Drama of disruption

AS THE FOUNDING story of Singapore commonly goes, Sir Stamford Raffles arrived in a sleepy island-village in 1819. And the rest is glorious history.

Not so fast, says Wild Rice's provocative ambush of a play titled Merdeka (which means "Liberation" in Malay). There's more to it than our school history textbooks tell us. There is in fact suspense, duplicity and a whole lot of wheeling and dealing to complicate our understanding of the past and, not least of all, Raffles.

Singapore was not a sleepy fishing village as some versions have it - it was already a thriving trading port, one among several in South-east Asia. Raffles was also not necessarily the benign figure as he's popularly portrayed here. In Java, for instance, he ruthlessly led 1,200 British soldiers in destroying and subjugating the royal city of Yogyakarta in 1812 - one reason why Indonesians do not venerate Raffles. Moreover, Raffles spent less than a year in total in Singapore, leaving First Resident William Farquhar to manage the island.