Archive Fever … in Singapore: An Interview with CC Chin

Sai Siew Min, with Lim Cheng Tju

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CC Chin: I have my ways. After all, history is not something that can be monopolized by a few individuals. Hundreds of thousands of people were involved in this movement. If I include supporters and sympathizers, there could be a million people involved over such a long time period. Even if you were Chin Peng, there would be a limit to how much you would know. This was a mass-based movement. So the only solution was to return to the grassroots, the people, the masses and the ordinary Party members.

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“A Subaltern Perspective on History” (人下人的历史观): Reading Fang Zhuang Bi’s (方壮壁) Memoir

Sai Siew Min

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To write the history of the Communist Underground or the Left-wing movement in post-war Singapore demands more than simply filling in the blanks of the existing dominant narrative with authentic voices of erstwhile participants hitherto denied their right of articulation by the hegemonic Singapore state. It also demands resisting the temptation to flip the dominant story around, championing the cause of the so-called “losers” and turning them into heroes who have arrived decades too late on the historiographical scene in contemporary Singapore.

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