Mass Demonstration of Common Understanding: Martial Arts and Singapore’s Counterproductive Attempts at Creating a National Identity

James Matthew Kin Lao & Voon Jung National University of

Singapore

Abstract

This paper explores the forces behind the decline of martial arts as a nation-building tool despite its rich history in Singapore, with reference to the metanarratives undergirding the 1988 National Martial Arts and Qigong Solidarity Mass Demonstration. In this regard, we use the concepts of memory, patrimony and publicity to analyse the evolution of two martial arts prominent at the time: the indigenously-developed Singafist, and the “imported” taekwondo. We show that efforts to fuse martial lineages led merely to confusion and disjunction (Singafist), while state-promoted martial alternatives (taekwondo) became tainted by an overriding instinct to expedite and syllabize. Such methods of practice were fundamentally incompatible with the cultural embodiment so characteristic of martial arts.

Part 1 Memory, Patrimony and Publicity

“Singapore will enjoy racial harmony as long as there is common understanding and a live-andlet-live attitude among Singaporeans...”

Brigadier-General (Res) Lee Hsien Loong at the 1988 National Martial Arts and Qigong Solidarity Mass Demonstration a speech at the Mass Demonstration at Toa Payoh Stadium1

At the podium set for him in the middle of Toa Payoh Stadium, the Brigadier-General (and future Prime Minister) addressed an audience of 30,000. The crowd had gathered on a balmy Sunday afternoon to witness the country’s “largest-ever joint martial arts display.” 2And exhilarating it must have been, for 5,000 practitioners of different races, ages and schools skillfully exhibited the moves and stances that characterised their art.

Then-Brigadier-General Lee Hsien Loong delivers

Yet the ostensibly blithe tone with which the twohour-long affair was advertised and organised belied the calculated, if unconventional, attempt at promulgating a public narrative. Jointly organised by several martial arts associations and the state-administered People’s Association, it is abundantly clear that the 1988 National Martial Arts and Qigong Solidarity Mass Demonstration was a deeply political manoeuvre towards, among other things, the development of a national identity. The Brigadier-General

1 Ministry for Information and the Arts (MITA), MINISTER FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY AND SECOND MINISTER FOR DEFENCE (SERVICES) BRIGADIER-GENERAL LEE HSIEN LOONG DELIVERS A SPEECH AT NATIONAL MARTIAL ARTS AND QIGONG SOLIDARITY MASS DEMONSTRATION HELD AT TOA PAYOH STADIUM, 27 March 1988, 19980000917 – 0008, National Archives of Singapore, Singapore. https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/photographs/record-details/489c35ab-1162-11e3-83d5-0050568939ad said as much when he remarked in his speech that “martial arts can help in nation-building.”3 It seemed almost too fitting, then, that the event was labelled a ‘Mass Demonstration’ - a double entendre, for it was as much a large-scale public demonstration of martial abilities as it was a national demonstration of the “reality of [the] multi-racial nature of Singapore society.”4

2 Live and Let Live for Racial Harmony - BG Lee’.

The question now, however, is whether the Singapore government – having given this support in both discourse and resource – was successful in its use of martial arts to advance its nation-building goals. This paper argues in the negative; rather than contributing to a Singaporean identity, the event was actually counterproductive to the state’s goals. To justify this assertion, this paper will first posit about the motivations behind the organisation of the Mass Demonstration, as well as the metanarratives that undergird the event. To this end, this paper will examine the concepts of memory, patrimony, and publicity to determine the discursive frameworks behind the state’s use of martial arts in inculcating national identity. Subsequently, this paper will explore how these attempts have been stymied by its own contradictions, highlighting two contributors to counterproductivity with reference to the histories of two martial arts in Singapore: Singafist and taekwondo. In so doing, it investigates why this grand show – and other similar efforts – failed to catalyse a more stable and permanent cultural attachment to martial arts within the national Singaporean consciousness.

Memory and Patrimony in Martial Arts

To begin, one must first consider the fundamental conceptual foundations that undergird the very notion of ‘martial arts’. A direct definition is difficult; Bowman notes that the “discursive proliferations” of the many self-defence or attack disciplines through different media genres have furcated the idea of martial arts into “myriad, multiple, and vastly differing iterations.”5 The semantic connotations of the term are thus continually contested as different schools recognize different mechanisms of rightful self-determination. A plausible unifying thread, however, is the interplay between memory and patrimony in these disciplines called ‘martial arts’.

