Malayanisation
“occurred as numerous Chinese immigrants renounced their ties with China to settle in Singapore and across Malaya. At the macro level, the search for national identity that emerged as part of Singapore’s and Malaya’s move towards independence also played a fundamental role in shaping the arts discourse. The creation of a multicultural Malaya out of a largely immigrant society, along with the hope of forming a unified Malayan identity to supersede those of the different ethnic cultures, represented key concerns of the period […] .” (Ong Zhen Min, “Nanyang Reverie,” Siapa Nama Kamu? Art in Singapore Since the 19th Century, 50–51)
“The process of Malayanisation was taking off in the late 1950s and the Ministry of Culture, established in 1959 with Sinnathamby Rajaratnam as the Minister for Culture, was promoting Bahasa Melayu through the “National Language Campaign.” (Seng Yu Jin & Cai Heng, “The Real Against the New: Social Realism and Abstraction,” Siapa Nama Kamu? Art in Singapore Since the 19th Century, 55)
