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Africa Guides

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Singapura, meaning ‘Lion City’ in Sanskrit, has long wielded an importance and prosperity that is impressive relative to its size. Its position at a key strategic point in the Straits of Malacca and status as an Asian melting pot has ensured its survival over the years. Today, it is one of the world’s most prosperous countries and boasts a multi-cultural population as a legacy of its interesting past.

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But it was the arrival of the Dutch (and their powerful Dutch East India Trading Company) that really saw European influence get a strong foothold over Sumatra. By this time, little Singapore was attracting a growing, multi-cultural population of traders, merchants and seafarers, including Indians, Chinese, Malays and Europeans.

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Fortunately, Raffles, with his visionary expectations of the small island, was sympathetic to local interests and strived to develop Singapore as a free port rather than a possession of the Empire. Nonetheless, colonial ideals persisted and the city was soon planned out with a grand colonial governors’ sector north of the Singapore River, and an old town of ‘Chinese traders’ on the south side.

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By the time the war was over, the sentiment towards the British had changed and nationalist feelings prevailed. The city had lost its shine and no longer prospered, unions wielded greater power and the Malayan Communists had gain enormous respect for opposing the occupiers.

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Left in shock, the people of Singapore soon got over the fact that they had no paymaster or rich natural resources and set about a PAP-sponsored agenda of hard disciplined work and industrialisation, along with pursuing financial stability (turning it into an Asian banking hub), and an almost ‘big brother’ obsession with rules and fines.

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