I can only say that, as in scientific experiments, a null finding is also meaningful in itself.

The event was the Malaysian launch of a book of poetry and prose by Singaporeans held in detention without trial or in exile. The book had been launched some months earlier in Singapore. [1]

After the publisher's welcome remarks, a 15-minute video was played, containing a 1978 BBC interview with Francis Khoo about a year after he fled into exile. To the BBC's John Tusa, Khoo said he had never been a member of any political party, but he had dissented against the direction of the People's Action Party government. "As a law student and in my law practice, I have been involved in a movement for a more just and equal society."

Among his activities was an attempt, after the government cracked down on the press, including the Singapore Herald, in 1971, by "a group of five people, including myself, [to] revive the Herald as a co-operative".

The first panel. Note Francis Khoo's hibiscus batik shirt
  

Following the 30-year-old video, Francis Khoo himself spoke. He told the room that he would open his remarks with an introduction in Malay, "Singapore's national language". It struck me as a gesture meant to prove his patriotism, except that it not only appeared rather contrived, but extremely dated. I'm sure he was sincere, but being in exile for the last three decades might have left him completely out of touch with what Singapore is today. Malay as a national language has no resonance with a large majority of Singaporeans, especially those born after independence, and is largely considered a relic of a past we'd rather forget.

Khoo's decision to use Malay therefore had the unfortunate effect of consigning the rest of the launch event into the dustbin of history. It made people think: These guys don't know what they are talking about; they are irrelevant to modern Singapore.

Compounding the problem, Khoo seemed inordinately proud of a song, a paean to "Singapore's national flower, the Bunga Raya". Except that the Bunga Raya (or hibiscus, to give it its English name) is Malaysia's national flower, not Singapore's.

For a brief period between 1963 and 1965, when we were part of Malaysia, there was indeed a cheesy "nation-building" campaign celebrating the hibiscus as "our" national flower, but this ceased as soon as Separation took place in August 1965. That Khoo confused one patriotism with another undermined his attempt to position himself as a loyal, if dissenting Singaporean.

About 100 - 120 people attended the book launch at the Central Market Annex. 
  

Then it was Said Zahari's turn to speak. Said now lives in Kuala Lumpur. He was among the over 120 people arrested in Operation Cold Store in 1963, following which he spent 17 years in detention without trial.

In his relatively brief remarks, he told the room -- the first time that he's told anyone outside his inner circle, he said -- of what happened in the early 1970s. It was nearing the likely time when he would be released. However, he published some of his poems in Malaysia around the same time.

"Then one night, the deputy head of the Special Branch came to the holding centre. 'Said, why did you do this?' he asked me. 'You shouldn't have done this.'

"He produced a poem from prison published in KL (Kuala Lumpur). That book contained poems that I had written. 'Because of this, your friend,' and by that he meant Lee Kuan Yew, 'decided to send you to prison,' the deputy director said.

"So because of that, I was sent back to prison for five more years."

The book on sale
  

After that poignant anecdote from Said, co-editor Koh Kah Yew picked up Francis Khoo's thread again. "We are the last of our generation," he told the room. Elaborating, he described his generation as a "Pan-Malayan species".

"For people of my age, Malaya was not some abstract political concept but a social reality, and one aspect of our common Malayan heritage is internment without trial."

It sounded like an appeal to a Malaysian audience why the book they were launching might be relevant to them and one they should buy, but if I repeat these words to Singaporeans, as I am doing now, I think they will leave people cold. To the vast majority of Singaporeans today, the concept of Malaya is archaic, and anyone boasting of such credentials is casting himself as fish out of water.

It was a pity that he chose that opening, because the rest of what he had to say was far more cogent.

Looking back, Koh noted these common threads among the authors in the book:

"All were English-educated except for Said Zahari. All were university graduates. All were detained at various times from early 1950s to later 1980s.

"Except for James Puthucheary, none were members of political organisations," adding that "half of authors were labour activists; the other half were social activists."

He was profiling the people involved in the book as belonging to a certain class and driven by social concerns, rather than political. In doing so, he was suggesting that the government was over-reacting to them.

Koh then went on to rebut "the main tenets of the state's case behind imprisonment without trial."

• It was impossible to conduct open trials because witnesses were subject to physical intimidation.
• The arrestees were part of a communist conspiracy.
• They were a subversive threat to public security.

On the first point, Koh responded by saying that there has never been any example of physical intimidation of witnesses.

On the second, he said that Lee Kuan Yew himself had claimed there were fewer than 30 members of the Malayan Communist Party active in Singapore. Other accounts, Koh said, estimated the number to be less than a hundred. "Yet, those imprisoned number in the thousands," Koh pointed out, asking: How could these thousands all have been communists?

On the third, he noted that unlike Malaya in the 1950s, "Singapore had experienced no armed rebellion." As for the Hock Lee bus riots often cited as a prime example of violence, "in colonial archives, no blame was attached to communists behind it. On the contrary, it said the police provoked it."

Turning to the significance of these men and women whose works featured in the book they were launching, "It was their sacrifice that induced the change of policy in the 1990s."

The new policy was one of "pre-emptive strike, where groups were brought in for 2 – 3 months, taken in in order to nip dissent in the bud. Leaders were detained 1 – 2 years, with the rest released after 2 – 3 months."

He did not provide any example to support the above description of the new policy.

Koh also took issue with the government's claim that there was no torture during interrogation. "Not a few detainees lost their sanity," he said. "And virtually all detainees suffered post-traumatic stress disorder."

After a short break, two young Malaysians came up on stage to read selected works from the book. The quality of the works was quite variable. Some had an urgency that spoke anew, others weighed down by stilted language that reminded one of pre-Industrial England. 

Then it was question time.

"Has Singapore changed? Is that why you have come out with this poetry at this time?" was one of the questions put to the panel.

Teo Soh Lung replied: "Singapore has not changed. If at all, it has changed for the worse. However, so far, nothing has happened to us." I don't remember any reply as to why they felt it was opportune to publish the book now.

A different panel for question time
   

To the question "Will Singapore change when Lee Kuan Yew is gone?", Tan Jing Quee inexplicably ducked: "That is not a question that this book sets out to answer."

I thought that was a real shame. Here was an opportunity to make the discussion relevant to the present, but they didn't seem to want to grasp it.

Instead, Tan detoured to saying that the Singapore government has described the Internal Security Act as something they inherited from the British colonial government. With a disavowal like that, "why keep it?" he asked.

I was raring to ask a follow-up question, but there were too many others who were up there asking soft ball questions, or contributing comments that did little more than pile on the praise, so I never got a chance.

I wanted to ask whether in their view a country can do away completely with detention without trial, or whether a justifiable case remains for such a law, perhaps with more checks and balance, as a legitimate state response to violent extremists and terrorists.

It is related to an age-old conundrum: Must a democratic state give free reign to those who would use that freedom to destroy democracy?