27 mayo 1961 año - Merger with Malaya is proposed

Descripción:

Initial response:
Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Malay prime minister, felt that merger equals to trouble since he saw stark differences in outlook between the people of Singapore and Malaya. He also feared that the predominantly Chinese population might be reluctant to have a Malay Sultan as Head of State and use Malay as a national language and accept Islam as the state religion. Merger with just Singapore alone would also cause the racial makeup to be uneven as there would be more combined Chinese population than Malays.

Change of Heart:
Malaya had a representative on Singapore's internal security council, and if Singapore were to gain independence, Malaya would lose their influence over Singapore's internal security, would made the threat of communism in SG much harder to contain. Tunku also suspected that many Chinese in SG had sympathies towards the communists due to the strikes in the 1950s. He also feared that the PAP would be taken over by communist-sympathetic members without the merger, which might result in the SG government being less willing to consider a merger on acceptable terms with Malaya. SG would be less dangerous with the merger as the communist elements would be able to be controlled by the Malaya government, decreasing the risk of SG turning communist and influencing others.

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