ABSTRACT
This chapter contends that the breaking free of normative constraint by the communists of Singapore nevertheless encountered the eternal return of the same Internal Security Act and its condition of repentance for their lifting above mediocrity. Thus, the tension between Superhumanity and recurrent surveillance trauma was resolved in favour of reasonableness and unavoidable communist guilt for threatening to expose its mediocrity. Anti-communist disruptions culminating in Operation Coldstore (1962–1963) and the British government’s protection of Lee Kuan Yew from imprisonment (1965) were important interventions not only for internal security but for retention of British influence in the region.
