I’ve been listening to the audiobook of J.G. Farrell’s The Singapore Grip, a book that has recently become topical again because of a miniseries adaptation of the same name airing on ITV in the United Kingdom.
Farrell wrote the book as the final instalment of his “Empire Trilogy”, and it was published in 1978. The Singapore Grip is a satirical novel revolving around wealthy British capitalists at the time of the Second World War, set against the British’s stunning failure to defend Singapore against the invading Japanese. In spinning his story, Farrell paints characters comfortable and smug in their racism and their positions as tuan besar, congratulating themselves over their success in manipulating markets and undermining the rights and conditions of their workers. The author is clearly no fan of the classism, racism, and exploitation of the British colonial era.
This is the defence that the producers of the miniseries have put up against their critics, who have slammed the show for its almost entirely white cast (except for Elizabeth Tan, who plays the sole Chinese—originally Eurasian in the novel—character in the main cast) and its relegation of Asians to the background even while being set in Southeast Asia.
“Its very subject is possibly the greatest catastrophe to befall the British Empire during its decline, a disaster the colonists were themselves squarely responsible for,” said the show’s screenwriter, the award-winning Sir Christopher Hampton, who also claimed that “any fair-minded viewer” would see The Singapore Grip as an “attack on colonialism”.
I haven’t seen the six-part miniseries, so I can’t and won’t comment on the quality of the adaptation. Still, the controversy has prompted me to think about representation, narratives of colonialism, and the stories that get to occupy space today.
I’m actually enjoying the book so far. But I also wonder: what makes it a story that needs to be retold now? I’m not so much interested in how the novel has been adapted, but the fact that it has been adapted at all, at this time. It doesn’t seem likely that there was public clamour for it to be put on screen. What did the producers think would resonate with contemporary audiences, and why? What did they want to say with this adaptation, and who did they think they were saying it to? What made them choose this novel for adaptation, when they presumably could have pitched something else, whether it was adapting another work, or commissioning/producing something original?
In his writing, Farrell demonstrates contempt for the white British colonists of 1940s Singapore. But he also shows little interest in the experiences of the indigenous peoples of Malaya, or the indentured labourers from places like China and India, upon whose toil his main characters profit. I’m still making my way through the book, but so far Asians have either been nameless, faceless workers, exotic porcelain-eating yogis, or sexualised women of suspicious repute. There are mentions of an increasing number of strikes during that time, among Chinese and Indian workers—the latter of which comes as a surprise to many of the British characters, since they saw the Indians as an “obedient” workforce—but no inclination to zoom in further into the story of any of these workers.
Farrell made his choices when writing this novel in the 1970s. We’ve come a long way since then, and the conversations we’re constantly having about representation and platform in this day and age place us in a very different position from J.G. Farrell and the milieu in which he’d written The Singapore Grip.
In 1978, when it might have still been difficult for Southeast Asians to articulate critiques of colonialism that could easily reach mass audiences in Britain and Europe, Farrell’s unflinching portrayal of white colonisers as unlikeable and morally dubious characters might have been necessary, or even subversive and progressive. But we’re not in 1978 anymore. Technology, social media, education, the ease of movement (at least, before the pandemic), and the level of public discourse mean that the circumstances are now very different. There’s no longer any need for attacks on colonialism to be mediated through white proxies; Southeast Asians, and the peoples of other former colonies, have our own reflections and criticism of colonialism, and these arguments are more accessible than ever, if people were only willing to look, or give them larger platforms.
Regardless of its intentions, the decision to produce The Singapore Grip as a critique of colonialism—rather than, say, supporting or amplifying Southeast Asian creators—feels out of step with where we are now in terms of discussions about racism, discrimination, colonialism, exploitation, and imperialism. Even if the gaze is an unsympathetic one, the decision to produce a story that focuses on the experiences of the white colonists is one that comes across as tone-deaf at a time when people are also engaging in serious debate about the way societies have revered and commemorated individuals who have benefitted off colonialism and the slave trade.
As the former coloniser, Britain has its own hang-ups about empire, but the struggle to come to grips with the legacy of colonialism is not a uniquely British problem. Singapore’s engagement with our own colonial history, for example, is fraught and problematic. Last year, we even “commemorated” the bicentennial—that is, the 200th anniversary of our colonisation with the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819.
“1819 marked the beginning of a modern, outward-looking and multicultural Singapore. Without 1819, we may never have launched on the path to nationhood as we know it today. Without 1819, we would not have had 1965, and we would certainly not have celebrated the success of SG50. 1819 made these possible,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at the official launch of the Singapore Bicentennial, as a way of explaining why the anniversary was worth all the fuss.
The Singapore establishment’s telling of our history — “The Singapore Story” — generally characterises British colonialism as a good thing. The motivation is political; painting Singapore’s development as a linear narrative from Raffles’ landing to the rise of the ruling People’s Action Party allows for the mining of political legitimacy and capital. What’s lost in this “Story” are the multitudes of experiences that deviate from the “official” memory.
