HUMANISTS AND DEMOCRATS ON THE GROUND: A HISTORY OF SOCIO-POLITICAL ACTIVISM IN EARLY 1980S SINGAPORE 1980-1986

Abstract

Studies of activism in the 1980s have been dominated by an overwhelming focus on the aftermath of the “Marxist Conspiracy” detentions of 1987. Various studies have attributed this surge of activism to Liberation Theology or the social teachings of the Church, despite the fact that only a minority of the detainees were Christian or Catholic. Taking a closer look at the profiles of the non-Christian activists, I argue in a longitudinal study that an emergent network of secular activists, animated by ideas of humanism, democracy and pragmatism, were equally if not more significant to Singapore society in the 1980s.