00:00Eddie Barker was someone who was never afraid to challenge
00:04the Prime Minister of the day, Lee Kuan Yew, in Cabinet meetings to say
00:08Harry, are you sure this is what you want?
00:25Well, I told my friends that I had been asked by Straits Times Press
00:28to write a biography of Eddie Barker, and I said no,
00:31because I'd never met him, I did not feel I knew him well enough.
00:35And they said to me, oh, silly, he's one of the most colourful
00:38Cabinet ministers we've ever had.
00:40It's not just a founding father.
00:43I thought about it and I did a bit more research and I thought, OK,
00:46I really need to do this.
00:49I think I'd been to a small, tiny conference room in the Ministry of Law,
00:53which was named the E.W. Barker Room.
00:55I didn't know very much more about that.
00:57I came to recognise that very few people knew about Eddie Barker,
01:01including initially myself.
01:04Edmund Barker was a first generation Singaporean Eurasian of German,
01:09Indonesian, Scottish, Irish and Japanese descent.
01:17He was a natural sportsman.
01:20With the first read my he was head prefect at Raffles Institution.
01:24Now Lee Kuan Yew had also been at Raffles Institution,
01:28so they became good friends.
01:30Well, I came to know Lee Kuan Yew in the 1930s
01:35when we studied at Raffles Institution.
01:40Barker entered Raffles College in 1939
01:43for his stellar academic performance.
01:46He was the college's athletics champion in 1940
01:50and captain of the rugby team in 1941.
01:55He was a Queen's Scholar.
01:56He received a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom
01:59and chose to do law at Cambridge University.
02:03In fact, he always said while others like Lee Kuan Yew,
02:07Goh Keng Swee were interested in political discussions, Malayan forum,
02:11he was not because he was too busy playing team sports, football, rugby, cricket.
02:17He was captain of the badminton team at Cambridge and they did very well.
02:23It was his love for sports that ignited a fervent desire within him
02:27to do something bigger for Singapore's sports scene.
02:33While at Cambridge, Lee Kuan Yew told me on our return to Singapore,
02:39we should never allow ourselves to be in prison
02:42because a political martyr cannot do much for his country while behind bars.
02:53Upon his return to Singapore,
02:55Barker practiced law for 12 years from 1952 to 1964,
03:01specializing in civil litigation.
03:08In September 1963, Lee Kuan Yew asked me to stand as a candidate for election
03:15in the constituency of Kenya.
03:17I believe it was his wife who recommended me
03:20and that when she did, he asked,
03:23do you think Eddie can do it?
03:27So that would have been a huge step for my mother,
03:30especially that now he was changing the course of his career altogether.
03:36She must have thought, oh my gosh, what's going to happen now?
03:41Are we going to go back to struggling financially again?
03:45Lee Kuan Yew asked Eddie Barker if he would stand for election
03:49and he agreed to do it because he knew that he needed someone on his team
03:57who could help him win more seats.
04:02And he won his election in 1963
04:06and after that, he was never opposed on polling day.
04:10My father was returned unopposed on polling day.
04:13He was returned unopposed for the rest of his life in politics.
04:19If Eddie Barker had stayed on as a lawyer,
04:22he would have made millions and millions
04:24because he was a very good, very effective, very well-sought-after lawyer.
04:30On 1st November 1964, Barker joined Lee's cabinet as Minister for Law.
04:37Barely nine months as law minister,
04:39he was sharing a closely-guarded secret with Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
04:45It was a pivotal time and Lee Kuan Yew needed all the good people
04:51he could gather to work with him in the Singapore government.
04:55So he knew he would be able to play an important role, a crucial role.
05:00Of course, Mr Lee had such ideals for what Malaysia was going to be.
05:05Multiracial, multicultural.
05:07He really believed in that right from the beginning
05:10and that's what he wanted for Malaysia.
05:12So they went to the parliament with these ideals
05:15and I think Malaysia was not ready for such a thing.
05:18So there was a lot of tension.
05:23It was only much later, in July 1965, when Goh Keng Swee raised the idea of
05:30separation with Tun Abdul Razak and the negotiation started.
05:36Eddie Barker started playing a pivotal role because he was the one person
05:42drafting the separation agreements.
05:45In great secrecy, mind you, because nobody could know about it.
05:49And even within the Singapore cabinet, he couldn't get help from anyone
05:52in the Singapore government, in the Attorney-General's chambers.
06:00The Prime Minister then asked whether I could draft the agreement.
06:04I replied that I would draft it.
06:06I went to the law library of the University of Singapore to look for precedents.
06:14I found one.
06:15That was the breakup of the Federation of the West Indies.
06:23But when he went up to Malaysia with Goh Keng Swee to discuss the documents
06:29with Tun Abdul Razak and the senior Malaysian leaders,
06:33they always knew it could go badly wrong.
06:35And if it did go wrong, they could be arrested for treason.
06:39And then my father came home and he just said,
06:41you know, don't have to worry, anything happens.
06:44I have got money saved away.
06:48Mummy knows where it is.
06:50And you will be all right.
06:53It took 10 days for Mr Barker to draft, circulate, amend and finalise three documents.
