Stopping By: Civilian War Memorial @ City Hall
If you live in Singapore, you definitely must have noticed this chopstick-like monument called the ‘Civilian War Memorial‘, standing tall right in the middle of busy city traffic near Suntec City and City Hall.
The question is, have we ever walked past the monument, stopped and checked it out, even for a little while?
Well some time ago, we did just that.
For our very first time, in more than a decade of seeing the monument!
The four of us walked from City Hall MRT towards Suntec City and decided to stop by and actually see what the monument is all about.
Obviously it’s not something that the kids would be interested in.
BUT, they DID ask what ‘it’ was.
And that’s when we felt it was timely to explain a little bit about war.
[You see, our kids have heard about ‘war’, soldiers, etc, but we don’t expose them to ‘war stories’ (read: where people kill or shoot at each other). We don’t encourage physical aggression in our family. And, we discourage play using swords or toy guns, and we do explain to them why.]
And so, here’s our simple explanation to them of what the monument and war are about:
Imagine if there’s a stranger standing outside our home and he wants to come inside. Once inside, the stranger says, ‘This is now MY home! This is NO LONGER your home!!’ Then he used our bathroom, he slept on our beds, and he told us to work and clean the house for him.
[I then asked the kids, ‘Whose home is it?’, and they both said, ‘It’s of course OUR home!’]
If THAT happened, then we – the real OWNER of the house – would definitely ask the stranger/outsider to LEAVE. And when the stranger insists to stay and claims that it’s HIS home, everyone at home will surely get together to make sure that the stranger leaves for good!
The same goes for a country like Singapore. Last time, some people from another country (ie. Japan, in this case) came to Singapore and said, ‘Singapore is now MY country!’. Then of course the people of Singapore said, ‘NO! It’s MY country! Leave Singapore and go back to YOUR own country!’
But they didn’t want to leave. The people of Singapore fought against them to make sure that Singapore was still THEIR home. During the fight (which we know as ‘war’), many Singaporeans died. And that’s why we have this monument. It’s to remember that many Singaporeans died, when outsiders came and said that Singapore was THEIR home.
…
We were around the monument for less than 10 minutes, I think. But during that short span of time, I know the kids learned a little something important.
About the need to protect their own home and family. And about the need to respect others.
