History informs the present cycle

About five hundred years ago, the world started to change rapidly. Western powers began to explore foreign lands and modern colonialism took hold. With amazing dexterity, a few men ended up controlling masses of people and large territories. They were able to do so by having more advance technologies and the cunning to divide the local indigenous elites. Once they establish colonial control, the wealth of the land is exploited and extracted. Along the way there were some benefits to the local people. One example is education. Another is infrastructure. Usually, these gains were side effects from the drive to extract natural resources. Roads and energy are needed to transport the goods, process them, and send them to the ports for export. Labour is needed to accomplish all these tasks. As the goods become more complex, workers had to be better educated to perform the necessary tasks, hence education became necessary. English schools started. Penang Free School in 1816 and in Singapore in 1823 the Raffles Institution. With a population that is better educated, a new awareness arose. Hence early social pioneers of modernisation in Penang and Singapore were educated men and women. 

Dr Lim Boon Keng is an example of an English educated person who went beyond his professional training as a doctor to chart new paths in education. Founding a school for Chinese girls in Singapore he helped to bring education to more girls. Similarly in Penang a Chinese girl school was founded by English educated men. As a result of these forward-thinking men girls in Malaya were among the earliest to attain professional qualifications in law and medicine anywhere in the world. These men joined hands in a number of other endeavours. One common element was the discussion of modernizing China. Most notable among them was Dr Sun Yat-sen who arrived in Singapore in 1900 and who were to base his revolutionary activities in both Singapore and Penang where he finally succeeded in forming the Republic of China together with supporters from all across Southeast Asia. 

Despite the end of the dynastic era of imperial rule, China took many more years to emerge from its century of humiliation usually dated to the time of the Opium Wars. It was the threat of opium addiction that brought Dr Lim Boon Keng and his close friend and brother-in-law from Penang, Dr Wu Lien-teh to set up organisations to help rehabilitate and prevent addiction to opium in both these cities. This friendship would take them to China, modernizing medical education there, forming the first medical association in Beijing. Boon Keng would take up the position as President of the Xiamen University in 1921. This university was started and funded by the Singapore based tycoon, Tan Kah Kee. Following in his father, Boon Keng’s footsteps, Dr Robert Lim volunteered to help China. He went there during the Japanese invasion and it inspired a group of newly qualified doctors to in turn volunteer to help China. Among them was Dr Lim Chong Eu from Penang and Robert's son Kok Aun.  Both Chong Eu and Kok Aun would remain life long friends witnessing the rapid changes  as history unfolds in Penang and Singapore.

Chong Eu would return to Penang after the Japanese were defeated and turn his attention to helping Penang and Malaya free themselves from colonialism. Like his predecessors he too contributed to education in Malaya by helping the Chinese schools gain recognition. This led to his support for Nantah, a Chinese higher educational institution, and his call for equal recognition of Chinese education certifications as their English counterparts. 

Chong Eu's role in the early years of pre-independence and formation of Malaysia has not been sufficiently made known to the general public. Even less known are his ties to Singapore. His father Lim Chwee Leong was born and raised in Singapore. After graduating from medical school, he took a posting in Penang. By the time Chong Eu became involved in politics and was appointed by the British to the legislative council in Penang, his uncle Sir Han Hoe was already a leading community leader in Singapore and was also a legislative councilor. 

There is a long history of people-to-people ties between Penang and Singapore. From 1818 when Sir Stamford Raffles set sail from Penang to look for a southern base for the British East India Company, Penang has been a part of Singapore’s history. When education became necessary, many of the best students went to Singapore for further education at the University of Malaya, Singapore which was founded in 1949. Before that there was Raffles College and the King Edward VII College of Medicine which were merged to become the University of Malaya. Many students who attended these institutions ended up staying in Singapore for good. Like Boon Keng, Lien-Teh, Chong Eu and many others, these educated young adults went on to contribute to the development of Penang and Singapore forging deep bonds of friendship. It was only in 1965 that separation inflicted an emotional and psychic trauma on those who had deep ties to both cities. But in spite of the political divide, the friendships continued. Lee Kuan Yew and Chong Eu remained friends. Just on the eve of their retirement from high office, Kuan Yew visited Chong Eu in Penang in 1989 where Kuan Yew publicly reminisces on old ties and the possibilities of revisiting merger.   

The era of colonialism has come to an end. And yet, there are many signs that the powers that be and their successors are still somehow controlling from behind the scenes through proxies and cultural influences magnified by the mass media and Hollywood movies.  In the arts this is felt in many ways. In science, there is a tangible suppression of certain fields of research and the practice of integrative medicine. Even the interpretation of history is perceived as slanted towards one that favours the Western perspective. Why is this so? Are there still forces at play employing the old tactics of colonialism like divide and rule, exploit and extract, monopolize and control? Is this why there is a subliminal sense that humanity as a whole is at an inflexion point? Perhaps the question we collectively face is whether we want more of the old global structures reset or a new ecology of civilizations. Commonwealth of World Chinatowns is an opportunity to explore new ways for collaboration between civilizations for a better multipolar world.