Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Starter: Into a World Heritage City
- 1 A Cityscape below the Winds
- 2 Heritage Affairs: Mouse-Deer, White Elephants, and Watchdogs
- 3 UNESCO and the City
- 4 Melakan Row Houses from the Ground Up
- 5 Divide and Brand: Public Space, Politics, and Tourism
- 6 A Melakan Ancestral Village Beyond World Heritage
- 7 Epilogue of a Blessing and a Curse
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Heritage Affairs: Mouse-Deer, White Elephants, and Watchdogs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 July 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Starter: Into a World Heritage City
- 1 A Cityscape below the Winds
- 2 Heritage Affairs: Mouse-Deer, White Elephants, and Watchdogs
- 3 UNESCO and the City
- 4 Melakan Row Houses from the Ground Up
- 5 Divide and Brand: Public Space, Politics, and Tourism
- 6 A Melakan Ancestral Village Beyond World Heritage
- 7 Epilogue of a Blessing and a Curse
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Chapter 2 traces the evolution of heritage politics in Malaysia since the era when European principles of conservation privileged architectural grandeur and monumental heritage. Since the 1980s Melaka's institutions have turned the buildings in the old civic area into museums celebrating a glorified past. At the same time, the state has embraced a developmentalist agenda. The World Heritage bid attracted the interest of real estate developers, bringing to the city a number of projects of the type it had never experienced before. In between the visions of an ‘Old Melaka’ and a ‘New Melaka’, the state and civil society have been increasingly involved in a new era of heritage politics following more recent UNESCO-derived shifts towards non-monumental forms of heritage and cultural diversity.
Keywords: historic conservation policies in Malaysia, monumental heritage, urban transformation, the state, civil society, developers
Every city lives in the present between its past and future. Melaka stands today in between an image of its past as the ‘Venice of the East’ and projections of a future Dubai in the Straits of Malacca. By retracing the workings of local heritage affairs, the aim of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand, I will trace chronologically the normative evolution of historic conservation and heritage management in Melaka and Malaysia. On the other hand, I will introduce the major actors who will appear from time to time throughout this book. Rather than choosing simplistic divisions between the state, society, and the private sector, I present a more permeable combination of social actors through three metaphors: mouse-deer, white elephants, and watchdogs. I feel these metaphors offer a finer view of the way government institutions, civil society, and real estate developers interact, offering three peculiar visions of Melaka's cityscape: one that privileges a glorified Malaycentric past, another which envisions a futuristic spectacle, and yet another, which lobbies for a conscious preservation of urban heirlooms.
As shown in the previous chapter, Melaka's origin myth concerns the brave mouse-deer that outwitted Parameswara's hunting dogs. The mousedeer is retained as a symbol on the logos of local authorities, but also of the glorious past they want to revive. Replicas of the legendary mouse-deer stand in a roundabout between the Stadthuys and the river.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- World Heritage and Urban Politics in Melaka, MalaysiaA Cityscape below the Winds, pp. 59 - 104Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2021