Heritage, Penang..., who, calls, shot?

UPDATED VERSION. I picked up a few lines from Marina Emmanuel in The NST today, Page 19, titled: Calling the shots on heritage site.

She says the "to-be-or-not-to-be" impasse over four development projects approved by the Majlis Perbandaran Pulau Pinang (MPPP) before Penang George Town was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site on July 7, 2008 "appears to be a series of errors", in a "situation, now being regarded as messy and hopeless".

Errors, in the days of altruism or otherwise, usually carry a price. Being messy and, worse, being hopeless spell doom.

As modernity has seen the Dark Age of the Mind long gone, the people's rights to access of information -- indoctrinated legislatively or otherwise -- is firmly enshrined in our hearts. It's no longer the doctrine of the "need to know" but the "rights to know" in an information society.

I hope the NST journalist, and all other journalists with strong conscience, will continue to enlighten us on the "series of errors" in this whole episode of Heritage vs. Sustainable Development stalemate. In fact, NST's Emmanuel has pointedly said: "If the Penang government is sincere about continuing to be investor-friendly, while showing its commitment towards heritage conservation, then it should not drag its feet any longer on the matter."

She is of the opinion that, in order not to drag the feet, the state government should start "burning the midnight oil and seeking advice from neutral parties who have no vested interest in the four projects or special interest groups", and more.

I earnestly wanted to know who these parties with vested interest "in the four projects and special interest groups" really are.

Learn from the pandemic

Pointing fingers is counterproductive and dysfunctional.

As a Member of Parliament -- who ironically has no real say over state matters -- I don't want to keep looking into the rear-view mirror or we'll get a train wreck. Instead, forward-looking is my middle name.

We should learn from the WHO, or World Health Organisation which is yet another UN bureaucracy, on how the wrongly-tagged 2009 swine flu has to be renamed A(H1N1) so that innocent parties like pig farmers are not being harmed unjustly.

Hence, if there are a series of errors in this entire UNESCO Heritage impasse in Penang, we should first ISOLATE the viruses that had caused the "series of errors", and treat these parties of error-makers like (A)H1N1 strands. Then, banish them away from the final corrective process so that they don't contaminate the good vaccine.

Here in Penang, I could see these viruses -- who had caused the "series of errors in this whole episode" -- present themselves in the forms of Bonnie & Clyde, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and the Camry-riding Little Napoleons.

Isolate them like plague and we'll be safe.

Two, read the so-called Heritage Management Plan, not just about height control in the Heritage enclave, and ask: Heritage for whom?

Heritage, the way I understand it, is definitely not for Prof David Lung and Mr Giovanni Boccardi. They are not the living culture in Penang, let alone to understand it.

The least, not for Commissioner of Heritage Zurainah Abdul Majid -- she was trained a archeologist and now nearing her shelf-life as a civil servant. You can't possibly get a vet to treat a sick patient, neither can you expect an archeologist to enlighten the living culture around a Penang legacy.

Three, let's put the money where the mouth is. Where's the money to conserve and sustain the Heritage enclave in George Town?

At the end of the day, heritage has to have Penang people, and the interests of Penang people, at heart.

Let all sanctums of Penang people decide. Not the rahrahrah in Spain this summer where MPPP officers may be pleased to go on another all-expenses-paid trip -- without a minder from the state government -- and come home with zilt.

They last time they went to Paris in February saw them back, yes, with zilt.

BY THE WAY... Bonnie and Clyde do not necessarily come in the slim cut, 1967 denomination of Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde? He is for hire (and a dog will have a price). Just look for his name somewhere on a signboard along Downing Street, or something.