SINGAPORE: In Parliament on Thursday (Nov 6), Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth David Neo answered questions raised regarding the preservation of 38 Oxley Road, including those concerning how it differs from the Founders’ Memorial.
Mr Neo, a first-term Parliamentarian, said in a Ministerial Statement that the memorial does not share “the same sense of place” as 38 Oxley Road.
On Monday (Nov 3), it was announced that the home of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew would be preserved as a national monument, a move that was criticised by the late Prime Minister’s younger son, Lee Hsien Yang, who pointed out that the Founders Memorial “is already a huge and expensive monument.”
Connection to the past
Mr Neo said on Thursday, “Historic sites are preserved because they provide us with an authentic connection to the important events and the people of the past,” and added that they give Singaporeans the “opportunity to stand on the same grounds and be in the very same space where pivotal events in national history took place, and we are walking in the same footsteps of those who came before us.”
Citing such precedents as the former City Hall and Kandang Kerbau Hospital, the Acting Minister added that doing this aids future generations of Singaporeans in having a sense of connection to crucial moments in history.
He also stated that the monument at Lee Kuan Yew’s home would focus on the historical events that occurred there, rather than the personal lives of the Lee family.
He emphasised the “pivotal historical events that happened there, one that brought us from colonial to self-rule, to independence, rather than the lives of those people who lived there.”
Because the Founders’ Memorial is a reconstructed site, it does not offer exactly the same experience.
“This sense of place, this being in the same space as those who came before us, is not something that can be captured by replication at another site. The Founders’ Memorial is a site that is reconstructed. It does not share that same sense of place, that same place that housed all the critical events,” said Mr Neo.
Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Eileen Chong (Workers’ Party) asked what additional heritage value the monument at 38 Oxley Road would have, “beyond the sense of space… that would not be more effectively delivered at the S$335 million Founders’ Memorial.”
Mr Neo underlined that the Founders’ Memorial would not have the same “sense of authenticity” that an experience at 38 Oxley Road would have.
Lee Hsien Yang had written earlier this week, however, that deciding to gazette 38 Oxley Road as a monument, “disrespects Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy and values.” /TISG
Read also: Lee Hsien Yang on 38 Oxley Road: Lee Kuan Yew was opposed to monuments
