LIBERATION THEOLOGY was developed by Latin American clergymen who used the ideas of Karl Marx to analyse the root causes of poverty and oppression among the underclass of society. The targets of its critique included the United States and the capitalist system. The liberationists attempted to integrate Marxist ideas with a certain reading of Christianity that saw Christ not so much as a saviour from personal sin but rather as a revolutionary who had inspired the poor of his time to resist their oppressors.

To ascribe to a group of people an interest in liberation theology is a particularly volatile business in Singapore. On May 22, 1987, The Straits Times’ front page announced the discovery of a Marxist plot aimed at overthrowing the state and that 16 persons had been arrested, among whom 10 were directly engaged in Christian-inspired movements¹. Very quickly, the authorities labelled “liberation theology” nothing other than a form of Marxism operating under the cover of religion².

This thesis would not have ascribed such thinking to Catholic students if not for the fact that such a label was admitted to by no less then the students themselves³. In the 1979 issue of the Aquinas, a special report claimed that in the early 1970s, its leaders, influenced by the theology of liberation, made a bold attempt to implement these teachings in the student milieu.

Rejecting what they perceived as inane rounds of socials, dinner-and-dances and overseas trips, members declared that they were instead interested in study camps to implement the social teachings of the Church and to promote a simple lifestyle and a preferential option for the poor. They further declared that they were also “monitoring events during the Tan Wah Piow period”—alluding to the (in)famous president of the Student’s Union of the University of Singapore who was jailed for a year for rioting and subsequently accused of being involved in a Marxist plot to overthrow the Singapore government—and were “working unceasingly to promote a simple lifestyle and concern for the poor among members”⁴.

Activism on campus

It was not surprising that Catholic students of the more idealistic bent—disillusioned with the so-called “hierarchical Church” and enamoured by the ideas from the New Left, with a rejection of old bourgeois ways and an attempt to build a new society—were especially receptive to liberation theology as an intellectual system as it seemed to promise an integration of leftist ideas and whatever could be salvaged of the traditional Catholic faith.

Indeed, the so-called Tan Wah Piow period was characterised by an intensification of student activism in the University of Singapore as students demonstrated against the government’s campaign against the so-called “hippie culture” when, wanting Singaporean youth to avoid aping decadent Westerners, the government attempted to prevent Singaporean youth from adopting the hippie look by disallowing long hair among male Singaporeans and by banning the hippie film Woodstock⁵.

Not content with merely the freedom to be left alone, the Student Union also attempted to represent a group of retrenched workers who “had no pressure group fighting for their rights”⁶. Such an action led eventually to Tan Wah Piow’s conviction on the charge of inciting workers to riot.