E.W. Barker, A statesman, sportsman, scholar | On The Shoulders Of Giants - video Dailymotion

AsiaOne

Mr E.W. Barker was one of our founding leaders. He drafted the founding documents of modern Singapore & helmed five different ministries, including as our first and longest serving Law Minister.   A natural sportsman, he excelled in every sport he played. He is best loved for his contributions to developing Singapore’s sports scene - building our National Stadium and as President of the Singapore National Olympic Council.   His larger than life character was not defined by the public offices he held. He "never referred to himself as a Eurasian Minister" - he was a Singaporean first.  Watch more: https://www.asiaone.com/video

Transcript

00:00Eddie Barker was someone who was never afraid to challenge

00:04the Prime Minister of the day, Lee Kuan Yew, in Cabinet meetings to say

00:08Harry, are you sure this is what you want?

00:25Well, I told my friends that I had been asked by Straits Times Press

00:28to write a biography of Eddie Barker, and I said no,

00:31because I'd never met him, I did not feel I knew him well enough.

00:35And they said to me, oh, silly, he's one of the most colourful

00:38Cabinet ministers we've ever had.

00:40It's not just a founding father.

00:43I thought about it and I did a bit more research and I thought, OK,

00:46I really need to do this.

00:49I think I'd been to a small, tiny conference room in the Ministry of Law,

00:53which was named the E.W. Barker Room.

00:55I didn't know very much more about that.

00:57I came to recognise that very few people knew about Eddie Barker,

01:01including initially myself.

01:04Edmund Barker was a first generation Singaporean Eurasian of German,

01:09Indonesian, Scottish, Irish and Japanese descent.

01:17He was a natural sportsman.

01:20With the first read my he was head prefect at Raffles Institution.

01:24Now Lee Kuan Yew had also been at Raffles Institution,

01:28so they became good friends.

01:30Well, I came to know Lee Kuan Yew in the 1930s

01:35when we studied at Raffles Institution.

01:40Barker entered Raffles College in 1939

01:43for his stellar academic performance.

01:46He was the college's athletics champion in 1940

01:50and captain of the rugby team in 1941.

01:55He was a Queen's Scholar.

01:56He received a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom

01:59and chose to do law at Cambridge University.

02:03In fact, he always said while others like Lee Kuan Yew,

02:07Goh Keng Swee were interested in political discussions, Malayan forum,

02:11he was not because he was too busy playing team sports, football, rugby, cricket.

02:17He was captain of the badminton team at Cambridge and they did very well.

02:23It was his love for sports that ignited a fervent desire within him

02:27to do something bigger for Singapore's sports scene.

02:33While at Cambridge, Lee Kuan Yew told me on our return to Singapore,

02:39we should never allow ourselves to be in prison

02:42because a political martyr cannot do much for his country while behind bars.

02:53Upon his return to Singapore,

02:55Barker practiced law for 12 years from 1952 to 1964,

03:01specializing in civil litigation.

03:08In September 1963, Lee Kuan Yew asked me to stand as a candidate for election

03:15in the constituency of Kenya.

03:17I believe it was his wife who recommended me

03:20and that when she did, he asked,

03:23do you think Eddie can do it?

03:27So that would have been a huge step for my mother,

03:30especially that now he was changing the course of his career altogether.

03:36She must have thought, oh my gosh, what's going to happen now?

03:41Are we going to go back to struggling financially again?

03:45Lee Kuan Yew asked Eddie Barker if he would stand for election

03:49and he agreed to do it because he knew that he needed someone on his team

03:57who could help him win more seats.

04:02And he won his election in 1963

04:06and after that, he was never opposed on polling day.

04:10My father was returned unopposed on polling day.

04:13He was returned unopposed for the rest of his life in politics.

04:19If Eddie Barker had stayed on as a lawyer,

04:22he would have made millions and millions

04:24because he was a very good, very effective, very well-sought-after lawyer.

04:30On 1st November 1964, Barker joined Lee's cabinet as Minister for Law.

04:37Barely nine months as law minister,

04:39he was sharing a closely-guarded secret with Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

04:45It was a pivotal time and Lee Kuan Yew needed all the good people

04:51he could gather to work with him in the Singapore government.

04:55So he knew he would be able to play an important role, a crucial role.

05:00Of course, Mr Lee had such ideals for what Malaysia was going to be.

05:05Multiracial, multicultural.

05:07He really believed in that right from the beginning

05:10and that's what he wanted for Malaysia.

05:12So they went to the parliament with these ideals

05:15and I think Malaysia was not ready for such a thing.

05:18So there was a lot of tension.

05:23It was only much later, in July 1965, when Goh Keng Swee raised the idea of

05:30separation with Tun Abdul Razak and the negotiation started.

05:36Eddie Barker started playing a pivotal role because he was the one person

05:42drafting the separation agreements.

05:45In great secrecy, mind you, because nobody could know about it.

05:49And even within the Singapore cabinet, he couldn't get help from anyone

05:52in the Singapore government, in the Attorney-General's chambers.

06:00The Prime Minister then asked whether I could draft the agreement.

06:04I replied that I would draft it.

06:06I went to the law library of the University of Singapore to look for precedents.

06:14I found one.

06:15That was the breakup of the Federation of the West Indies.

06:23But when he went up to Malaysia with Goh Keng Swee to discuss the documents

06:29with Tun Abdul Razak and the senior Malaysian leaders,

06:33they always knew it could go badly wrong.

