ABSTRACT
The news comes through the mobile: there is going to be a memorial service tonight for the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The Prime Minister and the then Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew will be there, my friend tells me. So will thousands of Singaporeans. Breathless with excitement, he adds somewhat conspiratorially, ‘The government is holding the memorial because the SDP [the opposition Social Democratic Party] is also having a rally tonight.’ I tease him about his ‘talking cock’, as if the memorial service is meant to draw the crowd away from the SDP. In any case, government-organized events are as a rule massive and spectacular affairs, and no puny gathering of the opposition party can offer competition. We agree to meet. An initiative of the American Association of Singapore, the candlelight service is to be held in the National Stadium in Kallang at 6 p.m. We arrive an hour earlier, and a long queue of people is already there. Men, women and children of all ethnic groups – Chinese, Malay, Indian, Westerners – are waiting patiently to get in, many carrying American flags, while some are wearing T-shirts and ties with the Stars and Stripes printed on them. Outside the stadium is a small shrine. It is lined with candles, and
covered with flowers, balloons, teddy bears, children’s drawing of the American flag and letters of condolence to the victims’ families. At 6, the crowd – there must be nearly 20,000 people – begin to move in, orderly and with hushed solemnity, and fill the stadium. Over the next three hours, we are taken through the paces, starting with the speeches by the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and the US Ambassador, to the joint prayer for peace by Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist religious leaders. Muslin clergy have a strong presence in the service. Mufti Syed Isa Semai, one of the most prominent Muslim leaders in Singapore, pleads to God to grant the ‘planet eternal love, peace and tranquillity’ and to ‘make this world a safer one to live in’. The president of the Islamic group Jamiyah Singapore, Abu Bakar Naidin, also urges people to be ‘united’ and ‘stand as one, showing sympathy for the victims’ families’.
