 |
PHT Newsletter, Issue 94
The days of celebration are over -- celebration well deserved after the announcement by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee at its meeting in Quebec City on 8th July that Melaka and George Town as Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca had been listed as a World Heritage Site. The people of Penang are right to feel proud at this mark of recognition for the City of George Town by the international community. The Penang Heritage Trust moreover justly shares this pride for its leading role in efforts over many years to achieve this accolade for George Town.
It has been a long and hard road to obtain World Heritage Listing. There were times when the goal seemed elusive and hopes destined to be forlorn. It seemed sometimes that there was only halfhearted support in important quarters. Much of George Town's priceless cultural and built heritage has been lost along the way. George Town also paid a heavy price in community dislocation and growing urban blight as a result of the repeal of rent control. Whole streets of derelict and disintegrating shop-houses -- not to mention abandoned former prominent buildings such as the old Chinese Residency (former Shih Chung School) -- stand as monuments to a failure of imagination and political will. There were also willful acts of destruction such as the illegal demolition of the old Metropole Hotel.
Despite this litany of despair, however, lovers of Penang's rich heritage never lost hope and the road to eventual World Heritage Listing was marked by several milestones. These included the highest Award of Excellence for the restoration of the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in the 2000 inaugural UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage awards and an Award of Merit for the restoration of the Teochew Han Jiang Ancestral Temple in the 2006 awards. The Penang Story International Conference in 2002 was another milestone in mobilising support. The long public campaign led by PHT for the restoration of Suffolk House also bore fruit through an innovative fund-raising scheme that engaged corporate and individual participation in addition to State government support. The result was a UNESCO Award of Distinction for the restoration of this historic landmark on 1st Semptember this year. Meanwhile, the dramatic success of the campaign to reject the inappropriate development of the race course site has demonstrated the power of public opinion.
The achievement of World Heritage Listing for the City of George Town is not the end of the journey. Unless there is careful and committed management in line with agreed heritage guidelines, the road ahead will prove as difficult as the road to this point. Tension will continue between crass commercialism and George Town's growth as an historic enclave of living communities with vibrant cultural traditions. Moreover, just as some developers are calling for the relaxation of restrictions on dangerous hill-slope construction projects, others are promoting projects to construct multi-storey hotels on Weld Quay in the very heart of George Town's heritage core. Outside the heritage core there are other issues of public concern such as the conversion of foreshore and sea-bed to freehold; the haphazard approval of unsightly tower blocks along the north shore; and the ever expanding mud-flats (now even sprouting mangroves) off Gurney Drive, caused by silting from ill-considered land reclamation.
Guest Editor
|
|