3 ‘Live and Let Live for Racial Harmony - BG Lee’.

4 ‘Live and Let Live.

5 Bowman, ‘The Meaning of Martial Arts’.

Embodiment

With the rapid development of martial arts studies as an academic field, the capacity of martial arts for knowledge production and preservation is wellknown. “Ineluctable” to this capacity is what Farrer and Whalen-Bridge6 refer to as embodiment: the “existential condition in which the body is the subjective source or intersubjective ground of experience.”7 As a vessel for the accumulation of ways of movement, a body subjected to martial “pedagogy, performance and practice” can allow a practitioner to acquire “embodied skills and cognitive abilities” that are otherwise unobtainable.8 Subsequently successful demonstrations of these skills are declarative in the sense that a standard of competence has been accomplished by the practitioner.

More importantly, the accruement of embodied martial knowledge within a body represents an intersection of the established yet individuated mechanisms governing memory and patrimony in a martial art. French historian Pierre Nora eloquently captures this interaction in Realms of Memory:

What was left of experience, still lived in the warmth of tradition, in the silence of custom, in the repetition of the ancestral, has been swept away by a surge of deeply historical sensibility.9

Thus, in these terms, memory is experience “swept away by… historical sensibility”, while patrimony is the periodic “repetition” of tradition, custom and “the ancestral” that allows memory to persevere. Such repetition can come in the form of gestures that aid in the transmission of specific norms.10 In the context of martial arts, the bodily practices and performances that constitute an art are often “enmeshed within a rich cultural milieu suffused with… sacred symbols and ritual activity,”11 even if the art has experienced secularisation over time. These established mechanisms of repetition allow practitioners to wilfully and deliberately inherit old knowledge – old memory – at a visceral level from their predecessors (who have done the same), thus “preserving the soul of routines”12 of which the original forms or creators are no more.

6 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge, Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge.

7 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge, 1.

8 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge, 203.

9 Nora and Kritzman, Realms of Memory, 1.

10 Nora and Kritzman.

11 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge.

Simultaneously, the context-sensitive nature of a practitioner’s martial arts experience contributes to new memories being created and then infused into how the old knowledge is repeated. Nora argues that such memory, which is “transformed by its passage through history,”13 is “psychological, individual and subjective”14 as new generations of students and masters develop in different socio-political environments. Tyner, Alvarez and Colucci provide a similar perspective, wherein the past: that which we memorialise… is constantly selected, filtered, and restructured in terms set by the questions and necessities of the present.15

Indeed, the rise of commoditization and ‘public diplomacy’ (to name a few) have irrevocably altered the societal structures of valuation that influence how martial arts are taught and learned. In essence, therefore, the accumulation of embodied knowledge through a martial art represents a continual hybridization of past memories with present memories, the product of which – the martial identity – is then passed on (if so chosen) to succeeding generations whereupon the memory-patrimony process starts anew.

Publicity and the Politics of Memory

Yet as may be expected, any corpus of martial knowledge is far from impervious to influence and manipulation, giving rise to a politics of memory. A politics of memory understands that “what is commemorated is not synonymous with what has happened in the past”; rather, commemorations, especially from the state level, tend to “hide a historical and political interpretation” of collective memory.16 A key apparatus in this process is publicity, which utilises suggestion to influence memories about a certain subject. Drawing on concepts of Foucauld- ian governmentality, the “exhibitionary complex” of public displays often serve to “interiorize the power/knowledge effects… the will to see and to know becomes the principle of self-surveillance and self-regulation”.17 Marek18 notes that memory as a psychological function is “highly vulnerable” to “the possibility of being influenced by… print or popular media”. In so doing, publicity may “contribute to the process of creating false memories”.19

12 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge, 209.

