the reel. The sore lack of index meant again you have to go through the thick catalogue with a fine-tooth comb.

This has changed significantly. Today, the portal is divided into more manageable sub-portals. For oral interviews, the CORD (Collection of Oral History Recording Database) is immensely useful. Now the entries can be easily searched by using keywords which can be set to only search the oral reel archives.

So, many a fruitful weekend – especially for bachelors – could be spent there reading the three thousand four hundred and eighty items that are war-related (which I personally find much better reading than Stephen E. Ambrose’s Band of Brothers!) More than half of the oral interviews even have transcripts. So if you are in a hurry, the transcripts are a god-send. But I always have the nagging feeling that somehow the ones without the transcripts are the “real McCoys”, the genuine stuff.

I did try listening to one interview without a transcript with little success. The interviewee had a thick teochew dialect, which is the subset of the main dialect group. Even my older friends had trouble deciphering that reel. So there I was, looking forlornly at that reel descriptor, which tantalizingly included some of the more significant historical events in Singapore – for instance, General Tojo’s visit, Chin Peng’s march-past, the Bukit Ho Swee Fire etc.

In the Central Library of NUS, there are several oral history books related to the Second World War. The Japanese Occupation: Singapore 1942-45 (published in 1985 by the NAS) is out-dated and picture-heavy. But the Oral History Manual (1992) has an idiot-proof sample questionnaire, which is useful for amateur interviewers. Needless to say, I was armed with that during my interview. Keeping up with the times, the NAS has also recently published Memories & Reflections: Documenting a Nation’s History through Oral History – The Singapore Experience (2007). For those who may be interested, the Oral History Department conducts one workshop per year on the actual practice of conducting oral interview. I have been to one – ostensibly for “work purposes” – and I must say the workshop is light, digestible and unpretentious.

Let’s return to Mr Tang. Once the interview started, all rules and sample questions got thrown out of the window. Mr Tang was as energetic as Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew; in fact he was probably just as forceful. He insisted that he would talk and do his household chores at the same time. So up and down I went, shadowing him around the house trying to conduct the interview. He did not help much either by suddenly side-tracking into another topic, which was only marginally connected to the war – for instance, his search for a wife. As it turned out, the blur of activity he was engaged in was gathering ingredients to prepare herbal-chicken soup, especially for his granddaughter and myself – and yes, the time it took for soup to boil was exactly how long the interview took.

Interestingly as well, Mr Tang has no concept of time or dates. He would suddenly cut me off saying, “Hello?! That was very long ago!” He would often take references from the year when “he had a toothache”, or “Tek Pui sold me that damn %#$@& bicycle!” Even more alarming, he would sometimes refer to the Chinese drama serial, The Awakening, produced by the then Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), and starring a young Xiang Yun for those who remember. With a twinkle in his eyes, he would ask if I wanted dramatic events like those. He was somewhat deflated when I insisted on the more mundane such as the prices of vegetables and eggs.

Reflecting on the interview while transcribing the oral tape (no MP3 recorder at that time), I realised that Mr Tang was rather anxious for the interview to be successful. But some of the information he provided were completely counterfactual to the mainstream narratives, for example by Mary Turnbull. I was perhaps on a naïve theory-proving mission, trying to fit Mr Tang’s story into what I have learnt. He would gently reproach me, “This is real life mah, ah boy. You think textbook, har?”

Some incidents were so outrageous that I was forced to dig up numerous memoirs of Singaporeans published just to counter-check. But once I started digging, some events recorded in the memoirs were even more incredible! For example, one chap spent a better part of the war gambling and having a whale of a time with the Japanese. He was none for the worse after the war. In the midst of my literature search, John Boyle’s China and Japan at War: The Politics of Collaboration (1972) became the most significant. I actually stumbled upon an interpretative insight not discussed by Singapore scholars. Not a bad result for what was a simple oral history project.

In conclusion, writing on and about the top honchos of Singapore politics and businesses have focused most of our scholarly attention on the so-called “Big Events”. Even if you had wanted to interview one of those “honchos”, there are a host of restrictions. For example, the NAS has forty-eight reels of interviews with George Edwin Bogaar, but most of which are restricted. My interview with Mr Tang has opened my eyes to a whole host of new questions and possibilities of counter-narratives, which could be used to complement our understanding of the Singapore Story, or mischievously tickle it (a la Rudolf Mrazek in Engineers of Happy Land) to tease out previously un-highlighted information.

Amongst us are rich institutional memories of common peoples who were and still are at the receiving end of government policies. Rather than bang needlessly (and without reward) against the door of restricted documents and archives, we could perhaps make better use of the more readily available and accessible sources of information. If Mary Margaret Steedly could use her interviews with spiritual mediums to tell various compelling stories in Hanging without a Rope: Narrative Experience in Colonial and Postcolonial Karoland (1993), Singaporean historians can do no worse. Better yet, troop down to an old folks home and start work today!

The writer is a former history teacher at one of Singapore’s junior colleges. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of History, National University of Singapore.