Remarks by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the launch of Kampong Radin Mas book

Haji Wan Hussin Zoohri
Chairman of the Kampong Radin Mas Book Committee

Minister Yaacob Ibrahim

Residents of Radin Mas, friends and fellow Singaporeans

Congratulations on completing the book and Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri!

I am very happy to be here today to join you for this Kampong Radin Mas celebration and for the launch of the book, “A Kampong Remembered: Kampong Radin Mas 1800s to 1973”. I am also very happy that this is not the first time you are gathering together but you have been meeting regularly, keeping in touch, maintaining the friendships nurtured and built up from the years you spent together in the old kampong.

Kampong Radin Mas has a special place in the Malay community in Singapore. It is one of our oldest kampongs with a well-known madrasah: Sekolah Ugama Radin Mas which now still exists in Joo Chiat. And it is a birthplace of many Malay/Muslim community institutions like BAPA (Badan Agama Dan Pelajaran Radin Mas ), which began in Radin Mas in 1957 and now serves the disabled people of all races and religions. And in fact one of BAPA’s founders is here today – Haji Said Ali who is now 89 years old. Where is Haji Said Ali? Terima kasih sekali.

Kampong Radin Mas also produced leaders and people who succeeded in their careers, who made important contributions to our nation like Haji Othman Wok, former Minister of Social Affairs; Haji Sidek Saniff, former SMS for Education; Haji Wan Hussin himself who was MP for Kampong Ubi and the late-Encik Ahmad Jabri who represented UMNO when Singapore was in Malaysia. And in arts and culture we have Mr Ong Kim Seng who is a water-colour painter and Cik Aziza Ali who is an expert in Malay food and quite good at doing pantun (Malay poems) too. They are all here with us today, so we rejoice together!

How did Kampong Radin Mas produce so many talented people? Some people say it was because of the air pancur - the spring water which flowed from Mount Faber to the kampong. Others say maybe it was the ice ball kachang, kuti kuti and kana, all the sights and sounds and the colours and activities of the old kampong. Everybody agrees that the gotong royong spirit had a lot to do with it – when people help one another, when everybody knew everybody else and each spurred the other to go on to do their best.

And this is the strong community spirit which is present when you are living in a kampong with a few hundred people together, one hundred houses, and you can remember exactly who lives where even 50 years later. But even today when we have HDB flats, much bigger towns - not a few hundred people but a hundred thousand people perhaps, it is still necessary for us to maintain that strong community spirit for us to do well.

So, I congratulate the Book Project Committee for producing this important document. It is important that we do this for all our little communities and not so little ones which were part of the old Singapore and which gradually grew and developed and emerged and formed today’s Singapore. Because we must remember our heritage as we move forward into the future. These stories are not just for those who used to live in Kampong Radin Mas, but for all Singaporeans. So I like to give special thanks to the Committee Chairman Haji Wan Hussin Zoohri, his grandfather and his father were both well-known religious scholars in Kampong Radin Mas. Both ulamas, highly respected. And I like to thank everyone who contributed to this book and to all residents who made Kampong Radin Mas special.

Thank you very much, have a good afternoon and I hope you enjoy the book. Terima kasih sekali.