13 Nora and Kritzman, 8.

14 Nora and Kritzman, 8.

In this way, martial arts as co-opted by a motivated political body may be wielded as a tool for largescale memory-making – one that can be used to justify “present forms of social representation and political presence”.20 The number of instances where states and political hopefuls massage public memories of martial arts to facilitate discursive advantage, if not control, is not small. For example, Bowman explains that the Chinese government manipulates the “histories, images, and values”21 of wushu as “players in domestic and international cultural policy” to be deployed according to the state’s convenience. Within Southeast Asia there is also the notable example of legendary boxer Manny Pacquiao, who utilised his identity in the ring in his senatorial, then presidential candidacy. Pacquiao’s recent declaration is especially relevant here:

“I am a fighter, and I will always be a fighter inside and outside the ring… I am accepting your nomination as candidate for president of the Republic of the Philippines.”22

Thus, both Pacquiao and the Chinese government publicly appeal to a mnemonic reconstruction of their relation to the martial art in order to derive discursive legitimacy for political ends. They play on the memories attached to the arts to imbue some sense of associative connection between themselves and their addressees.

It must be qualified that the redefinition or creation of memories that leads to new values and meanings are not necessarily “illegitimate or [lacking] real cultural and political work”,23 with there being

15 Tyner, Alvarez, and Colucci, ‘Memory and the Everyday Landscape of Violence in Post-Genocide Cambodia’, 855.

16 Tyner, Alvarez, and Colucci.

17 Espiritu, ‘Native Subjects on Display’, 731.

18 Marek, ‘The Connection Between False Memory and Publicity’ examples of legitimate reclamations of near-forgotten cultures and traditions. Nor are they automatically nefarious in intent, even if the memories are massaged into something simpler. Nonetheless, there is a need to acknowledge that such methods of artificial memory-making are by nature exertions of power on local discourse towards the fulfilment of specific aims. It is with this understanding that we examine Singapore’s attempted use of martial arts as a nation-building tool in 1988. standing was not theoretical; in the same speech, Lee remarked that the government did not aim to “create one Singaporean race”, instead choosing to develop “a country in which all Singaporeans lived peacefully”.

19 Marek, i.

20 Tyner, Alzarez, and Colucci, 856.

21 Bowman, 136.

22 Reuters, ‘Boxer Manny Pacquiao to Run for Philippine President in 2022’.

23 Smith, Uses of Heritage.

27Creating a common understanding along such lines was thus crucial as a basis of national unity, of which racial harmony is only a constitutive element of.

Peaceful Coexistence

What, then, is there to understand? The first is that the country needs peaceful coexistence between its organised groups, referring not just to the different racial communities, but also the organisations that represent them – in this case, the martial arts schools. The Mass Demonstration represented eleven types of martial arts, in addition to ‘internal strength’ and lion and dragon dances.28 The martial arts represented comprise qigong shibashi, waidangong and taijiquan from the Chinese; silat from the Malay; kalaripayattu and selambattan from the Indians; locally developed arts Singafist and Singapore zhonghequan; and the East Asian judo, taekwondo and karate.29

The public display of the 1988 National Martial Arts and Qigong Solidarity Mass Demonstration is foremostly – if obviously – demonstrative. Despite the portrayal of the event as a “multi-racial pugilistic display”,25 what the event truly aimed to establish may be surmised from Brigadier-General Lee’s speech at Toa Payoh Stadium:

Singapore will enjoy racial harmony as long as there is common understanding and a live-andlet-live attitude among Singaporeans...26

Interrogating this emphasis on common understanding (as opposed to ‘racial harmony’ directly) is key to evaluating the sociopolitical metanarratives at play here. The state’s discursive use of common under-

The scholastic variety of the Mass Demonstration was no mere afterthought. According to a Lianhe Zaobao article from February 1988, the Mass Demonstration was organised for three reasons:

1. To showcase through the combined display the different races’ martial arts and qigong organisations’ capacity for “harmony and cooperation”;

2. To further said “harmony and cooperation” between the organisations; and

3. To promote participation in martial arts and qigong among the populace.30

Such reasoning was the culmination of protracted negotiations between opposing martial arts schools, between whom tensions tend to arise from instances

24 Ministry for Information and the Arts (MITA), NATIONAL MARTIAL ARTS AND QIGONG SOLIDARITY MASS DEMONSTRATION AT TOA PAYOH STADIUM, 27 March 1988, 19980006120 – 0103, National Archives of Singapore, Singapore. https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/photographs/record-details/003fad3b-1162-11e3-83d5-0050568939ad

