Fuming and fogging memories: Civil society and state in communication of heritage in Singapore in the cases of the Singapore Memories Project and the 'Marxist Conspiracy' of 1987

This paper seeks to discuss the ecology of memories in contemporary Singapore as reflective of emerging tensions between the state and civil society in remembering the development of the nation-state for close to about five decades of independence. At the core of the tension are competing efforts to curate public memories through traditional and new media. As the state establishes a nostalgic community that sentimentalizes the dominant narrative of development in the Singapore Memory Project, alternative campaigns emerge to remember a more troubled past of arbitrary detention of political activists. Using the metaphors of 'fumigating' and 'fuming' to frame the staging of a more reified reminiscence of the past against the resurfacing a more traumatized history, the authors seek to position the recent contestations as the beginnings of a new chapter of communicating and personalizing history in the republic.