Long-lasting effects
With time on their hands and opportunities to be at the forefront of the latest intellectual fashions, a sufficient number of university students would consider an education incomplete without articulating what they think would be the best way forward for the society they live in. Influenced by trans-territorial ideas as well as more local considerations, Catholic student identities moved between the extremes of triumphalism and despair throughout the period of post-war to post-independent Singapore.
Events of seismic proportions can radically alter the self-understanding of the idealistic student. One looks almost in disbelief at the upheaval that followed the Second Vatican Council as a vortex of factors combined to sap Catholic morale to its foundations. Those who went to the University in the 1950s probably had no different a Catholic upbringing than those who were there after 1965. Yet, the latter group’s memories of childhood were altered drastically by the aforementioned events.
The virulent anti-communism of the 1950s—which eventually gave way to accusations of Marxist leanings by the 1980s—could only have come about through the crisis of authority in the 1960s where the license to experiment was the order of the day. A potent mixture of humanitarianism and rebellion, the experiment with liberation theology—with its attempt to synthesise two seemingly opposed ideologies, and even its possibly misplaced application of Latin American scenarios to the Singapore situation—was always in danger of being under suspicion by a virulently anti-communist state. That it eventually emerged in the public consciousness in the language of moral panic was, at the same time, both tragic and comic.
Were you a member of the Catholic Students’ Society during this period? Send your comments to theprompt@catholic.org
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Nick Chui Yongtai graduated from NUS with a honours degree in history and is now working at the Family Life Society as a marketing executive. He also teaches catechism at St. Joseph’s Church (Bukit Timah).
© Copyright MMVII, Nick Chui Yongtai. All rights reserved.
An undated page from Aquinas. The words in the bottom right corner read: “I was hungry,/and you formed a humanities club to discuss my hunger./I was imprisoned, and you crept off quietly to your chapel in the cellar/to pray for my release./I was sick/and you knelt and thanked God for your health./I was homeless/and you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God./I was lonely,/and you left me alone to pray for me./You seem so holy - so close to God./But I am still very hungry and cold.”
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