25 Live and Let Live.

26 Live and Let Live.

27 Live and Let Live.

28 Live and Let Live.

29 Live and Let Live.

30 Deng, ‘人协主办五千人参加武术与气功大汇演定三月廿七日举行邓伟坚羹虑一个 5000 人参与演出的全国武术与气瑰大’, author’s translation. Original text is as follows:

主办这次武术与气功团结大汇演的目的有三。

1 表现我国各民族在武术与气功团体之间的和谐与合作；

2 继续促进我国各民族的武术与气功团体之间的和谐与合作；

3 推广五属于气功活动，鼓励国人多多参加 of alleged misremembrance. Farrer, in his study of martial arts in Singapore, notes that issues occur when “people disagree with how the routines should be remembered,”31 giving rise to “different, competing lineages.” 32

As far back as the early 1970s, there had been public efforts by Singaporean politicians to eliminate this sometimes-violent rivalry between schools. In 1974, the government passed the Martial Arts Instruction Act, which permits the state to unilaterally suspend the operations of martial arts schools and teachers. Six years later, the Singapore Martial Arts’ Instructors Association (SMAIA) was formed as a platform for inter-organizational cooperation under then-Senior Minister of State Lee Khoon Choy. Lee, speaking at the SMAIA’s inauguration, stated that

Martial arts schools in Singapore cannot be allowed to develop in the likes of Chinese kung fu history… The various contending schools of martial arts here cannot have a tradition of antagonism.33

Here, Lee proposed a divergence from conventional memory-patrimony mechanisms of martial arts, a fork in the road that leads to a more active cooperation and coexistence. The Mass Demonstration reinforces this intent publicly, through its calls for a more “live-and-let-live” attitude among Singaporeans.34

Health-as-Defence

The other constituent of ‘common understanding’ would be the importance of citizen health to nation-building. The Brigadier-General declared as much:

Singaporeans need to have strong bodies so that we may survive in a volatile world and fulfil all of our targets.35

Such a statement naturally plays into narratives highlighting the value of a healthy population in contributing to the resources and productivity of the country. A more specific application of this discourse can be traced to Defence Minister Dr Yeo Ning Hong, who said years prior to the Mass Demonstration that:

31 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge, 224.

32 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge, 221.

33 ‘Martial Arts: No Antagonism Call by Khoon Choy’.

34 Live and Let Live.

Despite being equipped with the most sophisticated weaponry, the armies of today still depend on the physical fitness of the individual man... The widespread practice of martial arts would certainly help toughen up our National Servicemen and reservists.36

Here, Yeo explicitly presented martial arts as a conduit for population health, which he then linked to the nation’s defence.

These sentiments of health-as-defence form part of wider discourse about Singapore’s vulnerability amidst “the irredentist geography of Southeast Asia”. 37The creation of the operationally-ready militarised civilian through National Service (NS) was – and still is – supported by a highly-entrenched politics of memory. The state regularly invoked both the national memories of the British surrender of Singapore and the Konfrontasi years, as well as memories of international crises, to sustain the catch-all narrative of external uncertainty.38 In so doing, the state “continually re-inflate[s] the spirit of Singaporean vigilance… as an existential insurance against the unknown scenario of letting one’s guard down”.39 It is through this perennial vigilance that the Singaporean state may “survive in a volatile world”.

Subsequently, the Mass Demonstration’s generalisation of martial arts as an everyday health implement expands the state’s health-as-defence discourse beyond just NSmen. There is precedence for such usage: Farrer and Whalen-Bridge state that the Chinese use martial arts as nation-building devices, “promoting the health and fitness of the population, especially against colonial interlopers”.40 Similarly, the mobilisation of the vernacular to the forefront of Singapore’s defence seemed almost akin to the

35 Lianhe Wanbao, ‘四千多武术爱好者首次历史性大汇演’, author’s translation. Original text is as follows: 新加坡人应有强健的体魄，在世事多变的局势中求生存，实现我们的目标 proliferation of Total Defence at all levels of Singaporean society.

