In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a sailor who shoots an albatross is forced to hang it around his neck as penance, with the bird becoming a heavy burden and a reminder of his guilt.
This metaphor was invoked by Goh Keng Swee, widely regarded as the “economic architect” of modern Singapore, as his code name for Malaysia in his file of personal notes on Singapore’s separation from its northern neighbour in August 1965.
Almost all of the newly declassified documents in Goh’s Albatross file, comprising handwritten notes and cabinet papers between 1964 and 1965, have been published in a new book titled The Albatross File: Inside Separation.
It was launched on Sunday by Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s former leader and the son of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
The 487-page book, edited by Susan Sim in a project led by Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information, sheds light on the negotiations leading up to Singapore’s break from Malaysia.
It offers evidence that, contrary to what was believed in the years following the 1965 separation, the city state was not unilaterally ejected from the Federation of Malaysia after two years of merger – rather, it came after several secret meetings of negotiation and mutual understanding.