Speech by Minister for Defence, Dr Ng Eng Hen, at the National Day 2019 Appreciation Function

Chief of Defence Force,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First, good evening to all of you.

This year's National Day Parade (NDP), as many of you know, was to celebrate Singapore's 54th year of independence. But it was also special because it was to commemorate our bicentennial. And when you are marking the bicentennial, and you ask where should we hold it, it is actually a no-brainer, we must hold it at the Padang right. So we were actually off-cycle, if you have been counting, we usually hold our NDP at the Padang every five years. This is 2019 right, so it should be held next year, but it is the bicentennial. So compared to 200 years, five years loses out. So you have to hold it at the Padang.  And as you know again, the Padang was recently gazetted. Because at the Padang is where Singapore's history has often been made. Our very first National Day, 1966, Parade was held there, and in 1969, fifty years ago, the first mobile column, with our AMX tanks, rolled past. First time it happened, but even before we were independent, the Padang has seen Singapore's history being made. In 1945, it was at the Padang where the Japanese formally surrendered. So you just imagine somebody who was alive today that was around in 1945, his or her visual memories are completely different. It marked the Japanese surrendering at the end of the anguish and suffering after three and a half years of Occupation. In 1959, when Singapore became self-governing, it was at the Padang, and I do not think many people know this, where what we see today as our National Flag, our National Anthem and our Coat of Arms were first adopted. It was not in 1965, it was in 1959. It was when our first President, Mr Yusof bin Ishak, was sworn in.

So to hold the NDP this year at the Padang, is historically resonant. But that is easy to say and you know, even though I say that it is a no-brainer to choose it, to ask the organising committee, can you hold the NDP there, some people will say "ho gai siow" [Hokkien for sarcasm for the good recommendation]  because there is no stadium there. You drive past it, I do not know when they will tear down the stadium, what we built, but that is just a padang, that is why it is called the Padang. But over every five year cycle, we have learnt a few things with each experience. And not only do you have to build a stadium to house 27,000 spectators, more than the Floating Platform. The Floating Platform can hold 25,000. So the organising committee was quite ambitious, they said try to top it and build a stadium for 27,000 people. And on top of that, you have to build a stage for the show. All these from scratch. You may not know this, but the stage has to be made concrete because of people jumping up and down and heavy weights, not least the shimmering lion. Not a simple feat at all. I did not give any instructions to have all these, and I think credit must go to the National Day Organising Committee and the Executive Committee (EXCO). And I think that their feeling right now, after all has been concluded and successfully concluded, is to heave a sigh of relief and pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and indeed I think they have done a very well job. So kudos to Chief of Defence Force, and Chief of Armour Brigadier-General Yew Chee Leung. The stadium was constructed as a continuous cauldron. I have got more memories of National Day, because each year I attend more than once. In fact, by the time each year's NDP with all the previews, sometimes I attend four, sometimes I attend five. And I have been doing this since I joined the Ministry of Defence, so I have attended more NDPs and previews to last many lifetimes. But when we first constructed this stadium on the Padang, it was relatively speaking, not as aesthetically pleasing because there were gaps. We were sort of building it in sections but this year, as you noticed, it was a continuous cauldron, no gaps. And it made for a more intimate experience, so for example when we did the "Padang wave" previously, there would be a huge gap, air gap. But this year it was continuous. And these details count. The control tower – this one you do not know. Usually where is the control tower? The control tower, where you have to control right, the whole NDP, make sure the people come in the right time or make sure that you can, sometimes it is down to the seconds. Usually it is on the top of the City Hall, or our National Gallery of Singapore. But for those of you who have dined at the top now, there are restaurants there. You cannot use it anymore. So the control tower is now on the opposite side, quite well-masked but on the audience stand. The restaurants co-operated with us very graciously and all things, all aspects went very smoothly. The Parade and the show were very well received and so your many months of hard work of the participants paid off. Many of you have supported us and this, I want you to go back and thank your members for their dedication and tell them how much we appreciate all their wonderful efforts in making this year's show such a success. Singaporeans were touched by it. We had more than two million people who viewed it. They felt proud of what we have achieved to be Singaporeans, as a result of NDP. It put them in the reflective mode. Some of them were overseas and they wrote back, not that we asked them to. They wrote back in emails to Prime Minister, to myself, to various Ministers. One particular one, he said watching the NDP, I miss Singapore and I feel that there are so many things that we can be proud of. So I want to thank you as leaders of your organisations for your constant support, your contributions and donations to this Parade which resulted in success. And I know that for many of you, this is an act of personal thanks to Singapore. Every year for the participants without fail, we will have many life stories. Because we are basically practising and participating, you are committing about four to five months of your life. And we have stories where we had participants undergo chemotherapy for cancer but did not want to stop, continued as participants. We had stories where loved ones in their families passed away. And for them it was a personal journey, they said they want to continue and you ask them why, they say that "this is my own way of saying thank you to Singapore." Call it old-fashioned, call it emotion, but there it is. Singaporeans want to, as a personal act, a thanks to Singapore.

