SM Teo Chee Hean at the 58th War Memorial Service

Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Boys and girls.

It was in the early morning of December 8th, 1941, that the first bombs fell on Singapore. After several years anxiously watching war break out and spread across China, Europe, and North Africa, war had arrived on our doorstep. Three months later, Japanese forces launched their assault on Singapore. And after just seven days, the British forces in Singapore surrendered. That was eighty-three years ago today.

What followed was three and a half years of hardship and privation. Tens of thousands of civilians perished during the harsh occupation. This memorial is dedicated to their memory.

In 1962, the remains of many thousands of civilians were unearthed from mass graves in areas like Siglap, Changi, and Bukit Timah. The Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce took responsibility for gathering the remains, and advocated for the establishment of a monument for all the civilians who had lost their lives, including those whose fates remain unknown¹. Over six hundred urns containing those remains were interred on these grounds.

I recall coming here as a boy, when the memorial was first completed in 1967, about the same age as the students who are here today. My grandmother and our family had come to pray for our grandfather. He had been taken by the Japanese during the war, never to be seen again.

Back then, the buildings surrounding this area were just a few storeys high. This memorial, with its soaring pillars reaching for the sky stood out from the surroundings. Most who gathered here in 1967 had lived through the war. They had witnessed its horrors first hand and lost loved ones. The emotions they felt were raw and strong.

Over the years, new, taller buildings have come up. The sea beyond has been reclaimed. The memorial no longer towers above its surroundings, but its columns still reached out to the sky in hope and memory. In much the same way, time has allowed the emotions from this dark episode to recede. The bitterness has gradually faded from our hearts.

Today, many of us can gaze at these pillars without feeling such strong emotions. To a younger generation these pillars are perhaps just a marker of a bygone chapter of our history. But as a society and as a people, we build memorials when there are deep lessons that one generation wants future generations to remember.

Never again can we allow ourselves to be unprepared to defend our own country and our families. The world today is once again awash with turbulence and uncertainty. From the tumult of wars and great power competition, to the looming spectre of extremist terrorism. We can be quickly swept up in troubles that start elsewhere. If we forget, and do not prepare to defend ourselves, we risk repeating the tragedy and loss that war and conflict bring.

This memorial also reminds us that every one of us has a role to play to safeguard Singapore. To establish this memorial, the SCCC started a fund to raise contributions for it. The whole community wanted to do its part. Soon enough, the fund encompassed contributions from all ethnic groups in Singapore.

This was a quiet but important moment for our young nation at the cusp of independence. Every ethnic group coming together to remember a tragedy that affected us all, across racial and religious lines. The four identical columns of this memorial represent each of our major racial groups, standing together side by side.

We have continued to stand together with each other in times of crisis. Through the Asian Financial Crisis, through SARS, and most recently through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our collective will to stand our ground is our greatest asset in this period of uncertainty – it is a sign of our strength and a source of deterrence.

In our region, we are fortunate that the sounds of the guns of war have fallen silent for many years. But they continue to ring out loudly in other parts of the world, bringing untold tragedy. Let us pray today also that these wars may end soon, and that peace shall return.

In these turbulent times, let us also resolve to work together with peoples and nations from across the world for a more peaceful future. Let us look for what unites us in our common humanity, and not allow others to rake up differences to divide us. Let us work together in harmony so that our families can grow in peace and build better lives. 80 years ago, this war ended and led to a series of events that brought us to our independence. Let us remember and work together to build a better future for our nation, our family, the region and the world.

Thank you.

[1] SCCC was renamed SCCCI in 1997