Case Analysis: Is Heritage Worth Saving?

Abstract

This research paper aims to provide an analysis on the restoration of Acheen Street Mosque in Georgetown, Penang. Moreover, this paper also discusses the issues that became the reasons for the re-establishment of this historically and architecturally significant mosque.

Table of Contents

Abstract2

Case Introduction4

Case Analysis6

Conclusions7

References9

Case Analysis: Is Heritage Worth Saving?

Case Introduction

This case portrays a disagreement between the economic development and historic preservation in a multicultural environment of Malaysia where concerns of economic class, religion and race confuse the maintenance versus development dispute (McCarthy, 1998). The case highlights the battle over the conservation and maintenance of Acheen Street Malay Mosque Village in the interior city of George Town. George Town hordes the biggest gathering of Muslim urban heritage in Malaysia and the mosque village was the famous center for the trade of spice in Penang. However, the city of George Town is professed by Muslim local Malays as a city of Chinese dominance with chiefly British and Chinese colonial heritage, with no significant cultural heritage. Funds were allocated by the Federal government for the expansion of Acheen Street Malay Mosque. The inhabitants of the community, indigent descendants of the true Arabic populace, anticipated that the compound would be brought back to its past glory. However, the MAIPP or the Penang State Islamic Religious Council decided to bulldoze and renew the Acheen Street Malay Mosque as a shopping area and an apartment complex. The heritage significance of this mosque then turns out to be the hub of a continuing quarrel between the Kampung residents and the council (Mohamed & Mustafa, 2005).

In 2002, conservationists and developers were in disagreement as how to get on Acheen Street Malay Mosque Village, Malaysia. The MAIPP or Penang State Religious Council were in a favor to renew the region from the ground up and boost economic growth, while the objective of the residents as well as the NGO called Penang Heritage Trust was to prop up growth through rejuvenation and tourism. The objectives of the PHT were thus to preserve a big share of the Acheen Street Malay Mosque Village to secure the status of UNESCO World Heritage. On the other hand, the objectives of the MAIPP were to eradicate the bungalow residences in the region so as to make possible the re-development of flats to houses those self same inhabitants (as declared on May 7th). In the Malaysian society ethnic communities are usually alienated, and there is an extensive history of fundamental tensions (Jenkins, 2008).

Ecologically, the public administration analysis points up that unlike in the United States, the NGOs in Malaysia are not trusted by the state and federal governments. This is primarily due to the fact that they are professed to be 'foreign'; the honorable secretary of PHT was of Chinese breed and this did not assist in this fallacy. One time the negotiation between MAIPP/UMNO and PHT started to be covered by the media; fundamental nationalist tendencies move stealthily into the account with assertions that the PHT had no reason to ...