So I visited the participants at Suntec City during the Previews. I was not there to "rah rah" them because they did not need it, the morale was very, very high. And they were as young as six years old, as old as 75, we have got, I think, there is one participant, from NTUC if I am not wrong, who has participated in every NDP since 1966. They were excited and enthused despite the many weeks of practice required. And remember our Muslim brothers and sisters had to endure six weeks of Ramadan, fasting and practising. The Merdeka Generation were on cloud nine. Number one, they got to wear back their uniforms. Not actual uniforms, we had to make new uniforms for some of them to wear. You saw the clip, we had to make them the old-fashioned way. And they were thrilled that they could meet their buddies. Just imagine some of you maybe 20 years from now, 30 years from now, you meet your NS buddies and you get to go on your three-tonners. Now it is no longer three-tonnners; I do not know how many tonnes it is, maybe five. And when you get there and as Prime Minister said, when the Merdeka Generation were asked to stand, there was just an emotional moment. So they were on cloud nine. I visited them and, as customary, I take a doorstop interview from the press just for a soundbite. So I met with the press after the visit and the reporter asked this question. Reporters always keep you a little bit off-guard, think of what questions they ask and they ask you this question. So you can guess, you try to guess what he asked me. So the reporter asked why was, after seeing the whole show, after seeing all the participants so excited, he asked this question. Why was there was so little of our bicentennial history, apart from the floats for the NDP show? Did you get the question, shall I repeat it? Why was there was so little of our bicentennial history, apart from the floats for the NDP show? Now, if I were a new entrant, I would try to go into a dissertation about why. But remember this is a soundbite, you only get 15 to 30 seconds on Channel NewsAsia or whatever it is to give an answer that is cogent and does not make you sound a little incoherent. You feel like saying, hello, 200 years history, if we do a show about 200 years history, one minute one year, it is 200 minutes, and the audience will go to sleep. But you cannot say that obviously so I replied that it was neither possible nor the aim of the NDP to show our 200 years of history. And the NDP show was only one part of the many bicentennial programmes already organised. Not bad right, for an answer? You have not answered the question but you have not gotten yourself into trouble. That is success when it comes to doorstop interviews. And I added just one last line that the bicentennial exhibition at Fort Canning is doing a marvellous job recounting not only 200, but 700 years of our history. How many of you have gone to the Fort Canning bicentennial exhibition, put up your hands. I think for those of you who have not, you are missing a big part of it. We are not going to have it until, I do not know, the next centennial, the next hundred years. If you have not gone for it, you have missed something big in your life because it tells you where the roots are and it is very important to understand the roots. But anyhow, I digress. So I told that to the reporter but the most important point which I did not have the time to cover in that interview is what I want to say today, which is the real answer: that the way the organising committee approached this NDP for our bicentennial was not just to look back at our history, not to look at the culminating moments of that, but it must be to appreciate how we got here, and what we want our future together to be. Because if you look back and if you go to that bicentennial exhibition, our history is not a glorious past right, we are not like countries in Europe or even in Asia, you watch those Korean dramas, you know the Joseon empires. Some of you are laughing because you watched it. I know about it because others tell me about it. We do not have kings and queens,  we do not have golden-gilded horse carriages. No empires to talk about, actually we do have. Go and watch the exhibition, we did have royalty in Temasek but he had to run away. I think he was accused of misbehaving I piqued your interest, now you go and watch it. We do not have that kind of history, what kind of history do we have? Our history is really on the sweat, toil and hard work of our forebears – some who started life here as coolies and rickshaw drivers. That is a fact. They did not come here because you know, not only because they are seeking fortunes. There was also a push factor, back in China, back in India, back in the lands around us. So when there were upheavals in the Ming dynasty, when there were upheavals in the Qing dynasty, "bo gao qiak", not enough to eat. And when they came here, as our historians record, including Mr Pickering, who was a protector of Singapore, it was indentured servitude. They got onto boats, in China, did not have to pay the fare, but when they got here, they signed the dotted line and it was forced labour. Our forefathers who migrated here, wherever they came from, were  not men of wealth but common folk seeking a better life. And we are proud of this past because from these humble beginnings, as the song goes, "look where we are, we've come so far". So NDP 2019 aimed to celebrate what Singapore is and has become – "one nation, one people, one Singapore."

