“Lim Chin Siong is, without doubt, the best Chinese-speaking orator in Singapore. He will be our next Prime Minister.”
-Lee Kuan Yew, introducing Lim Chin Siong to David Marshall in 1955
Comet in Our Sky: Lim Chin Siong in History is a bold, courageous and farsighted publica- tion. Conceived and edited in 2001 by Tan Jing Quee and Jomo K.S., it has become a classic. The quality of the essays and the stature of Lim’s comrades and friends who contributed to the volume attest to Lim Chin Siong’s indisput- able pre-eminence in Singapore’s anti-colonial movement, and the respect and warmth that he continued to receive long after his political life ended in 1969.
To this day, Lim Chin Siong remains pivotal to the hagiography of the ruling People’s Action Party. His political defeat forms the myth of its historical mission of defeating the communists. Comet contests this-Lim is appreciated as the spokesperson for a local radical tradition that pitted the popular will against colonial power, as historian Tim Harper has put it.
This new edition brings Comet in Our Sky into circulation again after it has gone out of print.
Editor Poh Soo Kai explains why Comet remains relevant today, and brings in Lim Chin Siong’s reflections of Singapore history and society which became available only recently.
The task of building a local radical tradition is being revived.
“The entire Singapore Special Branch file of evidence against Lim, includ- ing the transcription of Lim’s ‘Pah Mata’ speech, has been unearthed from files recently declassified by the National Archives of the UK. The Special Branch files show they had no evidence on which they could convict Lim of any crime. In order to justify his detention without trial in 1956, the government deliberately misrepresented Lim Chin Siong’s speech. After the PAP came into power, it did not provide the opportunity for Lim to clear his name either. It remains an open question if any of the detentions over the last sixty years were justified. The Internal Security Act remains in op- eration today. To ensure that this Act has been used appropriately and responsibly, an open Commission of Inquiry into the detentions of Singapore’s political detainees is needed to set the facts straight once and for all. Only by learning the truth of our own collective past can we learn and grow as a nation.”
-Dr Thum Ping Tjin (2014)
About the Editor:
Poh Soo Kai was the president of the University Socialist Club in 1954-55 and its secretary general in 1955-56. He was a member of the eight-person editorial board of Fajar that was charged with sedition. He was the assis- tant secretary-general of the Barisan Sosialis when it was established in 1961. He suffered two lengthy periods of political imprisonment totaling 18 years. He is co-editor of The Fajar Generation: The University Socialist Club and the Politics of Postwar Malaya and Singapore (2010), and The 1963 Operation Coldstore in Singapore: Commemorating 50 Years (2013).
