Why Did The Experiment Fail?
Why did this magnificent experiment fail? Is there a simple explanation? Here was a thoughtful, sincere, well-planned attempt to help unfortunates, a scheme to help young men from broken homes, most of them, persons without the comfort, the restraining influence, of family life, to turn away from crime and to re-enter decent society. Were the ‘scum of Singapore’, as Major James contemptuously described them, utterly beyond help? Were they, for their own reasons, character flaws perhaps, outside the scope of rescue? Could they never be brought back into normal society? Must they forever remain outside? Was the destruction of Pulau Senang evidence of a common intent to demonstrate to the authorities the gangsters’ rejection of this attempt to help them? Or was it, as defence counsel suggested, a terrible example of what could happen when men, justifiably or otherwise, feel that they have been goaded too far? Had they reached the limit of human tolerance? Some witnesses said that the gangsters had been disgusted with allegations of corruption among officials on the island. But this had not been proven, and in any case, corruption, even if true, could hardly be considered a primary reason for gangsters to riot.
Might it have been a contributory factor? After all, it is said that even gangsters expect a certain code to be observed. Is there honour among gangsters as there is supposed to be among thieves?
Sociologists and others have written a great deal about mob behaviour, but many important questions still remain unanswered. For example, it is generally accepted that mob hysteria is usually without logic, yet some mob activity clearly has definite purpose, as apparently the riot on Pulau Senang had a common purpose. This was to destroy all that had been built on the island, and to kill Dutton and others. Why did they want to do this? That is the question which has no satisfactory answer. Some mob activity seems to be without common purpose, except to destroy. What, for instance, except a senseless urgent desire to destroy, transforms an excited group of football fans into a howling mob of wanton destroyers determined to smash everything useful or beautiful within reach-to break chairs, mutilate mirrors, trample on paintings, tear material, rip out telephones, overturn cars, kick in doors, set fire to homes… to scream and destroy? What underlying motive releases this mad, dark passion, this frantic wish to destroy, which the experts tell us, is hidden somewhere deep inside every human being? What is this urge which, suddenly released, swiftly changes even normal decent people into raging beasts capable of the most hideous of crimes? Within seconds an ordinary person can become a rioter, a hooligan, a murderous barbarian. In a flash the stark truth is revealed that nothing but a thin veneer separates civilized man from raging beast.
Terrible tempers can be quickly aroused. Fortunately they cannot be long-sustained. At Pulau Senang, less than an hour was needed to drain all the savagery from the parang — wielding gangsters. By then they had achieved their common purpose. Dutton was dead. Pulau Senang was in ruins. Emotionally exhausted, drained of fury, the mobsters waited docilely for the retribution which they must have known would inevitably follow. Meekly, they marched away under armed escort to meet their fate, leaving behind the unanswered question: why did they want to destroy Pulau Senang?
Major James held the view that the riot was organized so that the detainees could go free. First they would have to destroy the settlement. Dutton had to be killed because he was the hated symbol of government and also because he was the only man they knew to be capable of rebuilding Pulau Senang. With Dutton dead and the place destroyed, everyone on the island would have to be released. There was nowhere to put them. All the jails in Singapore were crammed full. They would have to be freed.
This infantile reasoning might well be the correct explanation-the common logical outcome-of the riot. This is what the rioters might have believed, but there was no evidence at the trial to support this theory. Witnesses spoke of a conspiracy to kill Dutton and other officials and certain informers and alleged favourites of Dutton’s. There was talk of a list of men to be murdered. But not a scrap of evidence was forthcoming to back up Major James’ contention that the real purpose of the riot was to bring freedom to all detained on the island.
When, in France in 1789, an angry, hungry mob captured the Bastille (the French symbol of tyranny), they destroyed it. They killed the governor and released all the prisoners held in this state prison. They had an understandable reason for rioting: their common purpose was to overthrow tyranny. Pulau Senang rioters seemed to lack any such obvious motive. Counsel suggested the riot was a manifestation of what happens to pent-up human emotion, when, tolerance exhausted, it boils over. Driven beyond human endurance by overwork, short rations, and inhuman conditions, they could restrain themselves no longer. They rose against then-oppressors, not caring about the consequences. They could not suffer more.