The NDP show therefore showed different slices of a Singapore still in the making – it was rooted in the past but forward-looking. And for this reason, the organising committee decided to be forward-looking, and they decided to have more youth, people who were younger, and in fact, 80% of the participants were youth. They included the first-time parade contingent from Nanyang Polytechnic, the 600 youth participants from the Singapore Soka Association who made up the majority of Act 4, and the five singers, young singers who held their own even against veteran celebrity singers. We also had a few other firsts,  the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and Home Team Volunteers first time, students from the Association for Persons with Special Needs Tanglin School, NCC and SAF Band, performing together as one Combined Drum Band.

The life stories that were featured at NDP were of ordinary Singaporeans accomplishing extraordinary acts, despite hardship. But it was the final act, the culminating act, which I thought was richly symbolic of this forward-looking theme, while being rooted in our history. How many of you have seen, help me out again, how many of you have seen the video of Ramli Sarip singing the national anthem. Ok, slightly more than a centennial exhibition. It is interesting that it took a 66-year old rocker, Ramli Sarip, to bring out the full emotions of our national anthem, to make it special and unique. We sing it every day in schools, camps and elsewhere. But, as he told the press, it was a spiritual journey for him as he sang Majulah Singapura. Because this is his 50 years as a rock singer and he has seen Singapore. And to him, he sang it with his emotion. Through his rendition, we were reminded that it is in understanding our past and roots, that our path to a collective future finds its form. Ramli and the other elderly singers were surrounded by children and teenagers, many in primary school who experience Singapore's history vicariously. Meaning that they were not around in 1965, they read about it in the books, their parents, their grandparents tell them about our history, but they were so enthusiastic and focused on the future, not on the past – and I think that is the way it should be. So I was the Reviewing Officer for one of the Previews, and at the end of the show, I decided to walk to them to thank them – and their excitement was palpable. They mobbed me, they took selfies. And I think that Singapore and Singaporeans must face our future with that kind of enthusiasm, because we are not finished building Singapore. As Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, "For we are never done building Singapore. It is every generation's duty to keep on building, for our children, and for our future".

At the centre of the final Act of NDP was a gleaming lion, I think many of you would have seen that. Standing tall, proud and resplendent in its shimmering multi-coloured coat. Let me let you in on a secret. This lion has no moving parts, neither does it have any electronics apart from the LED that is around its neck. That is the only electronic part. So how is it possible to move a one-tonne creature? There were a group of young SAF people who practiced very hard to make it look majestic when it is striding and roaring. The crowd cheered. But if you look at who is sweating behind the lion are these fellows who are trying to move in a coordinated manner. Neither is that coat, it is multi-coloured right, but it is not electronic. It is just merely reflects light shining on it. When I saw it, I thought our nation – Singapura, the Lion City – is like the lion in this year's NDP. What is Singapore? Singapore is above all, an idea that is kept alive by Singaporeans – their belief and commitment to racial harmony, meritocracy, incorruptibility, justice, peace and prosperity. Like the lion, Singapore does not move on its own – its progress and future depends on the collective will and actions of Singaporeans. Our Lion City can only reflect what Singaporeans shine onto it. And this was the main message of this year's bicentennial 2019. It was and will always be centred on Singaporeans, our past, and what we do in the present for a better future for our children.

To cap this central message, the mobile column went into the heartlands like you saw. And it was a roaring reception – Woodlands, Punggol, Jurong East, Bishan and Geylang, to touch and be touched by our people. More than a hundred and fifty thousand Singaporeans turned up in droves along the streets and at the five celebration sites, waving their flags and cheering, some with children perched on shoulders. It was a wonderful reception and acknowledgement of their support for a strong SAF and a Home Team.

The People's Association did a wonderful job in adding activities to make it a carnival-like atmosphere that brought the National Day celebrations, this year, into the heartlands. It was for Singaporeans: for one another as friends, family, and neighbours. 

To pull off the NDP show, the many practices and the heartlands celebrations, requires a lot of work. So I want to thank especially the Police Force, the LTA personnel who were out in force for duties during many weekends for the NDP. I also want to acknowledge the special effort by NDP participants who were fasting during Ramadan.

Over the years, the NDP has become more than a show or even a celebration. It has become a national statement made by Singaporeans from all walks of life, young and old, about who we are and where we are headed. With quiet pride, resolute determination and a resilient spirit, each show marks yet another year of progress on this never-ending journey to make Singapore better. I want to thank all of you because your contributions have made this year's NDP  possible and a success. Thank you very much, and thank you for your support.

More Resources

Minister for Defence Thanks NDP 2019’s Organisers, Participating Organisations and Sponsors