52 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Then, in 1963, the possibility of communist rule on the island prompted the Malayan political leadership, who had been unenthusiastic about a 'merger' with Chinese dominant Singapore and the British colonial territories of Sarawak and North Borneo subsequently renamed Sabah. Membership proved difficult for Singapore, leading to its separation from Malaysia after two brief years. In 1965, political independence was thrust upon the population by fiat, under the People's Action Party (PAP) government. The 'absurd* had become the reality. Until 1965, Singapore as an independent political entity was an 'absence'; it was not an idea which a population was trying to realize.This 'absence* accounts for the desperate need and successive attempts to 'define', to 'substantiate' and to eventually 'realize' a national identity at every level of social and political life. Unlike economic development, however, success in identity building appears to be elusive; hitherto, the ontologically real appears to cunningly slip out from under attempts to represent it. HEGEMONY OF THE ECONOMIC Political independence dismantled the supra-racial governmental structure and its ideological justifications in terms of British colonializm and subsequently by Malaysian federalism.. A 'reason' for the new state* had to be found and Singapore was severely impoverished in ready to hand ideological/ symbolic resource for the construction of this reason. Being a settlement of immigrants, there was no indigenous tradition and structure of government that could be resurrected. Of the three races, the Chinese were the most numerous and best organized through multiple layers of clan and trade associations, culminating in umbrella organizations such as the Hokkien Association and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. However, they could not morally claim proprietary right over the new island nation. Furthermore, the geopolitical condition of archipelagic Southeast Asia placed them in a region of an overwhelming Malay speaking population of Malaysians and Indonesians, who were unlikely to accept a Chinese nation in its midst with equanimity. The Malays, though regionally indigenous, constituted a numerical minority which was unable to dominate politics in the new state. Finally, the Indian population was doubly disadvantaged because it was smaller than the Malays and were immigrants like the Chinese. Thus, there existed no possible appeals to a 'shared' cultural heritage as the basis of a new nation, Denied of myths of 'shared* traditions, alternative grounds for the reason of the new state could potentially be found in 'universal' concepts that concurrently transcend and suppress ethnic differences. Through their ability to incorporate every one in the population as