36 Yeo, ‘Speech by Dr Yeo Ning Hong’.

37 Chong and Chan, ‘Militarizing Civilians in Singapore’, 369.

38 Chong and Chan.

39 Chong and Chan, 380.

40 Chong and Chan, 380.

Nation-Building through Common Understanding

In sum, therefore, the government sought to present martial arts as a platform for common understanding, upon which nation-building may take place; an understanding of peaceful coexistence between the different schools would create valuable opportunities for cooperation, while an understanding of health-as-defence is necessary for the continuity of the nation. The Mass Demonstration served as a highly-publicised manifestation of this discourse, as different martial arts – each with their lineages and claims to fitness – are given a shared, legitimising platform for national viewing.

Or so it was in theory. In reality, as will soon be argued, the Mass Demonstration – and martial arts as a whole – proved abortive to the state’s nation-building efforts. While the value of each ‘half’ of the ‘common understanding’ discourse is easily intuited in isolation, put together there is little to show with regards to the infusion of martial arts into Singaporean national identity, in the way other states have done. There are two key reasons for this failure, which will be examined through two martial arts represented in the event: Singafist and taekwondo.

Part 3 Singafist and the Mnemonic Contradictions of Conjoined Lineages

Practitioners from the Sancheendo Institute demonstrating moves from Singafist.41

On the SMAIA’s third anniversary, Lee Khoon Choy would suggest the development of a conducive environment that could eventually foster the creation of a “Singaporean form of martial art”.42 Chastising the continued tensions between the martial arts schools within the SMAIA, Lee would remark that:

All martial arts [except bersilat] are imported. We have the advantage of all the rich resources and wisdoms of so many countries at our disposal. We can take advantage of them only if we have an open mind.

Lee however cautioned that should an organic Singaporean martial art be developed, it must be done without “artificially [forcing] the pace” of its creation.43 It was uncertain what the optimal ‘pace of creation’ should be, but within a relatively short three years, the art of Singafist was created. Having perceived that “the right time” had come to create a uniquely Singaporean martial art,44 the SMAIA supported the efforts of Grandmaster Teo Choon Teck, who with the aid of eight other grandmasters amalgamated moves from eight martial arts45 into a single moveset.46 The plan was to first train instructors to relative competence, before pushing it out to schools and other organisations for national proliferation.47

The initial reaction to Singafist was promising. With publicity through the media and live performances, interest in the new, indigenously crafted art grew significantly, with Grandmaster Teo regularly receiving dozens of new students from all races.48 It was seen as a genuine platform of unity,49 a breakthrough in a young country whose cultural identity had little beyond mere inheritance. To many, including the state, Singafist represented a first step in the formation of a true Singaporean memory that may

41 Ministry for Information and the Arts (MITA), NATIONAL MARTIAL ARTS AND QIGONG SOLIDARITY MASS DEMONSTRATION AT TOA PAYOH STADIUM, 27 March 1988, 19980006121 – 0010, National Archives of Singapore, Singapore. https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/photographs/record-details/4964782b-1162-11e3-83d50050568939ad

42 Lee, ‘Speech by Lee Khoon Choy’.

43 Lee, ‘Speech by Lee Khoon Choy’.

44 Liao, ‘融汇各族武术精华 拳路成“亚”字 新加拳蓝图已拟好’, author’s translation. Original text is as follows:

···现在是创立一个代表新加坡文化的拳术的最佳时刻

45 Namely Silat, Taekwondo, Karate, Northern Shaolin Kungfu, Southern Shaolin Kungfu, Judo, Aikido, and Silambam

46 Ong, ‘Let It Die Out’.

47 Liao, ‘融汇各族武术精华 拳路成“亚”字 新加拳蓝图已拟好’, author’s translation. Original text is as follows: 有足够的教练之后，协会将计划把这套拳术积极推广学校和各有关的武术团体。

48 Ong, ‘Let It Die Out’.

49 Qing, ‘发扬“新加”精神’, author’s translation. Original text is as follows:

紧扣新加坡这个多元种族，多元文化的使命 then be passed down to future generations; indeed, it was showcased even in the 1987 National Day Parade, and a year later, at the Mass Demonstration. Over time, however, the attention around Singafist did not sustain:

We went into decline when they cut off the road - because of the new National Stadium.

