G20 Summit in London: Watch it “live” here.
Supporting community heritage institutions are a national imperative
The government’s announcement on 11th March 2009 that it would be undertaking the burden of funding Singapore’s community museums – namely the Malay Heritage Centre, the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall and the soon to be built Indian Heritage Centre – was greeted with relief, largely because it ended a brief and unsuccessful experiment that had assumed that such entities can be self-funded.
That experiment was predicated on two assumptions, the first of which was that government support for the museums need only be minimal. That proved to be a forlorn hope, as the examples of the Malay Heritage Centre’s reported funding difficulties over the years and the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall being run on a shoestring budget clearly showed.
Furthermore, it is difficult to understand why the government had such unrealistic expectations in the first place, considering that it had never expected showpiece museums under its charge like the Asian Civilisations Museum to be self-funding at all. The Malay Heritage Centre has had to exert heroic efforts in fund-raising to keep itself afloat, which might have inadvertently distracted it from its core role of running operations.
The government has corrected the first assumption with its new policy, but the second – and perhaps more unsound – assumption remains, which is that, notwithstanding that the government will now be subsidising a huge portion of the museums’ running costs, each individual community still has to raise funds for its own museum. That is a throwback to the government’s philosophy of community self-help, where groups such as Mendaki or Sinda are responsible for supporting the welfare needs of their own communities.
There are manifold problems with such a policy. First, it might be impractical – an editorial in the Berita Harian on 14th March noted that it would be not be easy for the Malay Heritage Centre to raise funds from the slightly less well-off Malay community. In this manner the Malay Heritage Centre may well end up with a much smaller endowment to support its activities than the other two museums.
More importantly, it is clear that the community museums serve national purposes, not just those of an individual community. They are an important means of preserving the shared cultural heritage of Singaporeans. Moreover, they also serve to bridge Singapore with its neighbours and the countries like China, Taiwan and India. Funding the museums should therefore be a national imperative.
In this regard the government might be sending the wrong message that heritage conservation is the province of each individual community, rather than a national one in which all communities have an equal stake. The government’s new policy therefore seems to be at cross-purposes with its own nation-building rhetoric.
don’t you have something better to report on??
To Eugena 1Apr2009:
This article is fine. Eugena, don’t you have anything better to write? If you don’t like to read this, then stick to your Straits Times paper!
eugena, u have nothing better to do or what. If you have nothing to write, dont write.
I do not buy any news papers.
So, this article is new information to me.
I wonder has the MSM reported something like this?
eugena,
It’s not a report. It’s an editorial.
Just saw some incidents happen at Ministry of Manpower Building this afternoon. Many police cars, ambulance and SCDF men deploying the safety air bags on the ground floor outside the building. Don’t known what is happening. Many reporters also there taking pictures. But no report on the TV news. Maybe TOC can find out.
Community funding will actually be feasible if the community actually identifies itself with the heritage institution. It is either no Singaporeans or too little Singaporeans identify themselves with the heritage institution.
The worse thing about running such an institution in Singapore is even if 100% of the funds come from the community and not the government, the Singapore government will still impose their rules on the institution should be ran.
More government meddling will continue to push Singaporeans to renounce these government institutions. Ownership means the community has a say to run it, the community actually running it and no external meddling.
I have noticed recently that more and more articles do not have the name of the writer. May I know why this is so?
I think for a site like TOC, all articles must clearly state out who is writting them – either a real name or a pseudonym.
The earlier generations many have passed away.
The Gen X Gen Y many have migrated.
Many foreigners have converted to citizen here if not PR’lised.
So, i wonder will this affect how singaporeans will identify themselves with their heritage?
reader (#7),
Editorials reflect the views of TOC. So, it does not come with a name.
Also, there are three writers who use pseudonyms with their pieces. They have their reasons. TOC does not disallow the use of pseudonyms.
Spirit-centred,
We believe it was someone trying to jump off the building. The Chinese press have reported it.
I am glad that There are people who come down hard on Eugena. We may not agree or like what other people say or write but we must respect their rights to express themselves so long as what they say do not infringe on the rights of other people. This is one of the pillars of a democracy.