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?
The late Professor Tom Elliott, a member of the sub-committee which conceived the Pulau Senang concept told me, long after the trial, (I made a note at the time), that he had come to the conclusion that the very success of the project had defeated its objectives. He said that the basic idea had been to lead men back to decent society by proving to them that creative work was more satisfactory, more worthwhile, than gangsterism. At Pulau Senang the creative work had almost ended: work had become routine. “To be successful there must be continuous pioneering effort. Men who did work hard and had proved to themselves and to authority that the basic ideas of Pulau Senang were right, had returned to normal society. They left Pulau Senang, leaving the bad stuff behind,” said Elliott sadly. “These incorrigibles influenced the newcomers. Ideally, there should have been several islands to be worked. Once Pulau Senang has passed the pioneering stage, the settlement should have been institutionalized. Pulau Senang had stopped being a pioneering effort. It had become an accomplished fact, with roads and rules. Detainees were demanding regular hours of work, more leisure facilities. There was ample time for discontent, complaints and conspiracy. In this atmosphere, intrigue led to plotting.” That, in his view, was why the experiment failed. Yet to the end, Professor Elliott continued to believe in the principle of the experiment. He was convinced gangsters could be, and should be, helped to become decent citizens. This was not an opinion shared entirely by Major James. James thought that most gangsters had a serious character flaw, otherwise they would not become members of a secret society. Most of them were beyond redemption and should be kept away from the rest of society.
We will probably never know why Pulau Senang exploded that sunny afternoon. The truth lies buried somewhere in the ruins. We shall never know for sure why the experiment failed. There is Major James’ explanation. There are other theories. Why did they kill and destroy? Reflecting upon the, to me, utter senselessness of the riot, (for the rioters must have realised there was no escape from inevitable punishment, though a few hoped to swim to freedom, or of getting to Indonesia by boat), I am inclined to favour the belief that the forty-minute murder and destruction was not a violent effort to free everyone on the island, but a deliberate attempt by the secret society leaders to prove publicly that they, not Dutton or the government he represented, controlled their members. The government could order gangsters to build, to create. They did. Pulau Senang became a showpiece. But the gang-leaders could order them to destroy and they would be obeyed. In this way, the gang-leaders could prove that their hold over them was absolute, even when they were all under detention. That was why the gang-leaders ordered Dutton and the others to be killed, Pulau Senang to be destroyed. That was why they ordered their men to smash and burn what they had sweated to create. Like automatons, the secret society gangsters, sworn to obey, raised their weapons and attacked. Less than an hour was needed: Dutton’s mutilated body lay amid the debris. A blood stained shirt fluttered from a pole, an emblem of victory. Still clutching their weapons, they strutted like prize cockerels. Others sang and danced in celebration.