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Changing the face of the Singapore dollar

The US$20 bill is getting a new face. United States Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recently announced that the portrait of Harriet Tubman — the former slave and abolitionist — will be featured on the front of the new US$20 note. (She will be the first woman to appear on a US banknote for more than a century.)

A freedom-fighting journalist-turned-administrator, Yusof Ishak was a man of great accomplishment, but should he remain the only one featured on the Singapore currency notes? Photo: REUTERS

A freedom-fighting journalist-turned-administrator, Yusof Ishak was a man of great accomplishment, but should he remain the only one featured on the Singapore currency notes? Photo: REUTERS

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The US$20 bill is getting a new face. United States Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recently announced that the portrait of Harriet Tubman — the former slave and abolitionist — will be featured on the front of the new US$20 note. (She will be the first woman to appear on a US banknote for more than a century.)

The Treasury also announced plans for the back of the new US$10 bill to feature an image of the historic march for suffrage that ended on the steps of the Treasury Department and honour other leaders of the suffrage movement — Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul.

So we see the US making a somewhat overdue effort to make its notes more race and gender inclusive. Which got me thinking — if Singapore were to embark on a currency conversion, who should we include in the line-up? Here are my picks for a new line of Singapore dollars:

Lee Kuan Yew: An obvious choice, he needs no introduction. He is simply synonymous with the nation, so I think he is a prime candidate for the S$2 or S$1,000 note. Either the highest value or the most ubiquitous note.

Of course, Mr Lee did not fashion our modern nation alone. He was ably assisted by Goh Keng Swee, the first Finance Minister, S Rajaratnam, the prominent Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Lim Kim San, the father of the Housing and Development Board, among many, many others. I think any of the above would be solid choices for the S$50 note.

Singapore, though, did not come into being 50 years ago — we had campaigners, educators and legislators active long before our official independence. For example, Lim Boon Keng, who was a legislator in colonial Singapore in the 1920s, campaigned for girls’ education and the banning of opium; or Elizabeth Choy, a celebrated war hero.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is also Stamford Raffles — scholar, adventurer, administrator — who laid the foundation for all that was to come.

But I am not convinced an erstwhile coloniser should be on our modern currency, and Raffles already has a pretty swanky hotel named after him, among other things. So, Lim Boon Keng — for S$5?

Much like the founding fathers, today’s Singapore women owe a lot to the amazing women who put in place the city’s seminal Women’s Charter. From Tan Cheng Hiong, Shirin Fozdar or Checha Davies, it would be empowering to have any of our many pioneering women’s rights activists on our currency.

But we do not need to limit ourselves to just politicians or activists — we cannot forget the rich web of myth and legend from which our nation draws so much of its identity.

Sang Nila Utama could definitely do with a spot — the Srivijayan prince who founded the first kingdom on the island of Singapore even gave our island its name. No one knows what he looked like, but I am sure note-makers have room for creative licence.

In the same vein, I am a big fan of the Redhill myth. You know, the one where the clever boy saved the people of Singapore from a plague of stabbing swordfish. He planted banana trees by the coast to trap their pointy beaks. The boy became so popular that the king became jealous and had the boy murdered on a hill, which grew red with his blood, becoming Bukit Merah (or Redhill), which is still part of our landscape today. A good candidate for the S$10 note, it is red after all!

Now I love SGDs as much as the next person, and while the designs on the back of the notes depict a pretty collection of scenes, the front is a little repetitive with Yusof Ishak, Singapore’s first President, on the front of every single note. A freedom-fighting journalist-turned-administrator, he was a man of great accomplishment, but should he remain the only one featured on our currency? THE MALAY MAIL

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Surekha A Yadav, a Singaporean, is a freelance journalist.

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