Below is a poem written by Mr Tan Jing Quee was was detained in 1963 by Mr Lee Kuan Yew under Operation Coldstore.<\/p>\n
ISA Detainee
\nby Tan Jing Quee<\/p>\n
What was it like ‘inside’?
\nA difficult question
\nCould you, would you really listen
\nWithout sneer, to the endeavours
\nHow should I begin?
\nShould I start from the traumas of the raid
\nHow liberty was so capriciously enchained
\nWithout a warrant, without warning
\nOn the dark hours
\nWhen even dogs slept undisturbed.<\/p>\n
You were hauled into a world ran amok:
\nThe mug shots, ‘turn out your pockets’
\nthe thumb and fingers impressions
\n(whatever for, I commit no crime!)
\nNo one bothered,
\nThe guard shoved you on,
\nAlong the corridor of despair;
\nThat first heavy thud of the iron door
\nSealing you incommunicado from the world —
\nThe wind, sun, moon, and the stars
\nAnd all that was human and dear.<\/p>\n
Should I recall the dark cell
\nAt Central Police Station
\nA purgatory of perpetual night
\nThe stone slab for the bed
\nSullied, soiled mattress, no sheets<\/p>\n
Blood smeared walls, cries of past agonies
\nThe rude, cruel hourly rip-rap of the shuttlers
\n“To check your health”,
\nSo it was explained.<\/p>\n
Should I narrate
\nThe daily bath at the tap
\nThe Squat pan, dank and putrid
\nMeant to dehumanize, humiliate.<\/p>\n
Should we be thankful
\nFor the daily ditch water
\nwhich passed for tea
\nThe stony crumbs for bread
\nThe rice so callously tossed with dust?
\nShould we be grateful
\nFor the censored books and news,
\nTo decontaminate our minds;
\nShould we be grateful too
\nFor the unbearable heat
\nThe lonely insomnia of the day and night,
\nMigraine and diarrhoeic fever
\nAnd panadol as panacea?<\/p>\n
How could I ever forget those Neanderthals
\nWho roamed Whitely Holding Centre,
\nUnder cover of darkness,
\nPoured buckets of lice water
\nOver my stripped, shivering nakedness,
\nSlugged my struggling, painful agony<\/p>\n
Circling, sneering, snarling
\nOver my freezing nudity,
\nMore animals than men;
\nWhat induced this
\nVengeful venom, violent score
\nTo settle, not for a private grievance
\nBut a public, democratic dissidence;
\nFrom whence sprang this barbarity?
\nWhat made men turn into beasts
\nIn the dark, away from prying eyes,
\nProtected by a code of dishonour and lies
\nTo ensure they survive and rise.<\/p>\n
For sure, there were gentler souls
\nWho tried to be decent, no more:
\nThe smiling guard who lightened the hours
\nWith a chance remark, a joke
\nThe barber who brought his scissors, cigarettes and news
\nThe interrogator who handed a bible
\nTold him the elegant prose
\nContrasted strangely with my current state,
\nHow distant those beautiful thoughts were
\nFrom the violence to our liberty.<\/p>\n
What then is the truth?
\nA generation trapped in lies
\nWho rushed to defend, to justify
\nNever to listen, see, or speak out.
\nOnly when we open our hearts
\nConfront this barbarism
\nCan we truly exorcise our fears,
\nFinally emerge as a free people,
\nA liberated society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Below is a poem written by Mr Tan Jing Quee was was detained in 1963 by Mr Lee Kuan Yew under Operation Coldstore. ISA Detainee by Tan Jing Quee What was it like ‘inside’? A difficult question Could you, would you really listen Without sneer, to the endeavours How should… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-2v2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}