Staging Chinese student activism in Cold War Singapore: Performing Chineseness and embodying the Malayan nation, 1950s–60s

Abstract

This article is a re-examination of Chinese student activism in Singapore through the lens of cultural performance, which has yet to garner due attention. Tracing the ebb and flow of Chinese school concerts in the politically volatile atmosphere of Cold War era Singapore and Malaya complicates current understanding about student activism in the city state. Whereas the official narratives by the British colonial administration and later, the PAP, often cast Chinese student activism as part of a communist insurgency, this article argues that school concerts—comprising folk dances, songs, choirs and theatre—were an alternative space for Chinese youth to articulate their visions of building an independent socialist state and an integrated multiracial Malayan nation. Unlike the student activism expressed through mass strikes, these school concerts enable one to see how the Chinese students displayed sophisticated ways of discipline, organisation skills, and creative energy through the performing arts in 1950s and 1960s Singapore.