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2004-11-07 - 3:29 a.m. First of all, in memoriam. In 2000, when Jurong Island was officially opened by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, it also signaled the end of seven offshore islands. As you would know, Jurong Island is an artificial invention, an amalgam made by reclaiming existing islets into an oil-refining mega-complex. How do islands come to their ends? I am not speaking from an ecological perspective, where marine life is endangered and eventually extinguished due to human activity. Physically, the material that constituted the islets is still there, the islets are simply assimilated now into a single land mass. The former coastal outlines of the islets might still be distinguished if one lays a translucent new map over an old one. And I’m not bemoaning the fact that the seven cannot be considered islets anymore due to the fact that they are no longer autonomous entities. There is however, a residue of regret that is based on both historical and semantic considerations. Perhaps what I am positing is a statement pertaining to ontology: that which exists must have a name. The birth of Jurong Island has in effect erased seven names off a map; and in a way that is almost typical of how political neutralization is performed in Singapore: through the act of co-opting, by subsuming into a larger whole. Note how Jurong itself belongs to the main island, was never an offshore island in itself: a tentacular grab for a fistful of stones. The question to ask is: whose loss is it? What histories are encoded in acts of naming? And I’m also talking about recent history here: on the Singapore Civil Defence website one of the local disasters cited was the fire on Pulau Merlimau in 1988, which threatened to spread into an island-wide catastrophe (in addition to the Ginza Plaza explosion in 1992 and the collapse of the Hotel New World in 1986). I would like to write a eulogy, but in the absence of actual records the most I can conjure is an inventory, nothing more than a listing of names. Etymology is complex: it often resists the desire for the original instance of conception. Why were these islands given these names, by whom, through what consensus, how was it popularized, etc? A brief browse through the dictionary offers some clues, but clues that will only lead to more speculative fantasy. In Memoriam, Seven Vanished Islands Pulau Merlimau And now, for some definitions: ‘Pulau’ of course means ‘island’, and Malay syntax dictates that it be placed before the descriptive: therefore Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong as opposed to Christmas Island or St. John’s Island. Merlimau is a species of tree, Gelonium spp, also known as the false lime. ‘Limau’ itself means ‘lime’ in Malay and the the prefix ‘mer’ suggests that its fruits are similar, but not identical to lime. In other words, an impostor tree, a pretender. Seraya is a species of tree, Shorea curtisii, a dipterocarp, which means that its fruits are two-winged, which is to say that they are propagated by the wind. It is a characteristic species of hill forests from southern Thailand to Singapore. S. curtisii produces a light hardwood with fine grain which has medium/deep red heartwood. The general utility timber is suitable for furniture manufacture, interior finishing, flooring, panelling, doors and veneers. It is also used in plywood production. The wood is an important and valued source of dark red meranti. A resin can be obtained from the tree. Merbau is a species of tree, Intsia spp. Merbau wood is one of the most valued timbers throughout South East Asia. It is stronger than Teak and is one of the most decay-resistant timbers known (when not in contact with the ground); in the Philippines it is used as a standard against which the durability of other timbers is assessed (National Academy of Sciences, 1979). Used for all high-class general construction, flooring (it produces the famous 'merbau floors'), posts, beams, etc. and also for musical instruments, furniture and cabinet making. Bark and leaves are used medicinally and the seeds are edible. In addition, the wood is a dye source. I don’t understand though why the island is called Pulau Ayer Merbau (ayer/air=water), which also applies to Pulau Ayer Chawan (chawan/cawan=cup). What’s interesting is how the three islands draw their names from botanical references—natural history is conflated with indigenous history. An obvious assumption to make is that these trees were a widespread and prominent feature of these islands. The reverse could also hold: instead of large populations, perhaps a single stray tree stood out on the island, like a mast or signpost, its alien, erratic presence giving rise to the inevitably of the island’s name. Pesek means, ‘flat’ often used to describe a nose with, shall we say, a modest bridge. It’s curious also why the island was named such: this could be a case where morphological considerations governed its christening: perhaps the island’s shape was in the form of a flattened nose (seen from which angle, and how to see a nose without the background of a face?). Kechil (or kecil) is ‘small’—we have the Lesser Pulau Pesek here, probably named due to its proximity and (obviously) smaller size. I couldn’t find any entry at all for Sakra, unfortunately. So this is one that will have to remain a mystery. I’m not saying that preserving the names of the seven annexed islands will unlock some secrets to our past, a past that is anyway amputated by its refusal to acknowledge a pre-colonial history, a past that banks on the ‘neutrality’ of the occasion of the white man’s arrival to narrate itself. But I am saying that seven islands have come to their end, and that their disappearance is a loss that is collective, a loss that should be felt not only by Malays but all Singaporeans. In the Singapore Story, we think of pioneers as self-made merchants turned philanthropists—the ones who built temples, mosques, hospitals, universities. But the ones who named our islands are our pioneers too, and to efface their legacy this way is to dishonour them—whoever they might be.
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