The role of memory and national identity becomes more complex in countries with a colonial history. Historian Sabine Marschall, examining post-colonialism in several African nations, concluded that there have been a number of different approaches to heritage after independence.5 Those countries that have wanted to distance themselves from their colonial past have either attempted to recover and validate pre-colonial traditions and celebrate ethnic cultural values and beliefs, or have commemorated the attainment of independence and those who fought for it.6 In contrast, some countries with a remaining substantial white minority have tended to construct new post-independence memorials while leaving colonial heritage largely intact.7 Geographer John Western, however, has questioned whether the colonial city can truly be ‗undone‘ after decolonisation, since ‗a city cannot be torn down totally to begin anew, because the colonial mold is literally set in stone‘.8 He suggested that while certain
symbols, such as statuary or street names can be easily changed, other symbols of empire are often simply ignored, removed or appropriated.9
4
Richard White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980 (Sydney: George Allen & Unwin, 1981), viii.
5 Sabine Marschall, "The heritage of post-colonial societies," in The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage
and Identity, ed. Brian Graham and Peter Howard (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).
6
Marschall, ―The Heritage of post-colonial societies‖: 353.
7 Marschall, ―The Heritage of post-colonial societies‖: 351-352. For an examination of the complexities of this,
see Albert Grundlingh, "A Cultural Conundrum? Old Monuments and New Regimes: The Voortrekker Monument as Symbol of Afrikaner Power in a Postapartheid South Africa," Radical History Review 81, no. 1 (2001).
8
John Western, "Undoing the Colonial City?," Geographical Review 75, no. 3 (1985): 344.
171 Post-colonial scholar Partha Chatterjee‘s examination of the various incarnations of a Calcutta monument to those who died in the ‗Black Hole‘ – now moved and forgotten in an obscure church graveyard – suggests that even the same monument ‗can be the vehicle for different stories, whose significance changes with different historical conditions and the political identity of those telling the story‘.10 While Singapore has largely retained its
colonial heritage, we can see Chatterjee‘s point played out in the history of the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles.
The statue was initially cast in bronze and erected on the Padang on Queen Victoria‘s Golden Jubilee Day, 1887.11 Its location in the centre of the Padang meant it was hit by footballs and used as a seat and vantage point for events, and so it was moved during the Centenary Celebration of 1919 to ‗a more respectable location‘ in front of the Victoria Memorial Hall, surrounded by a semi-circular classical colonnade and a marble-lined pool. During the Japanese Occupation of Singapore in 1942, the statue was relegated to a storeroom in the museum, and there were rumours that it might be melted down for the Japanese war effort.12 For the Japanese, this was a tangible indicator of the demise of British sovereignty. After the end of the war, the colonial authorities described the statue as having suffered a period of internment, like many Singaporeans, and its ceremonial re-erection in July 1946 became a metaphor for the return of the colonial administration from internment.13
The statue became vulnerable again during the turbulent years leading up to independence, when there were calls for it to be dumped into the Singapore River.14 Advice, however, from the head of the United Nations Assistance Team in 1960 was that Singapore needed to restore the trust of foreign investors, and so the retention of the Raffles statue became that token gesture of reassurance.15 It was returned to its former location outside of the Victoria Memorial Hall, minus its former colonnade. In 1972, a white polymarble copy of the statue was made for the 150-year celebration of Singapore‘s founding and placed at the side of
10 Partha Chatterjee, "The Colonial City in the Postcolonial Era," Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 15, no. 1 (2014):
25.
11 For an overview of the statue‘s history, see Singapore Infopedia, ‗Statue of Stamford Raffles‘,
http://erources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_119_2005-01-13.html, accessed 7 May 2014.
12 Singapore Infopedia, Statue of Sir Stamford Raffles.
13Kevin Blackburn and Karl Hack, War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore
(Singapore: NUS Press, 2012), 73.
14Constance Turnbull, A History of Modern Singapore 1819 - 2005. 3rd ed. (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009), 1.
172 Empress Place at what is believed to have been Raffles‘s landing place. So today there are two identical, although differently coloured, statues of Raffles in close proximity to each other. Like Chatterjee‘s description of the changing significance of the ‗Black Hole of Calcutta‘ monument, the various incarnations of Raffles‘s statue(s) have reflected its changing political fortunes and perceived value to nation-building.
Western suggested that how colonial relics are dealt with in post-colonial societies depends on whether the monument has truly been ‗divested of its threat to the once-colonised‘.16
Marschall noted that even some countries that initially rejected colonial vestiges in the emotion-charged years after independence, have mellowed over time to a more considered position.17As I have previously examined, Singapore has incorporated colonialism into its ‗story‘ and is relatively comfortable with its colonial past. In now examining historical monuments in Singapore, we will see that it reflects the sentiments in Marschall‘s conclusion to her study that ‗post-colonial heritage, while officially positioned in ideological opposition to colonial heritage, is in reality often characterized by a complex and sometimes symbiotic interweaving with colonial heritage and memories‘.18 In Singapore, this complexity is further
complicated by the constant push towards the goal of the globalised city. The Convent too, was and is, in a sense already part of a globalised world because of the global reach of Catholicism.