I saw no evidence of this during my visit to the island shortly before the riot. I saw half-naked, sun-tanned men working in the blazing sun. I saw them in the canteen eating and laughing and talking. I saw nobody being forced to work. All the detainees looked to me to be healthy and fit. None appeared to be undernourished. One of the detainees came up to me whilst I was taking photographs. In Malay, he asked me if I recognized him. I said I did not. He said I should because he had been my golf caddy for many months and had carried my clubs during lots of games with the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers. None of us at the time, of course, ever suspected that my caddy was a secret society gangster. On the island I hardly recognized my old caddy. He had filled out. Work in the open air had improved him physically. He looked fitter, stronger. He laughed when I said that Pulau Senang had done him good. He had no hard feelings. He said he had been a gang-leader’s personal bodyguard until the PAP came into power and started their onslaught on the gangs. We chatted about old times, and he reminded me of some of the bad strokes I made and the Prime Minister’s tendency to chop the ball when driving. Here was at least one detainee who did not find conditions on the island inhuman. He was not suffering from overwork. He farmed and he liked the work. Nobody pestered him, he said, and the grub was alright, ‘but not enough of it’. I smiled and remarked that there never was, and he chuckled and nodded. We were alone. With Dutton’s permission I had wandered off on my own. He said I could take photographs so long as nobody objected. Nobody did. Most of them offered to pose. I can say with all honesty that during my visit, which lasted several hours, (I lunched with Dutton and James in the hut where Dutton was to meet his death), none of the detainees gave me the slightest hint that they were working in inhuman conditions, or that they were fast approaching the limit of their endurance. On the contrary, they gave me the impression that this was a happy island. There was certainly no visible evidence to support belief that the detainees were being forced to do something they hated doing.
Could I have deceived myself? According to evidence at the trial even while I was on the island men were plotting the riot. Had I failed to detect their seething discontent? Had I been biased? I was a friend of Dutton’s and James’ and willing to believe all they told me. Was the riot, in fact, a sudden release of pent-up festering discontent, a sudden surge of uncontrollable hatred and rage? Was the riot, after all, a sudden impulse without common purpose, possessed of nothing more than the same inner fire which motivates the senseless destructiveness of football fans on the rampage? Recalling my visit to the island I asked myself these questions.
Were the rioters of Pulau Senang men with bitter grievances, humiliated, tortured beyond control? Or were the men suddenly inflamed with mob hysteria which knows no reasoning and is of itself a self-generating, rapidly spreading flame? Nothing is more contagious than mob hysteria. Is this what happened? Or were the rioters of Pulau Senang hungry, oppressed men storming their Bastille? If they were not, what were they? Why did they destroy Pulau Senang? Did they really believe that once Pulau Senang was razed to the ground, Dutton murdered, they would be set free? Surely only children could believe this sort of fantasy? But these rioters were not normal persons: they were gangsters, outcasts: few of them were capable of much logical thought: they lived in a world of their own, believing what they wanted to believe.
When the signal was heard, they seized their weapons and in a mob marched against authority. Did they believe then that they were marching towards freedom? If not, what did they think they were doing? Did they think at all about what would happen after they had killed and destroyed? In certain circumstances, great concords of men can easily be led. History had recorded many occasions of a single man arousing a huge murderous mob. That is why the law says that any assembly of at least three persons can be a riot if they have a common purpose which they intend to achieve by force and violence. The ring-leaders at Pulau Senang knew their immediate objective. They might even have expected certain consequences. Did most of the others? What I am trying to fathom is whether this riot was a protest against the experiment as such, or whether it was a protest against authority. In other words did the experiment fail because it had an inherent flaw, or did it collapse because of a riot against authority? Did the project ever stand a chance of success, or was this an experiment which was bound to fail, sooner or later?
