STORIES THAT ARE WAITING TO BE TOLD

HERE is an interesting question you can ask someone to determine his or her age: Who is Goh Keng Swee? Is he:
a) Goh Chok Tong’s grandfather;
b) one of the founding fathers of Singapore;
c) once the Minister of Defence and Education;
d) the founder of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra?
Apart from option a, he was all of the above.
Here is another question. Who wrote the Singapore Pledge, recited by school children every morning?
Is it:
a) S Rajaratnam;
b) C V Devan Nair;
c) Ahmad Ibrahim;
d) Lee Khoon Choy?
With his death on Wednesday, former Second Deputy Prime Minister S Rajaratnam is seeing reams of newsprint devoted to his contributions, including his legacy of the National Pledge. But what of those other movers and shakers of our history? We probably know more about the life of pop idol Taufik Batisah, or the romance between Fann Wong and Christopher Lee, than of the painful struggles and sacrifices these people went through to help Singapore survive.
Only if you are a history undergraduate or buff would you spare a thought for these great and courageous men. Just as we appreciate our parents only after they are gone, we pour accolades on these historical figures only after they die. Perhaps Singapore’s history is too short for us to devote entire documentaries to our founding fathers. People who played active roles in the 1950s and 1960s are still alive and any attempt to put events into plays, dramas and books might open up a can of worms, or even a closet of skeletons.
And so, we wait patiently for every one of them to die before we take one or two days (a week if you happen to be that beloved by the people of Singapore) to recall their deeds.After a few months, will they once again fade from our collective memory?

I know more about former United States President Abraham Lincoln and his four-score-and-sevenyears speech than any of the speeches our founding fathers made. This is because I often catch glimpses of American children putting up plays about their founding fathers, dressed up as Lincoln, delivering the Gettysburg Address.
What can we do before all our founding fathers pass on to the great beyond? Instead of repeating ad infinitum the tired few textbook stories of the founding of Singapore, we should make a concerted effort to nurture a pool of storytellers to retell the story of Singapore. A well-trained storyteller will be able to bring the stories of our founding fathers alive. Remember the storyteller of old who use to set up his stall at the Singapore River? He could capture the attention of his listeners for 45 minutes each night. Some might argue that in this age of MTV and short attention spans, no one would take the risk of embarking on this type of project.
Well, in 2003, a little-known television series dispelled many of the assumptions that the public has about local history programmes. It did not take an entirely serious tone; it was nostalgic yet entertaining. It was called Site and Sound with Julian Davison. Taking a light-hearted look at the historical transformation of Singapore as seen through the eyes of Englishman Julian Davison, the DVD version provided hours of entertainment for my children.
My five and six-year-olds formed lasting impressions about Singapore’s development while the teenagers got to see how their parents and grandparents lived in the 1950s and 1960s. History need not be just about dates, details and people told in an uninteresting manner, or only in eulogy. It can be brought to life by an expert storyteller. Perhaps the Media Development Authority can commission a follow-up television series, this time focusing on our founding fathers Were this already done, I am sure my children would not have had to ask me who Mr Rajaratnam was when we heard about his death.

This article first appeared in TODAY on 24th February 2006