06:35And if it did go wrong, they could be arrested for treason.

06:39And then my father came home and he just said,

06:41you know, don't have to worry, anything happens.

06:44I have got money saved away.

06:48Mummy knows where it is.

06:50And you will be all right.

06:53It took 10 days for Mr Barker to draft, circulate, amend and finalise three documents.

07:01An agreement to separate,

07:04an amendment to the Malaysian constitution to allow Singapore to leave,

07:08and a proclamation of independence.

07:17Where I handed the documents to the Prime Minister,

07:21he said, thank you Eddie, this is a bloodless coup.

07:26The Prime Minister told me to get out of Kuala Lumpur as fast as I could.

07:33The separation documents that Eddie Barker drafted,

07:36I mean, they were so skilfully done that when the Malaysian counterparts read through them,

07:42one of them paid him a great compliment.

07:45I think Tun Abdul Razak, the then Deputy Prime Minister, said to him,

07:49anytime you want a job in my government, I will take you.

07:52And I think Eddie felt quite proud of that.

07:56I think Mr Eddie Barker is an example of a lawyer who sees the larger picture,

08:02who sees the longer game, that this isn't just about the dispute, it's about the relationship.

08:07Mr Barker wasn't just a good lawyer, he was a good diplomat.

08:13I was always for the independence of Singapore.

08:17Even before I joined the government,

08:20I never understood why the government of Singapore should form a federation with Malaysia.

08:29So I have no regrets about the separation.

08:36After accomplishing this momentous separation,

08:40his next big task was to build Singapore as an independent nation.

08:45He helmed five different ministries,

08:48and was Singapore's first and longest-serving law minister,

08:52with a tenure of 25 years.

08:57After independence, Eddie Barker was given two portfolios.

09:02In addition to being Minister for Law, he was also Minister for National Development.

09:07And he held both portfolios concurrently for 10 years.

09:11And he has told an interviewer that the job of being Minister for National Development

09:16was one he enjoyed most, because it was about building homes for Singaporeans.

09:21Now if you remember in 1965, many Singaporeans still lived in essentially slums,

09:27in kampongs, villages without proper running water or sewage systems.

09:32So the government of the day had this enormous task of resettling people in proper homes,

09:39which they could call their own.

09:41So my father was involved in setting up all the foundations of our law,

09:47and then he was given that gift of national development,

09:51because I think he loved that very much.

09:55Eddie Barker was someone who was never afraid to challenge the Prime Minister of the day,

10:01to challenge Lee Kuan Yew in Cabinet meetings, to say,

10:04Harry, are you sure this is what you want?

10:08Barker always told Members of Parliament that they must speak their mind,

10:12they must let their conscience guide them.

10:16As Law Minister, Mr Barker introduced a constitutional amendment

10:22which created the Presidential Council on Minority Rights,

10:26ensuring that minority rights were protected.

10:32Eddie Barker, he never saw himself as a minority.

10:36He has told this story of how Lee Kuan Yew once said to him,

10:39you will be the last Eurasian in Singapore,

10:42because this was a time after separation when a lot of minorities,

10:46including Singapore Eurasians, were leaving Singapore,

10:49because there was concern and fear about how independent Singapore would survive.

10:55And he said, no, not the last Eurasian, I will be the last Singaporean.

11:01Sports was Mr Barker's first love, and rightly so,

11:05as the sporting fraternity fondly remembered him.

11:09Just as he was a dedicated team player in his competitive days,

11:14he continued to embody that spirit as a sports administrator and leader.

11:21I suppose as his career developed, he was pursuing his love of sports in a bigger way,

11:27like opening the National Stadium

11:29and becoming the Chairman of the Singapore National Olympic Council.

11:33He was very active, he used to go to all kinds of football games,

11:37hockey games, and give away the prizes.

11:41He spent all his life here trying to do good for Singapore,

11:44even after he retired from Parliament and from the government.

11:49He was put in charge of the Singapore Turf Club.

11:52He was Chairman of the Singapore Stock Exchange.

11:57Mr Barker never rested on his laurels.

12:01After retiring from politics in 1988,

12:05he continued to serve on the boards of esteemed companies until his health declined.

12:16The realisation came to us in 1999,

12:20when he started being ill, and he fainted on a plane,

12:25he had a weak liver, he had a few conditions, but we didn't know about it.

12:31On 12 April 2001, Eddie Barker passed away at the age of 80.

12:43He was a gentleman's parliamentarian, a winsome Speaker of the House,

12:48and a man who loved life as much as he loved sports and his country.

12:55Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

12:58It comes from a song, but the message there is,

13:01life is short, make the most of it.

13:05But he said it a lot, and I think that quote really encapsulates his philosophy.

13:13He was a really larger-than-life figure,

13:16who I think would have been a great person to have at a party.

13:19And the more I learned about him, the more interesting I thought he was as a person,

13:23but also potentially as a role model for our students,

13:26and that I think is what we're really trying to do with the E.W. Barker

13:29Centre for Law and Business, is produce research that is policy-relevant,

13:33hopefully carry forth the important work he did as Singapore's longest-ever serving Minister for Laws.

13:41Today, his legacy lives on,

13:44shaping the hearts and minds of generations through education in Singapore.

13:53The E.W. Barker Centre for Law and Business

13:55The E.W. Barker Centre for Law and Business

13:58The E.W. Barker Centre for Law and Business

E.W. Barker, A statesman, sportsman, scholar | On The Shoulders Of Giants

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