Back-pedalling in the face of criticism about celebrating colonialism, the Bicentennial’s planners insisted that the bicentennial year wasn’t about fêting our own subjugation to the British, but about reflecting upon Singapore’s longer history. The result: a marvellously muddled communications campaign in which the 200-year milestone was repeatedly given prominence alongside emphasis that Singapore’s history actually goes much further back.
Singapore’s willingness to make peace with colonialism instead of working to decolonise ourselves also stems from the fact that our political and power structures retain many vestiges of colonialism. It can be seen in the way we treat low-wage migrant workers from countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar (only these workers, unlike the indentured labourers of the past, will never be able to call themselves Singaporean). It can be seen in the colonial era laws we’ve retained, and in some cases, even extended. One example: the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act, which allows for the detention of criminal suspects without trial, was first the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Ordinance, introduced by the British in 1955. It’s been extended 14 times, with amendments — a temporary colonial-era law that has become a permanent fixture in post-colonial Singapore.
A recent Twitter kerfuffle, separate from the outcry over The Singapore Grip in the UK, has highlighted how we haven’t progressed very much from the classist, racist, and discriminatory attitudes of the colonial era at all.
Singaporeans on Twitter began calling out the tendency of businesses to slap the term “Peranakan”—used to describe people of mixed local and foreign ancestry in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia—on to their food and products, then charging a premium for them, even if they weren’t actually Peranakan, but some appropriation of Malay cuisine, such as nasi lemak or nasi ambeng.
I’m not interested in a fight about Peranakan culture and cooking; what’s much more relevant here is the baggage behind this “Peranakan” marketing sleight-of-hand. It works because the Straits Chinese—which is who Singaporeans mean when we say “Peranakan”, even though there are Peranakans who aren’t of Chinese descent—have a particular cultural cachet in Singapore that cannot be divorced from their relative privilege in the colonial era. Many (not all) Straits Chinese occupied positions that placed them in closer proximity to the colonial powers; they received English-language education, and some were compradors, working and acting for the colonisers in business and trade, amassing fortunes of their own. This proximity was further emphasised in the way that the Straits Chinese were sometimes referred to as the “King’s Chinese”, and clearly differentiated from newer (and often poorer) arrivals to colonial Singapore from China.
In today’s commodification of hipster nostalgia and heritage, “Peranakan”—not the people, but as a brand and a concept—evokes a rose-tinted past that’s as romanticised as images of Singapore as a British crown colony, all black-and-white houses and Singapore Slings and cups of tea at the Raffles Hotel.
“Peranakan”, with its invoking of colourful tiles and expensive beaded slippers and old-school heritage (extrapolated as all our heritage, rather than representation of one community in Singapore), is an Asian (predominantly Chinese) imagining of a lavish Singaporean past, but one over which the spectre of British colonialism still hangs. In both the Chinese and British versions, the experiences of the poor and the marginalised are erased, blinding us to the layers and nuances present. In prizing, and pricing, “Peranakan” culture and products above others, we reveal just how much more work we need to do to break away from the discrimination, prejudices, and hierarchies of the past.
There are conversations in former colonies all over the world about decolonisation and the conscious rejection of colonialist mindsets and prejudices. Singapore is no exception; while these conversations don’t necessarily take place in the mainstream, they are happening nevertheless. People are reading, thinking, writing, creating, acting, testing, trying, seeking language and opportunity to challenge long-standing injustices and assumptions.
At the end of last year, I watched the play Merdeka / 獨立 / சுதந்திரம், an ambitious and stunning piece of work questioning the “Singapore Story”, excavating neglected narratives, and tying Singapore into the history of the wider region. In doing so, Merdeka was a complex, layered piece that challenged the myth of Singaporean exceptionalism by linking us to a larger narrative, while still being a story that was our own.
These are the sorts of stories that we need in our time, this time — not throwbacks to critiques of colonialism that we should by this point be able to take as given. We’re beyond the stage where simply pointing out that colonialism was bad (or racist, or corrupt) is good enough; we need to go further than that, to not only critique colonialism, but actively resist and dismantle its unjust remnants.
I never expected The Singapore Grip’s producers to destroy Singapore’s colonial hang-ups. I’m fully aware that it’s not their responsibility, and that, despite the show’s setting, they’re thinking about a non-Singaporean, (white) British audience. Yet I’d venture to argue that, even in Britain, discourse about colonialism can go much further than what a mostly-white Singapore Grip offers. This is especially the case considering that there are active communities of East and Southeast Asian artists and creators in the UK, with talent and work to draw upon, support, and amplify.
Both the former coloniser and the formerly colonised have our struggles with the weight of our intersecting histories. There are so many ghosts that need to be exorcised, and none of this can be done if all we do is pat ourselves on the back for rehashing the same critiques and habits. Whether it’s reproducing The Singapore Grip or stamping “Peranakan” on everything from textiles to kuih, we’re guilty of erasing others and perpetuating hierarchies we should be tearing down instead.
Kirsten Han 