No time for love if they come in the morning

No time to show fear or for tears in the morning

No time for goodbyes, no time to ask why

And the wail of the children is the cry of the morning'

(Adapted by Anne Munro-Kua from Jack Warshaw)

COMMENT | "Anne and I will never forget the night of the 27th October 1987:

Truly, there was no time for love that evening as we were enveloped by an electrifying anticipation and apprehension. I tried to say a meaningful goodnight to six-year-old Hua Ying and two-year-old Bi Hua without saying goodbye. I only managed a tender goodnight to my little ones and my strong woman as we waited in the dark of the foreboding night. 'Be brave', we kept reassuring each other.

'Who can sleep well on a night he thinks he is about to be arrested under the Internal Security Act for the first time?

'We were alert to the sound of any approaching car. There were various false alarms. Finally, at around two o’clock in the morning of the 28th October, we were awakened by the sound of car doors slamming and activity outside. Anne took a look outside the window. 'It’s them,' she said. It was them. They started calling 'Dr Soong' and 'Dr Kua'..." (Kua Kia Soong, '445 Days Under the ISA')

There was no emergency situation in 1987 either

It is perhaps the biggest scandal of post-independent Malaysia that we have allowed detention without trial legislations to be used during peacetime. It is ironic that the butcher of the emergency, Gerald Templar had suggested the emergency regulations be annually renewable or they should lapse automatically. And even during the worst days of Apartheid, Nelson Mandela was allowed a due process of the law; there was the judicial review in South Africa all that time...