Invitation to Memorial Service for Comrade Tan Jing Quee

Date: 27th August 2011

Time: 2:00pm

Venue: 1st Floor, KL Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall

Organiser: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre (SIRD)

Tan Jing Quee, a prominent lawyer in Singapore, was actively involved in progressive politics throughout the 1960s. In 1961/62, Jing Quee was President of the University of Malaya Socialist Club. In 1963, at age 24, he stood for elections representing the Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front) and narrowly lost to S. Rajaratnam (PAP) by only 220 votes in Kg. Clam. In October of that year, he was arrested under the ISA in Singapore for leading a 48 hour general strike called by the Singapore Association of Trade Unions. His detention lasted for 3 years. Upon his release in 1966, he went to England to study law. In February 1977, he was detained again without trial for 3 months for alleged involvement in the campaign to expel Singapore’s PAP from the Socialist International.

Despite the white terror in Singapore, Jing Quee fearlessly visited ex-ISA detainees on both sides of the causeway to help them reconnect to one another and to society. He broke the culture of silence in Feb 26, 2006 during the public forum on Detention-Writing-Healing where, for the first time in Singapore, ex-political detainees publicly identified themselves and presented their alternative historical discourses.

Hence, Jing Quee is outstanding in his contribution to documenting Singapore and Malaya’s political history from the perspective of the people. Despite battling blindness and cancer in the last years of his life, he co-authored and co-edited works such as Comet in Our Sky (2001), The Fajar Generation (2009), The May 13 Generation (2011), as well as The Mighty Wave (translation) (2011).

On 14 June 2011, Jing Quee passed on at the age of 72, leaving behind a catalogue of unfinished works that he had been so determined to produce. His passing is a great loss to us all.

Come this 27th of August 2011, let’s gather in memory of Jing Quee. Among the speakers on that day are: Poh Soo Kai, Syed Husin Ali, Tan Kai Hee, S. Arutchelvan and Chow Sing Yau.