Most of the research presented in this special issue questions the notion of a singular Singaporean story, and yet this narrative persists as a form of Gramscian common sense for most Singaporeans, whether young or old, and also for recent immigrants and international commentators. To understand the reasons for this persistence, I turn to American political scientist Rogers M. Smith's concept of narratives of peoplehood, and in particular his notion of ethically constitutive stories that are central to individual subject formation. The role of the colonial past in such stories of Singapore is contradictory, in that the relationship between colonialism and the nation-state is seen simultaneously in terms of rupture and continuity, and this conceals a further contradiction in terms of the relationship between individual and the collective. In exploring these contradictions, and in tracing reparative possibilities for new stories of peoplehood, I will, in conclusion, turn to recent literary narratives, and in particular recent historical speculative fiction that revisions the colonial past.

中文翻译：

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有好处的殖民主义？新加坡民族与殖民矛盾

本期特刊中提出的大部分研究都质疑单一新加坡故事的概念，但对于大多数新加坡人，无论是年轻人还是老年人，以及新移民和国际评论员，这种叙述仍然是葛兰西常识的一种形式。为了理解这种持续存在的原因，我求助于美国政治学家罗杰斯·M·史密斯的人性叙事概念，特别是他关于对个体主体形成至关重要的伦理构成故事的概念。殖民历史在新加坡的这些故事中所扮演的角色是矛盾的，因为殖民主义与民族国家之间的关系同时被视为断裂和延续，这掩盖了个人与国家关系方面的进一步矛盾。集体。