07:01An agreement to separate,
07:04an amendment to the Malaysian constitution to allow Singapore to leave,
07:08and a proclamation of independence.
07:17Where I handed the documents to the Prime Minister,
07:21he said, thank you Eddie, this is a bloodless coup.
07:26The Prime Minister told me to get out of Kuala Lumpur as fast as I could.
07:33The separation documents that Eddie Barker drafted,
07:36I mean, they were so skilfully done that when the Malaysian counterparts read through them,
07:42one of them paid him a great compliment.
07:45I think Tun Abdul Razak, the then Deputy Prime Minister, said to him,
07:49anytime you want a job in my government, I will take you.
07:52And I think Eddie felt quite proud of that.
07:56I think Mr Eddie Barker is an example of a lawyer who sees the larger picture,
08:02who sees the longer game, that this isn't just about the dispute, it's about the relationship.
08:07Mr Barker wasn't just a good lawyer, he was a good diplomat.
08:13I was always for the independence of Singapore.
08:17Even before I joined the government,
08:20I never understood why the government of Singapore should form a federation with Malaysia.
08:29So I have no regrets about the separation.
08:36After accomplishing this momentous separation,
08:40his next big task was to build Singapore as an independent nation.
08:45He helmed five different ministries,
08:48and was Singapore's first and longest-serving law minister,
08:52with a tenure of 25 years.
08:57After independence, Eddie Barker was given two portfolios.
09:02In addition to being Minister for Law, he was also Minister for National Development.
09:07And he held both portfolios concurrently for 10 years.
09:11And he has told an interviewer that the job of being Minister for National Development
09:16was one he enjoyed most, because it was about building homes for Singaporeans.
09:21Now if you remember in 1965, many Singaporeans still lived in essentially slums,
09:27in kampongs, villages without proper running water or sewage systems.
09:32So the government of the day had this enormous task of resettling people in proper homes,
09:39which they could call their own.
09:41So my father was involved in setting up all the foundations of our law,
09:47and then he was given that gift of national development,
09:51because I think he loved that very much.
09:55Eddie Barker was someone who was never afraid to challenge the Prime Minister of the day,
10:01to challenge Lee Kuan Yew in Cabinet meetings, to say,
10:04Harry, are you sure this is what you want?
10:08Barker always told Members of Parliament that they must speak their mind,
10:12they must let their conscience guide them.
10:16As Law Minister, Mr Barker introduced a constitutional amendment
10:22which created the Presidential Council on Minority Rights,
10:26ensuring that minority rights were protected.
10:32Eddie Barker, he never saw himself as a minority.
10:36He has told this story of how Lee Kuan Yew once said to him,
10:39you will be the last Eurasian in Singapore,
10:42because this was a time after separation when a lot of minorities,
10:46including Singapore Eurasians, were leaving Singapore,
10:49because there was concern and fear about how independent Singapore would survive.
10:55And he said, no, not the last Eurasian, I will be the last Singaporean.
11:01Sports was Mr Barker's first love, and rightly so,
11:05as the sporting fraternity fondly remembered him.
11:09Just as he was a dedicated team player in his competitive days,
11:14he continued to embody that spirit as a sports administrator and leader.
11:21I suppose as his career developed, he was pursuing his love of sports in a bigger way,
11:27like opening the National Stadium
11:29and becoming the Chairman of the Singapore National Olympic Council.
11:33He was very active, he used to go to all kinds of football games,
11:37hockey games, and give away the prizes.
11:41He spent all his life here trying to do good for Singapore,
11:44even after he retired from Parliament and from the government.
11:49He was put in charge of the Singapore Turf Club.
11:52He was Chairman of the Singapore Stock Exchange.
11:57Mr Barker never rested on his laurels.
12:01After retiring from politics in 1988,
12:05he continued to serve on the boards of esteemed companies until his health declined.
12:16The realisation came to us in 1999,
12:20when he started being ill, and he fainted on a plane,
12:25he had a weak liver, he had a few conditions, but we didn't know about it.
12:31On 12 April 2001, Eddie Barker passed away at the age of 80.
12:43He was a gentleman's parliamentarian, a winsome Speaker of the House,
12:48and a man who loved life as much as he loved sports and his country.
12:55Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.
12:58It comes from a song, but the message there is,
13:01life is short, make the most of it.
13:05But he said it a lot, and I think that quote really encapsulates his philosophy.
13:13He was a really larger-than-life figure,
13:16who I think would have been a great person to have at a party.
13:19And the more I learned about him, the more interesting I thought he was as a person,
13:23but also potentially as a role model for our students,
13:26and that I think is what we're really trying to do with the E.W. Barker
13:29Centre for Law and Business, is produce research that is policy-relevant,
13:33hopefully carry forth the important work he did as Singapore's longest-ever serving Minister for Laws.
13:41Today, his legacy lives on,
13:44shaping the hearts and minds of generations through education in Singapore.
13:53The E.W. Barker Centre for Law and Business
13:55The E.W. Barker Centre for Law and Business
13:58The E.W. Barker Centre for Law and Business
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