I managed to pick up this thin volumed essay by Thum Ping Tjin. I have previously read the Albatross Files and found it fascinating. So this was a good companion volume to that book because it provides quite a bit of background information and deals with what the exhibition didn’t cover.
As I suspected after reading the main book, it is clear that Singapore entered into a union with the Federation of Malaya in 1963 on unequal terms, knowing that these terms were not equal, with its eyes open. LKY had agreed to the merger on terms that Malay supremacy in Malaysia would not be questioned and that the PAP would not interfere or participate in Malayan politics. This volume suggests that LKY agreed because of political expediency because he was afraid that PAP would lose the next election in Singapore and at the same time he needed to fix Lim Chin Siong. I find this quite a plausible explanation.
It also becomes understandable why Tunku and the Malaysian politicians didn’t trust or even like LKY and the PAP. To them the PAP wanted the merger to save itself, knew what it was getting itself into and thereafter did its utmost to sabotage it.
An interesting read. Managed to finish it in a day.
daily musings 
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