\n<\/p>\n
One key question about the separation was whether Singapore was kicked out by Malaysia, or whether it sought separation.<\/p>\n
Mr Lee Hsien Loong noted that the prevailing view was that Singapore was kicked out.<\/p>\n
Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Malaysian prime minister then, said at the time that the decision to kick Singapore out of Malaysia had been taken by him solely.<\/p>\n
But this was not the only reason for the separation. There were \u201cmany factors\u201d that forced his hand and led the Tunku to conclude that letting Singapore go was the best option for him and Malaysia.<\/p>\n
This included Mr Lee Kuan Yew\u2019s political campaign for a \u201cMalaysian Malaysia\u201d, among other episodes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Lee Hsien Loong noted the crucial speech in the Malaysian parliament on May 27, 1965, where Mr Lee Kuan Yew spoke in fluent Malay. The Tunku later described the speech as “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose were very tense days,\u201d said Mr Lee Hsien Loong. \u201cMr Lee (Kuan Yew) was aware that the federal authorities were considering arresting him, and that he was in grave peril.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that time, Mr Lee Hsien Loong was 13 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne day, on the Istana golf course, he told me that if anything were to happen to him, I should look after my mother and younger siblings,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, then-British Prime Minister Harold Wilson had warned the Tunku that the UK would have to reconsider its relations with Malaysia if he arrested Mr Lee Kuan Yew.<\/p>\n
By the end of June 1965, the Tunku had decided that it would be best to \u201creturn Singapore to Lee Kuan Yew\u201d instead.<\/p>\n
It was this decision that led to talks between the Tunku’s deputy, Tun Razak, and Dr Goh from mid-July.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Lee Kuan Yew directed Mr E W Barker to draft the separation documents soon after that first meeting, and Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s aim was to strengthen Singapore’s position politically and compel the federal government to grant Singapore greater autonomy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He instructed Dr Goh to press for a looser constitutional rearrangement within Malaysia, and that separation would be an option only if Singapore could not get an agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Dr Goh reported that Tun Razak wanted a “total hiving off”.<\/p>\n
Until the very end, Mr Lee Kuan Yew was “ambivalent” and “quite torn” about the separation, said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.<\/p>\n
He recalled that on Aug 3, six days before Singapore\u2019s independence, he had been on holiday with his family at Cameron Highlands when his father received a call from Dr Goh.<\/p>\n
“In those days, calls to Cameron Highlands had to go through operators, who mostly did not speak Chinese. So Dr Goh and Mr Lee spoke in Mandarin,” said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.<\/p>\n
“I remember that phone call. I was in the room at Cluny Lodge, and my father took the call that afternoon.<\/p>\n
“I heard him tell Dr Goh in Mandarin: \u2018This is a huge decision, let me think about it\u2019. I didn\u2019t know then what it was about, but it became plain soon enough … this was less than a week before separation day.”<\/p>\n
And even on Aug 7, after the agreement was settled, Mr Lee saw the Tunku again to ask if there could be a looser federation instead, or even a confederation, but the proposal was rejected.<\/p>\n
“I remember sleeping that night … on the floor in the corner of my parents\u2019 bedroom at Temasek House in Kuala Lumpur, before the family drove back to Singapore the next day,” said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My father got up repeatedly throughout the night to write notes to himself.<\/p>\n
“This explains Mr Lee\u2019s state of mind at separation, and why at the press conference on Aug 9 he broke down, and spoke about a moment of anguish.<\/p>\n
“My mother said in her oral history that that was the closest he came to a nervous breakdown.”<\/p>\n
Singapore was on its own, and the albatross had \u201cfinally loosed off our neck,\u201d said Mr Lee Hsien Loong.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs many historians have since characterised it, separation was a mutually negotiated outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while separation was not Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s preferred outcome, he had gone to great lengths to persuade all his ministers to sign the Separation Agreement, so there was no Cabinet split, and independent Singapore started out with a strong, united leadership team.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the strategic level, it was the political pressure that Mr Lee orchestrated, the international stature that he had built up, and the courage and leadership that he showed, which compelled the Tunku to let Singapore go,\u201d Mr Lee Hsien Loong said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n