[…] Today, the average attendance at [the academy’s] current makeshift Geylang location hovers around five.50

Accelerated by the health problems of Grandmaster Teo, the plan for national proliferation never came to be, and the current status of Singafist remains that of decline and obscurity.

Conjoined Lineages

The inhibiting factors working against Singafist lie beyond the deprivation of training space, although it certainly played a factor in its decline; for if the martial art had a more permanent presence in the Singaporean national consciousness, it would not have declined so precipitously even with venue changes. Some media depictions point to its lack of ‘sexy’ cultural cache, entrenching it as a ‘product of its time’;51 yet arguably, the more pertinent issue stems from the mnemonic contradictions within the state’s attempts at constructing coexistence. It is neatly encapsulated in how the art attempted to braid the lineages of eight distinct martial arts without thoroughly addressing the inevitable tensions.

On one hand, the top-down creation of Singafist was marked by the highly simplistic appropriation of its composite martial arts, which seemed more like appendices to the Chinese leitai that Grandmaster Teo specialized in. In so doing, every martial art was stripped of the embodied knowledge associated with it, including the cultural context and memory that provide the art a martial identity ‘worth inheriting’. What was instead forged (in both senses of the word) was a clean “national archive”52 lacking the “memory and identity work necessary for cultural

50 Ong, ‘Let It Die Out’.

51 Lee, ‘Singafist’

52 Nora and Kritzman revitalization”.53 As Farrer and Whaler-Bridge54 further state:

53 Espiritu, 732.

54 Farrer and Whaler-Bridge.

To relegate martial practices to simply the performance of cultural or national identity merely demotes such activity to passive “pretence.”

Had Singafist constructed a unified vision for what it aimed to achieve (and could achieve) as a martial art, as opposed to only what it represented, it might have had a more lasting presence.

Yet for Singafist such unity from a blank slate was also impossible, because the martial art was inherently meant to demonstrate Singapore’s peaceful multiculturalism and multiracialism.55 Such a policy is officialized, for example, via the CMIO (Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others) model of administration - where the state creates and reinforces ethnic differences in policy56 because race purportedly remains a “very important identifier when people form their sense of identity”. These specific, essentialised ethnic histories hence remain set in stone, taking on a sort of omnirelevance in discussions of Singaporean identity. In the martial world, such reasoning presupposes the maintenance of the ethnic lineages associated with each composite martial art, and with them the attached socio-political baggage. It was ensured, for instance, that Singafist’s opening stance was taken from silat to respect the latter’s status as the autochthonous martial art.57 Dissolving these discrete identities entirely would have immediately defeated the coexistence narrative attached to Singafist, severely decreasing its value in national patrimony. The consequence is that as Singafist tries to maintain each composite’s “fidelity to its source or origin” in such a simplistic manner, each composite – and the art as a whole – transforms into what Bowman called a ‘monstrous double’ incomparable to the original iteration. Further lacking robust systems of memory and patrimony, the unproven Singafist became unable to compete with the (sometimes fetishistic) imaginations associated with ‘traditional’ martial arts, which – stereotypi-

55 Liao, ‘融汇各族武术精华 拳路成“亚”字 新加拳蓝图已拟好’, author’s translation. Original text is as follows: 融合各源流武术精华，代表新加坡多元种族和文化的新加拳，目前已进入紧锣密鼓的阶段

56 Ong, ‘Singapore’s CMIO Race Model an Administrative Tool to Manage Policies’ cal or otherwise – are seen as more ‘authentic’ and ‘practical’. 58Thus, even with the publicity of the Mass Demonstration, the unresolved mnemonic dissonance made Singafist untenable in the long term.

57 Liao, ‘“亚”字地板上 勤练“新加拳”’.

Part 4 Taekwondo and the Dissonance of Co-opted Militarism

practitioners struggled to decide between the maintenance of Korean ‘authenticity’ under the STA and the “latest advanced scientific techniques” under the STF.63 These disagreements diminished taekwondo’s prospects of becoming a national art (or even pastime).

