There is a brief history of anarchism in Singapore.
In contemporary times, there is little or
no presence of the ideology in the country.
== History ==
While the area which is now Singapore was
inhabited for centuries prior to the arrival
of European colonialists, the founding of
modern Singapore took place in 1819.
Founded by the British statesman Stamford
Raffles, Singapore – as a colony of Britain
– saw the Chinese become its largest ethnic
group already in 1827.
This trend has continued until today, with
the Chinese Singaporeans making up approximately
74.1% of the population.This Chinese populace,
much of which came to Singapore due to political
or economic reasons – such as migrants leaving
southern China to escape economic hardships,
and refugees from the First Opium War (1839–1842)
and Second Opium War (1856–1860) – has
historically been a driving force behind radical
political ideologies in the country.
During the anti-Manchu upheavals of the late
19th and early 20th century in China, Chinese
anarchists played an influential part opposing
and eventually overthrowing the Qing Dynasty.
Singapore played an important role in this
process, serving as a center for Chinese revolutionary
activity.
In 1906 it became the headquarters of the
Tongmenghui, a left-wing nationalist group,
in Southeast Asia.The branch was led by Sun
Yat-sen, who would become a leader of the
Revolution of 1911 and the early Republic
of China.
But political activity in Singapore was not
limited to republican revolution.
During this period, Sun was associated with
the Chinese anarchist Zhang Renjie, who provided
a significant amount of Sun's funding (Zhang's
daughter Helen would later marry a doctor
from Singapore, Robert Lim).
Zhang, a member of the so-called Paris group
was active in the colony, where he purchased
a printing press to be used in producing anarchist
texts.
Another member of the Paris anarchist group,
Chu Minyi, joined the aforementioned Tongmenghui
while stopping over in Singapore.
Years later, in the wake of the May Fourth
Movement of 1919, anarchist groups were formed
throughout the overseas Chinese communities,
in among other places Singapore.
These radical societies published their own
newsletters and periodicals, and spread anarchist
literature.
Some republican–influenced anarchists joined
the General Labour Union of Guangzhou, which
had formed in Singapore.In the modern period,
political radicalism of all forms has been
far less common than historically in Singapore.
This applies especially to the political ideology
of anarchism.
Some rare anarchist-related instances have
occurred, such as in May 2014 when five Singaporean
teenagers were arrested for spraying crude
anarchist symbolism and anti-People's Action
Party slogans on a high-rise roof.In Singaporean
fiction, the plot of a 2003 six-part drama
series produced by the now defunct SPH MediaWorks
Channel U, entitled The Frontline (家在前线),
circled around how the country coped after
the German mastermind of a "neo-anarchist"
organisation sets off a bomb at a naval base
as an anti-imperialist statement against Singapore's
ties with the United States.
== References ==
