Just how fast the night changes

National history is the past of a nation, while national memory is what citizens make of it - it is founded upon common experiences and culture. In his work “Les Lieux de Memoire”, Pierra Nora raises a curious remark about the “distance between national history and what we may now call national memory”. Singapore has a unified national history and a national memory, only that it is united through its democratised form where Singaporeans get to say what Singapore is to them. It is trite that our national history is rich, but we cannot say the same for our national memory. As it stands, our breakneck pace of growth nets us no time to leave our mark.

The old National Library, the National Stadium, the National Theatre, to name some, were once markers of Singapore’s now-fading national memory. Nascent sites like ORTO were not spared from the butcher knife either. We suffer from our successes now that land scarcity requires us to pay with sites of memory. It is worrying as the disappearances of memory markers become normalised. Jared Diamond, in his book “Collapse”, aptly calls this “landscape amnesia”. A pragmatic cost-benefit analysis would say the loss is necessary for growth, but our national memory should not be bound by such logic: it is insulting to even subject our shared memories to an objective analysis and then to claim that the economic and productivity gains outweigh our prized memories. When we lose too much of what is familiar to us: our playgrounds, our coffeeshops, we can’t help but feel detached from our roots. It is precisely because our national memory is to be remembered that we need to be reminded of it, and it is our frequented places that remind us of Singapore. If we concede that forgetting is the norm, then remembering must be the exception.

Firstly, attitudes toward the present need to change. Singapore would benefit more from a nation that appreciates its present and past, and build towards the future by opposing its instincts of letting go. This Singapore would write its own story with its past as a foundation,, and so ascribe a greater weight towards preserving its lieux rather than forgo them for the future. There would be few emotions greater than a Singaporean speaking of his own homeplace twenty years down the road to the next generation, the same way my parents talked of their kampung in 90s-Changi. Every Singaporean would have their own lieux to speak of.

With newfound stability, Singaporeans would be able to step back and embrace our place. This much needed permanence would then allow us the space and time to form our very own memories - something uniquely Singaporean.

But it would be unrealistic to expect Singapore to come to a standstill. In growing Singapore into a sustainable metropolis, we would opt to preserve and conserve our precincts by preserving its current exterior, even if using the interior for a different purpose. Even as Singaporeans are displaced and moved about, we would still proudly call Singapore “home” if there was still a home to look at. Above all, conservation would further strengthen our narrative as a small nation that is so rich in heritage and culture.

We would fare so much better if Singapore’s identity would not be spoken of in the past tense, but in the present as a collective effort towards the future. Seen as a big picture, retaining our current sites or conserving them while anticipating future use would promote Singapore as a resilient nation that builds upon its tumultuous yet opulent history. And together with our rich heritage, our stories, our energies, and our developments, we would differentiate ourselves from our neighbours and offer an experience just as exciting and immersive.

To put it differently, Singapore would stand to grow so much more if it were to slow down than to speed up its footsteps, and place the Singaporean memory at its heart. After all, Singapore without Singaporeans would go out “not with a bang, but a whimper”.