If Singafist represents a discursive inadequacy in terms of mnemonic contradiction, taekwondo represents a structural inadequacy that even state-led patronage and long (albeit Korean) cultural memory cannot help to solve. Indeed, the enfoldment of taekwondo into state militarism directly led to contradictory yet mutually-reinforcing approaches that prevented the sort of embodiment described by Farrer and Whalen-Bridge 60and Nora61 – an embodiment that was essential to any martial art embodying a national identity.

Despite technically operating under one label, the taekwondo scene in Singapore in the 1980s (and indeed the present) was divided into two ideological camps, represented by the state-affiliated Singapore Taekwondo Federation (STF), and the more independent Singapore Taekwondo Academy (STA).62 Between the two camps, disagreements emerged as

58 Bowman.

The former factor is straightforward – the adherence to “traditional Taekwon-do”, even today, differs from the ‘weak tradition’ postulated by Song64 and Rozenfeld65 that purportedly facilitates taekwondo’s ascendancy in other Southeast Asian communities. Though proudly stemming from B.S. Huang, a Singaporean grandmaster, the mission to “transcend all barriers of race and religion”66 through a ‘neutral’ art proved perplexing. While skirting the issues of incoherent lineage that plagued Singafist, the taekwondo lineage taught to children in community centres and schools around Singapore was not that of a local mythos, but one stemming from “Korean symbolism”, as a former student described it. Memory, patrimony, and publicity all exist in the form of STA’s institutions, but the ‘old knowledge’ conveyed was foreign to Singaporean students and to the ‘large-scale memory-making’ central to local nation-building.

Ironically, the lack of identification is further exacerbated by the pragmatic instincts that define local understanding of taekwondo, particularly since its introduction into the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) in 1977.67 Pragmatism here understands taekwondo largely as an effective and efficient means of combat and fitness; indeed, amongst the skills badges endorsed by the SAF,68 The Taekwondo Black Belt stands out as the only recognised signifier of handto-hand combat expertise. By 1987, discourse on taekwondo centred around efficiency:

While TKD was effective, it required time for a soldier to become proficient in the art […] with the new package, most soldiers are able

59 Ministry for Information and the Arts (MITA), NATIONAL MARTIAL ARTS AND QIGONG SOLIDARITY MASS DEMONSTRATION AT TOA PAYOH STADIUM, 27 March 1988, 19980006121 – 0032, National Archives of Singapore, Singapore. https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/photographs/record-details/006b8f27-1162-11e3-83d50050568939ad to attain the very lowest grades in a couple of months […] The point is to kill a man or render him ineffective. The skills we teach are easy to learn and remember.69

60 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge.

61 Nora.

62 Singapore Tae-kwondo Academy, ‘The TKD Academy Aims to Promote Local Leadership’.

63 Lim, ‘National TKD Representatives Go through Exhaustive Selection Process’.

64 Song, Hyeong-Seok, ‘Globalization of Taekwondo in Invasion Biological Perspective’.

65 Rozenfeld, ‘Korea’s “Pushing Hands”’.

66 Singapore Tae-kwondo Academy, ‘History of STA’.

67 ‘SAF’s New Form of Unarmed Combat’.

68 The Singapore Army, ‘Badges’.

The pragmatics of taekwondo were thus taken to the extreme. An art already marketed70 for its lethality and ease of adoption was subsequently co-opted, refined and simplified, because Singapore’s population of soldiers needed to learn how to wield it better and faster.

Crucially, the military administration seemed to lament the lack of a unified national taekwondo base amongst Singaporean men, citing it as the reason for implementation in the first place. Former Major Kok Wai Leong (then leading the Physical Training and Sports Department) was quoted as saying that:

Our men are not like the South Koreans, many of whom start TKD training as children so by the time they get to the army, they’re already very proficient.71

Taken alongside the widespread development of a self-sustaining taekwondo ecosystem within perceptibly antagonistic Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Vietnam,72 the inclusion of taekwondo, a martial art with little discernible history in Singapore, seems more a matter of reactive national security and vigilance.

