1 Antoinette Burton, After the Imperial Turn: Thinking Through and With the Nation, Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2003.

2 ibid., p. 7.

3 Paul Gilroy, Between Camps: Race, Identity and Nationalism at the End of the Colour Line, London: Penguin, 2000, p. 111.

4 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1983.

5 Nira Yuval-Davies and Floya Anthias, eds, Women-Nation-State, London: Macmillan, 1989. See also Ida Blom, Karen Hagemann and Catherine Hall, eds, Gendered Nations: Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century, Oxford: Berg,2000. For an overview of various developments in the sociological study of nation, national identity, and nationalism by key figures in the field like Ernest Gellner, Anthony Smith, Craig Calhoun and Michael Billig, see Andrew Thompson and Ralph Fevre, “The National Question: Sociological Reflections on Nation and Nationalism”, Nations and Nationalism, 7, 3 (2001), 297-315.

6 The influential account of Singapore’s independence by Lee Kuan Yew is telling. At the press conference announcing the separation of Singapore from Malaysia in 1965, Lee referred to the event as “a moment of anguish” since the severance, in his view, was unnatural. See Albert Lau, A Moment of Anguish: Singapore in Malaysia and the Politics of Disengagement. Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1998. Lee felt that Singapore needed the Malaysian “hinterland” in order to survive. Lau writes,“To Lee, Singapore’s exclusion from Malaya was the result of a ‘freak man-made frontier’. ‘Had the British heeded the history of the peoples of Malaya and geographical and economic realities,’ he said, ‘they would have put Singapore into the Malayan Union, just like Penang and Malacca’” (p. 10).

7 See Yeo Kim Wah and Albert Lau, “From Colonialism to Independence, 1945-1965”, A History of Singapore, eds, Ernest C. T. Chew and Edwin Lee, Singapore: Oxford UP, 1991, pp. 117-53. As Yeo and Lau write, “Prior to merger, the PAP [People’s Action Party] had gone to great lengths to demonstrate that an independent Singapore was not viable. Now, ironically, it had to embark on the difficult task of proving its earlier analysis wrong” (p. 149). To this end, the narrative of crisis about Singapore’s vulnerability as a nation that has developed since independence has proven to be a strategic instrument of nation-building. See Chua Beng-Huat with Eddie C.Y. Kuo, “The Making of a Nation: Cultural Construction and National Identity”, Chua Beng-huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore, London: Routledge, 1995, p. 108.

8 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Delhi: OUP, 1997.

9 See Ernest C. T. Chew and Edwin Lee, eds, A History of Singapore, Singapore: OUP, 1991.

10 For a detailed analysis of a National Day parade as cultural text promoting a certain view of nation and national unity, see Irvin Lim Fang Jau, “Imag(in)ing Citizenship: Live Telecasting a Nation on Parade”, Reading Culture: Textual Practices in Singapore, ed. Phyllis Chew and Anneliese Kramer-Dahl, Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1999, pp. 123-44.

11 For an account of how the events of 1963-65, the period of merger with and separation from the Federation of Malaya, are deployed in a particular discursive construction of the nation, see Dayang Istiaisyah bte Hussin, “Textual Construction of a Nation: The Use of Merger and Separation”, Asian Journal of Social Science, 29, 3 (2001), 401-30.

12 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

13 The term “national service” has certain resonances in the local context as it also refers to a policy of compulsory military training required by the state of all male citizens.

14 Other prominent young writers in Singapore include the poets Alvin Pang, Felix Cheong and Cyril Wong, and the novelist Hwee Hwee Tan. In this article, the shortened reference to Alfian Sa’at’s name will be “Alfian”. As is common with Muslim names, “Alfian” is his given name while the second name is his father’s name.

15 Among his English plays are “Asian Boys Volume 1” staged by The Necessary Stage, and “Landmarks: Asian Boys Volume II” by W!ld Rice. Both plays deal with the issues surrounding the lives and experiences of gay men in Singapore. He has also written a number of Malay plays which have been performed by Teater Ekamatra.

16 Tom Nairn, The Break-up of Britain, London: New Left Books, 1977.

17 Alfian Sa’at, One Fierce Hour, Singapore: Landmark Books, 1998; and A History of Amnesia, Singapore: Ethos Books, 2001.

18 See Amnesty International, “Restrictions on Political Prisoner Chia Lifted” (27 Nov 1998). Retrieved 26 November 2004 at http://www.singaporewindow.org/81127ai.htm; Andrea Hamilton, “A Man Who Never Gave In” (6 Dec. 2000). Retrieved 26 Nov. 2004 at http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/98/1211/nat5.html; and Barry Porter,“Singapore’s Gentle Revolutionary”, South China Morning Post (30 Nov. 1998). Retrieved 26 Nov. 2004 at http://www.singapore-window.org/81130sc.htm.

19 Stan Sesser, Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia, New York: Vintage, 1994.

20 See Tom Eames Hughes, Tangled Worlds: The Story of Maria Hertogh, Singapore: Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1980; and Haja Maideen, The Nadra Tragedy: The Maria Hertogh Controversy, Selangor: Pelanduk Publications, 2000.

21 Lee had said this in a court affidavit in a libel suit against Tang Liang Hong, a former opposition party politician. See “Lee Kuan Yew Could Face Malaysia Libel Suit”, South China Morning Post (14 Mar. 1997). Retrieved 20 April 2005 at http://hongkong97.scmp.com/news/ArchiveArticle19970624154819426.html.

22 See Geraldine Heng and Janadas Devan, “State Fatherhood: The Politics of Nationalism, Sexuality and Race in Singapore”, Nationalisms and Sexualities, ed. Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris Sommer and Patricia Yaeger, New York: Routledge,1992, pp. 343-64. Heng and Devan provide an analysis of state patriarchy in Singapore and the ways in which the female body and the construction of minority races as “feminine” are advanced as antinational. By way of contrasting the trope of the nation as family, one might point to nationalist discourse in India where the female body particularly the figure of the mother is the preferred choice for signifying nation. See Ira Raja, “Signifying the Nation: Identity, Authenticity and the Ageing Body in the Post-Independence Hindi Short Story”, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 39, 3 (2004), 25-43.

23 See Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story, Singapore: Times Editions, 1998, p. 648.

24 Edwin Thumboo, “Ulysses by the Merlion”, Memories and Desire: A Poetic History of Singapore, ed. Robbie Goh, Singapore: Unipress, 1998. The cultural medallion is the highest honour the state can bestow on an individual for his or her contribution to the arts in Singapore.

25 The goals of the state’s public housing policy are “social integration, ethnic integration, and social control and surveillance”. See Michael Hill and Lian Kwen Fee, The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore, London: Routledge, 1995, p. 124.

26 For a comparative description from a sociological perspective of everyday life in an urban village in the 1950s as opposed to the “business of living” in the public housing estates of the mid-1980s, see Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore, pp. 79-100.

27 Alfian Sa’at, Corridor, Singapore: Singapore National Publishers, 1999. In Singapore, local writing is greatly legitimized by the winning of national literary prizes. Winning writers are given press coverage and receive financial help to publish. Given the difficulty of achieving any semblance of economic independence, many of the nation’s writers and artists rely on the state’s funding body for the arts, the National Arts Council (NAC). Through its ability to dispense grants, scholarships, bursaries, and arts awards, the NAC has considerable power over the development of Singapore’s creative arts scene.

Performing National Service in Singapore: (Re)imagining Nation in the Poetry and Short Stories of Alfian Sa’at

Abstract