Flag of Singapore - History

History

Singapore was under British rule in the 19th century, having been amalgamated into the Straits Settlements together with Malacca and Penang. The flag that was used to represent the Settlements was a British Blue Ensign containing three gold crowns—one for each settlement—separated by a red inverted pall, which resembles an inverted Y. The Settlement of Singapore had no separate flag, although the city was granted a coat of arms which featured a lion in 1911. During the occupation of Singapore by the Japanese during the Second World War, the Japanese national flag (also called the Nisshōki or the Hinomaru) was used on land by the military and during public events. Soon after the Second World War, Singapore became an independent Crown colony and adopted its own flag. It was modified from the Straits Settlements flag to reduce the number of crowns from three to one.

Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire on 3 June 1959. Six months later, upon the installation of the new Yang di-Pertuan Negara (head of state) on 3 December 1959, the national flag was officially adopted, along with the state coat of arms and the national anthem Majulah Singapura ("Onward Singapore"). Then-Deputy Prime Minister Toh Chin Chye discussed the creation of the national flag in a 1989 interview:

lthough we were self governing it was necessary right from the beginning that we should rally enough different races together as a Singapore nation... part from the anthem we have to produce the flag and the crest, we insisted that it was a Singapore state flag and should be flown side by side with the Union Jack.

The design of the flag was completed in two months by a committee headed by Toh. He initially wanted the flag's entire background to be red, but the Cabinet decided against this, as red was regarded as a rallying point for communism. Also, Indonesia, Poland and Monaco already had plain red and white flags. According to an account given by Lee Kuan Yew, the Chinese population wanted five stars, which were modeled off the flag of the People's Republic of China and the Muslim population wanted a crescent moon. Both of these symbols were combined to create the national flag of Singapore.

On 30 November 1959, the Singapore State Arms and Flag and National Anthem Ordinance 1959 was passed to regulate the use and display of the State Arms and State Flag and the performance of the National Anthem. When presenting the motion to the Legislative Assembly of Singapore on 11 November 1959, Sinnathamby Rajaratnam, the Minister for Culture, stated: "National flags, crest and anthem express symbolically the hopes and ideals of a people... The possession of a national flag and crest is, for a people, symbolic of self-respect." In September 1962, the people of Singapore voted to join the Federation of Malaysia. The process was formally completed on 16 September 1963, when the Malaysian flag was hoisted on Singapore by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The Singapore flag was reconfirmed as the national flag when Singapore became fully independent from Malaysia on 9 August 1965.