When we tried to rip ourselves apart.

I have often thought that a good interviewsubject either for TV or the print media would be the people who took part in the Hock Lee Bus riots, the Maria Hertogh riots, the race riots of 1964, the 1954 National Service Riots and the Chinese Middle School riots. I wonder if they think Singapore is a better place now, i wonder if they think that what they did means something today. My parents used to tell me about the fear that spread, about rumours that the chinese were coming to kill everyone or that the malays were down the road killing everyone. They used to tell me about curfew and not being able to get to the shops and even when you did most of them had nothing on their shelves for fear of looters. My mum and my brother actually went to stay with my grandmother in Johor where it was deemed safer for them while my father roamed singapore trying to get a better look at what was happening (i often wondered if he didnt set a car or two ablaze but he really wasnt that kind of man). Death, distruction and mayhem things so unimaginable here in Singapore today. Most of us learn a little bit in school and maybe read abit in the papers when there is an Anniversary or something but the people who were there doing the rioting because of rumors or because they felt they were fighting for something worth fighting for, these are the people i think we should interview. These are the people that i would like to hear.

Maria Hertogh died recently at the age of 72, she had a hard life, left by her biological family, ripped apart from her adoptive family and husband, sent to live in a place where she knew not the language or customs and none of it her choice. Sometimes its hard to remember that for her and her families both adoptive and biological it was not about race or religion it was about a little girl.