Stripping Heritage

Yup it's started again. Say goodbye to another jewel in our landscape. Say goodbye to another chapter of this nation's heritage. Say goodbye to good sense.

The NST reported that demolition works of the Sg Buloh Leprosarium will continue after the cabinet met and issued a directive on Sept 12.

UiTM vice-chancellor Datuk Seri Prof Dr Ibrahim Abu Shah said the secretaries-general of the Health, Higher Education and Culture, Arts and Heritage Ministries then decided that the development should go ahead.

"The National Heritage Commission has also withdrawn the interim protection order and it is not going to pursue this matter any further. The earlier agreement stands, that is the mosque and the church are to be preserved.

"As far as I am concerned, a decision has been made, we are simply abiding by the law. The project must go on because we have students who need these facilities," he told the New Straits Times.

Poor governance compounded by poor vision.

The entire episode has been a sham. When Health Minster Chua Soi Lek came out in late July this year saying an Infectious Disease Control Center will be built in Sg Buloh, we should have seen the writing on the wall. In tambah-manis spin, the media reported his speech about a tourist centre and a heritage site.

And how three ministries would work hand-in-hand to ensure sensitive development. No literature or visuals was issued on the vision of this place. Just the usual "Trust us, we're the government".

Before you knew it, demolition contractors hired by UiTM teared portions of the east quadrant of the 77-year-old leprosarium, a feat local termites couldn't do in 3/4 of a century. The show must go on said its Vice-Chancellor; we have students who need an education and need to graduate, was the rationale. Moreso, these buildings have no heritage, declared the VC. Like he knew the value of heritage even if it was buzzing under his nostrils.

A stop work order was issued by the Heritage Commissioner Zuraina Majid. Boy, she tried. But as she found out soon enough, she's toothless in the scheme of things; things in the magnitude of hundreds of millions of ringgit.

We're losers.

We're pathetic losers because we allow poor minds to make poor decisions on our behalf. Losers because we legitimised their positions as custodians of our rights and heritage.



Today being Sunday, the neighborhood church is deathly quiet. Instead, just behind its quarters, a backhoe was grunting its diesel breath as it cleared a grove of banana trees. Already a linear swath has been cleared reaching to the valley beyond. Might it be a future road? i couldn't tell. There has never been a plan of the project shown to the public.

Further along the meandering path, a one-tonner is being loaded with salvaged roof tiles from the surrounding cabins. An elderly 'inmate' is plucking a papaya from a tree outside her cabin and gives a wrinkly smile. i gesture to her the rape going around her neighborhood. She shrugs and looks resigned; just that instant she looks tired.

Oh, she will pass on. She will die. As the shirtless man with clawed hands eying the backhoe will die. As the sanctity of this project has died. Their presence no more significant than the disfigured digits of a leper.





Occupants have been evicted from their cabins. The signs are still fresh. The discarded furniture still unstained by exposure to the weather. Prayer altars still bear the ashes of burnt jossticks, their hopes of a mirthful end now billowed in the dust of dirt-carrying lorries.

So a new flame will lay upon this fading gem; a new beginning to burn away a stigmatised past.

Phase 1 of a grand scheme - a research centre, institute of molecular biology, hostels, the works - has begun after a teeny resistance. Thanks to how things are run in this country, we have not seen a figment of its masterplan. (If precedents are anything to go by, we'll be seeing godawful buildings like the new and pretentious Hospital Sg Buloh being erected.)

We know it's 16 ha given to UiTM two years ago by the Finance Ministry. And another 47 ha of the leprosarium to be 'developed' under the Health Ministry. Fodder for fatcats. The opening roll call of the heroes of this new agenda is captured in the picture below. I snapped it for morbid posterity.



In the meantime, the intrinsic value of heritage remains an eggshell cladding without any structural framework, merely a ploy for the incompetents running this country to bandy around as and when it sees fit.

On Sunday, while strolling the once-peaceful grounds, i realised full-fanged parasites on the wings of the ringgit have landed on the east quadrant the Sg Buloh Leprosarium. From there, it will munch its way into the vital organs of the natural community and leave it dead. Two years tops.

Pray for Paraquat in a ballot box.



ps.
Back in dec 2005 i wrote about the magical quality of the Sg Buloh Leprosarium in my very first entry at mongrel trails, my other blog.
Just about the best documentation on this topic on the web can be found at Valley of Hope. Compilation of historical accounts, visuals, commentaries and news reports.