志异 Draft by Drama box December 2014 (english) | Page 22

These examples
illustrate that
when livelihood
contradicts
politics, there is
no more illusion
which is the
priority.

Column 1

the struggle but live in exile, that is itself a form of ‘displacement’.
When ‘livelihood’ takes precedence over ‘politics’ as the daily
reality for the exiled and the practice of ‘politics’ is relegated to
a facile rectification campaign, this is undoubtedly another form
of situational ‘displacement’. Along this line of thought, we can
probably make the hypothesis that exile means ‘displacement’. If
Wong Soon Fong, one of those interviewed in To Singapore, with
Love, was a member of the MCP exiled to Indonesia, by extension,
we can see the hidden link between exile and ‘displacement’ in
this documentary.
The history of the leftist struggle in Singapore, or more
accurately, the history of the Malayan Communist struggle in
Singapore, is in fact a diasporic history with a focus on exile.
Relative to the ‘inland’ fighters who were using insurgency to
uphold the revolution, the isolated underground members in
Singapore were forced to go into ‘exile’ to realise their revolution.
But their experiences precisely illustrate that revolution, exile,
and living, while having to suffer multiple ‘displacements’