OPINION: "Question of the Day- To Demolish or Not To Demolish?" By Goh Meng Seng, 19 June 2017

Question of the Day- To Demolish or Not To Demolish? By Goh Meng Seng (Facebook post, 19 June 2017)

In one of the interviews LKY gave with regards to how he witnessed the sorry state of the "historical residence" of famous people (including Shakespeare).

Mr. Goh Meng Seng in NSP days (2011)

I have personally visited some of the "historical houses" of some "great historical individuals" and I have to agree with LKY's observation. Most of these places have succumbed to age and poor maintenance due to lack of funds, subsequently becoming just a dilapidated house.

As time passes and generations of people come and go, nobody is really interested in such "monuments" anymore. Not even foreign tourists would be interested in these places which claim to be an important part of history.

There are a few which were renovated or "rebuilt" a couple of times in the past decades and still stand well but the amount of interest from both local residents and foreign tourists is still pathetic.

Time moves on while these houses look on. Nothing significant can be said about them now and definitely nothing significant is worthy of interest for the majority of people living now.

For example, a relatively well kept memorial house in Singapore would be the "Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall"; but wait, how many of you know where it is or what it is all about? Have you visited it before? How many times have you visited it in your life, on your own (yeah, not that school organized excursion)? In more specific terms, what percentage of Singaporeans have visited this place? Or have any interest in it at all?

You know how expensive will it cost to upkeep such places? Look nowhere beyond the recent saga of over $800K Rubbish Bin of the old Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall!

The War Memorial Park at the centre of the CBD is more significant than any individual house but yet, not many people visited it, except for the annual delegation of representatives commemorating the deaths in WWII on 15 Feb War Memorial Day, which isn't even a public holiday in Singapore.

Of course for LKY's Oxley house, for the foreseeable future, if it is preserved as a memorial monument for LKY, will have throngs of children visiting it as a deliberate effort of PCF kindergartens bringing their students there just like they did during LKY's death. But what if, 50 or 100 years down the road, PAP loses power? What will become of this place?

Besides, as someone has unwittingly put it blatantly, this house is an important part of PAP's history. Hey, that is PAP's history we are talking about, not particularly about the Whole Singapore's history!

We didn't preserve David Marshall's house as part of important monument for the FIRST Chief Minister of self rule, did we?

In fact under more than five decades of PAP's ruthless rule, many important and significant landmarks have been destroyed, which meant a lot more to many generations of Singaporeans like mine e.g. The old National Central Library: several generations of Singaporeans have visited and studied hard in this library for their subsequent successes in life. And for many, this is also a place of romance in their lives. This is truly a place of great collective memories which was bulldozed without a wink from PAP government.

38 Oxley House? None of us except the Lee family members and their relatives cum friends have visited that place, let alone have any emotional attachment to this house. This is such an insignificant place as compared to the old National Central Library which a lot of Singaporeans have sentimental attachment to and memories of.

Thus, I do not see the rationale nor significance of this Oxley house to be preserved as a monument for LKY. If it is just for story telling of the History of PAP's formation, then a replica of the basement dining area, which was said to have held a lot of political meetings of the pioneers, could be constructed in the National Museum or at Fort Siloso Museum (just like what they did for the Surrender of Singapore to the Japanese). This would be more appropriate than preserving the whole house which will inevitably restrict the urban renewal development of the surrounding areas in Oxley Rise!

[This post is shared here with the kind written permission of Goh Meng Seng. Mr. Goh is Secretary-General of the People's Power Party (PPP) and former Secretary-General of the National Solidarity Party (NSP).]