In theory, the interchangeability between “military and civilian values”73 as a consequence of militarising Singapore’s citizenry provides a feasible pathway for taekwondo’s enshrinement as a national martial art. After all, it would allow the country to embody state-prescribed values of vigilance, health, and ruggedness both within and without the martial environment. What instead transpired was the superficial application of broader hyper-pragmatism. Returning NSMen, used to a codified and syllabised taekwondo, emerged to a sportified and highly commodified STF variant of the art. The taekwondo scene was stripped of its spiritual elements in two ways: the predominant expectations of taekwondo as a systematic martial art drove consumer expec- tations and demands, while the systemization and sportification enabled the rise of taekwondo as a business. Situated in a climate of post-independence mnemonic redefinition (for the purpose of racial harmony) and state promotion of cultural form as commodity, taekwondo in Singapore became increasingly sterilised.

69 ‘SAF’s New Form of Unarmed Combat’.

70 ‘Choi the Chop Makes an Offer to S’pore’.

71 ‘SAF’s New Form of Unarmed Combat’.

72 Martial Arts in Army’.

73 Chong and Chan.

This trend persists today. Current taekwondo practitioners the authors have spoken to detail the strict practice of routines and exercises. Belt grades (further differentiated into visually identifiable subgrades) are still awarded upon the successful completion of a set of syllabi. Participating students embody little aside from the self-defence skills and, if viewed as an extracurricular, the kiasuism74 of their parents.

Here, neither mechanism of memory nor patrimony 75can exist. The “historical sensibility” that was supposed to capture tradition exists only in terms of the pragmatic concerns of creating a combat-ready and healthy populace. What is repeated in the process of patrimony is not some ancestral tradition that binds Singaporeans but the simple steps towards a new belt or programme. Even the mote of cultural significance accorded to taekwondo’s Singaporean founder and lineage is ultimately traced to the art’s Korean roots, as opposed to something indigenously embraced. The evidence for common identification through taekwondo is sparse; embodiment of a national spirit, even more so.

Part 5 What is a ‘National’ Martial Art Anyway?

In 2017, a writer to the Straits Times forum suggested the state conduct the “first” martial arts festival to both showcase Singapore’s “achievement and rich heritage” in martial arts and provide a “fitting tribute” to Singapore’s cosmopolitanism and multi-ethnicism.76 It was an attractive proposition, but it did show above all things that Singapore’s “largest-ever joint martial arts display”, with its 5,000 performers and 30,000-strong audience in Toa Payoh Stadium, had been all but forgotten.

Forty years after the Mass Demonstration, the con- ception of a national martial art built on the Singaporean principles of racial harmony and pragmatism seems doomed from the outset. With only decades’ worth of national mythos, the as-yet incomplete development of a common history and tradition inhibits the establishment of unified mechanisms of memory and patrimony. Efforts to fuse martial lineages led merely to confusion and disjunction, as in the case of Singafist, while state-promoted martial alternatives like taekwondo became tainted by the overriding instinct to expedite and syllabize, forming methods of practice fundamentally incompatible with cultural embodiment.

74 A term denoting competitiveness or a fear of losing out. Humorously attributed as a key trait of Singaporeans.

75 Nora.

76 Woon, ‘Have Martial Arts Festival to Showcase Singapore Talent’.

To be certain, the broad failure of the 1988 Demonstration in sparking a breakthrough toward a more cohesive national identity by no means implies that martial arts in Singapore are fundamentally incapable of being Singaporean. Farrer points to the successes of various Singaporean branches of Chinese martial arts77 and silat,78 all of which remain stable in terms of membership and attention. Even martial arts in 77 Farrer and Whalen-Bridge.

78 Farrer, ‘“Deathscapes” of the Malay Martial Artist’.

Singapore with no discernible diasporic or autochthonous history like Katori Shinto Ryu Karate79 are able to trace their lineages and histories to accomplished masters and moments of national pride. These martial arts continue to retain their relevance in embodying specific aspects and subgroups of Singaporean identity, as opposed to a generalised, state-imposed notion. Recognition and appreciation for the Singaporean brand of pugilism also remain; local media outlets still run mini documentaries on Singafist and chapkoondo, another endangered Singaporean martial art, often to temporary revival of attention and nostalgia for the heyday of these arts.

Amidst all of this, there may finally be a growing recognition that generating a common martial identity cannot be rushed, and that while Singaporean martial artists and art forms can - and doexist, they cannot yet be conceived of as ‘national’.

79 Ho and Mohamed Effendy, ‘Japanese Martial Arts in Southeast Asia’.

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