As Singapore marks the two hundredth anniversary of Sir Stamford Raffles’ landing on its shores, Singaporeans must also take into consideration how the country can move forward together, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Monday (Jan 28).
“We never finished building Singapore. It is the responsibility of every generation to continue to build for our children and our future,” Lee said.
“So that in another 50 to 100 years, Singaporeans not yet born will have a richer and greater story to tell about the Singapore story that we together helped write.”
Lee said this on the launch of Singapore’s Bicentennial celebrations, during which he toured exhibits from zi Light Singapore, the Light to Night festival and tried out BALIKSG, an augmented reality trail-tracking app that enables users to revisit historical events.
While the bicentenary marks 200 years since Raffles arrived in Singapore, Singapore’s history dates back a whole bunch of years before his arrival, Lee said.
In the 14th century, the world just off the mouth of the Singapore River was a thriving seaport called Temasek. It was around this era that Sang Nila Utama founded Singapore as a kingdom, Lee added.
Lee said that within the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans arrived in Southeast Asia and Singapore almost became a Spanish colony.
“It was another 200 years before Raffles landed at a nearby location and persuaded the Sultan of Johor to allow the British East India Company to establish a trading post in Singapore,” he said.
This became a “key turning point” in Singapore’s history and set Singapore on a trajectory to change into what it’s today – a contemporary, open and multicultural society, he said.
When Raffles made Singapore a free port, the colony prospered and expanded rapidly, attracting immigrants from Southeast Asia, China, India and beyond, Lee said.
“Trade was our blood. It connected us to the archipelago around us and the world beyond.
That’s why, in line with Lee, the Singapore Bicentennial “is value commemorating.” “It shouldn’t be only a remembrance of Raffles or Singapore’s first resident, William Farquhar, but a tracing and reflection on the longer history of Singapore before 1965,” he said.
“Without 1819, we might never have embarked on the path to nationhood as we know it today. Without 1819, we wouldn’t have had 1965 and we certainly wouldn’t have been celebrating the success of SG50,” Lee said.
Source : Asia News Channel
