A FRACTURED PLURALITY: RECONTEXTUALIZING THE ROLE OF RACE IN THE 1945 INTERREGNUM

Abstract

While there are numerous works examining the period of Japanese administration in Singapore, few have covered the interregnum between Japanese surrender on 15th August to the Allied landing on 4th September 1945. During these three weeks, Singapore was marked by mob violence and retributory killings, and what little coverage that has been given to it has been largely framed through a racial lens. This thesis will contribute to the sparse literature on the period by pushing back against the dominance of race as a lens—specifically the modern tripartite racial paradigm of unified Chinese, Malay, and Indian communities— and arguing that retributory violence and the complex idea of collaborator-hood considered more than race and political affiliation. To buttress this thesis, I will first problematize the racial paradigm through a survey of the class and ethnic lines which informed the formation of several organisations during the immediate pre-war years. I will then examine the persistence of these lines during the period of Japanese administration through a close analysis of the intra-organisational class and ethnic lines of several racially-ordered associations, to demonstrate that even in the years leading up to the interregnum, racial identity was still developing and was inchoate. The embryonic state of unified racial identity as understood today then precludes assertions of racially-motivated violence during the interregnum. With room thus made through the destabilization of the dominant paradigm, I will then advocate for the utility of an alternative historiographical lens through an examination of oral interviews from contemporaries of the period. It is hoped that through my efforts, this thesis will contribute to the wider historiography of Singapore by shedding light on the relegated period of the interregnum, and offer a reminder that the human experience encompassed more than just race and political affinity.