The Serenity of A Graveyard

From Catherine: I wrote this almost 5 years ago for The Straits Times. It seems to stand the test of time

Preservation and the soul of a nation

Catherine Lim Suat Hong, For The Straits Times, 17 July 2007

(c) 2007 Singapore Press Holdings Limited

MY FAMILY home, the National Stadium and an 80-year-old tree that was just felled over the weekend – in my mind they are all connected, and at three levels of engagement, from the personal, to the national and the global.

My family home at Serangoon Gardens was sold early this year.

In my memory it stood as a place of good times and bad. We moved in during the early sixties, and extensions were built, somewhat willy nilly to the original structure. We had one toilet and one bathroom shared among a family of six, a live-in maid and at various times even a tenant.

In the early nineties, my brother and his wife bought the house and rebuilt it. The new home had three bathrooms for a family of five.

I moved out with my parents to Bishan just before the turn of the millennium. I’m making new memories here and have no regrets for the family home no longer in our hands.

Not so simple though for the National Stadium. Watching the fire in the cauldron of the grand dame snuffed out for the last time on television recently, I was taken back by the groundswell of emotional response, including mine.

As a fledgling journalist I had covered National Day stories on the ground. In later years, it marked a high point in my career, when I helmed the live television commentary in the commentators’ booth, above the VIP seating area with an unparallel view of the parade.

I felt the earth move with the 21-gun salute; a hair’s breadth away from the men and their magnificent flying machines as they seemed to swoop towards me in the fly past; and as night fell the sky lit up in a kaleidoscope of colours that blew my mind away.

My personal memory counts for little. But viewed from the macro lens of a young nation, it is part of the collective memory of Singapore’s sporting history, of romances which blossomed on the stands and on track, and the passing of the baton from father to child.

Still, I was paradoxically ambivalent about this collective loss. After all, sporting history will continue to be made, love will still blossom and National Day Parades will continue to evoke patriotism in the continuum of time and space. Then I read Mr Ho Weng Hin’s compelling piece – Losing a slice of history – in these pages on Friday. He asked: ‘As another nation-building icon bites the dust… was it all really inevitable?’

He brought to the fore of the debate about conservation an international perspective in favour of rejuvenation through technology, even as our technocrats invoke the tide of progress as the cornerstone of their arguments for demolition.

Time and tide waits for no man. But time can be suspended, to allow generations to be bridged in a past that lives on into the present and beyond.

Much has already been lost. How much is subjective, not objective, and history will be the judge. But when the physical proof of such memories is demolished, all we have left will be words and pictures in libraries and museums, the purview of scholars many years down the road.

And it is to Braddell Road I now turn – to the 80-year-old angsana tree right smack in the middle which is now no more; the cut was swift just days after it was announced that it had to go because it posed a danger to motorists.

The decision came, ironically, hot on the heels of the Live Earth concerts to galvanise awareness of a planet in crisis. It prompted letters to the newspapers and on the Internet. Tree lover Sim Hong Gee wrote: ‘What is more appalling is the rationale for removing the tree – because motorists were not observing the speed limit of 40 kmh posted on that stretch of road. With all the well-posted road signs, it is clear to users… that one has to slow down significantly, given the extent of the road curvature even without the tree being in the middle of the road.’

The other letter that was published came from a neighbourhood committee member who wrote: ‘I have never been able to understand the unyielding stance taken against the cutting down of trees (by the two authorities Land Transport Authority and National Parks Board) even when there is a danger of them causing injury and death.’

He added: ‘I have always thought it ridiculous to spend $200,000 to have a major road split up just to avoid cutting down a tree.’

Judging by the netizen response to these two opposing letters, the latter were drowned out by supporters of the tree. But to no avail.

Human life is primary and rotting trees which pose a danger to innocent pedestrians and drivers should be felled. But not this tree. It was healthy, just inconvenient to speedsters. As one netizen pointed out, you don’t obliterate drink driving by eradicating alcohol; you educate.

The nexus of conflict, between saving the environment – both natural and man-built – and material progress, will continue to dog us.

We can establish a principle: that when we have toted up the pros and cons of demolition as compared to that of preservation – and by preservation I mean a living and breathing preservation – we subject the balance to the scrutiny of the collective consciousness. And return to the drawing board to relook, rethink and resketch new possibilities.

Our government has pledged that it is here for the long haul. As it contemplates how to root Singaporeans to the country, economic success alone is not enough; equal weightage has to be given to the soul of a nation.

There is still time. We are a city of possibilities.