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Inventing cultural heritage in Singapore Lily Kong Senior Culture, as Raymond Williams has stated, is one of the two to three most complicated words in the English language. Some have treated it as a given, and have reified to an extent that culture determines the way humans are. Such a view embraces the notion that human beings are blank slates on which culture imprints itself. Culture is thought to have a life of its own. On the other hand, there is another view, that cultures -traditions, beliefs, practices, artifacts and so forth- are constructed. Indeed, to borrow an idea from Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) in their oft-cited work, The Invention of Tradition, it has been argued that cultures are not necessarily rooted in an immemorial past, but are in fact constructed products, invented and sometimes formally instituted. In this way, cultures are integrally linked to social, political, and economic conditions in particular localities at specific historic moments. This argument becomes apparent when attention is focused on the invention of cultural heritages, and Singapore’s case exemplifies this well. The island-state is of course not alone in this. Interest in heritage worldwide is evident in the proliferation of international organisations, such as the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and the Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Architectural Works (IIC), and the World Heritage Convention. Indeed, cultural heritage as well as other heritages have found a place in many official agendas in recent years. In the particular case of Singapore, which is well-known for its aggressive focus on economic development which has facilitated its rapid growth in recent decades, why has there developed this interest in cultural heritage? Essentially, such interest is rooted in concerns experienced and expressed in other parts of the world and similarly founded in local conditions. One of the foremost factors accounting for this interest is the accelerating globalisation throughout the world. Globalisation has intensified localisation in many ways. In Singapore, the forces of globalisation have been evidenced essentially through what have been characterised as conditions of modernity. These include: the creation of the nation-state (with basic democratic and bureaucratic institutions), made possible because people lose their sense of locatedness with their local communities and become a citizenry instead; integration into the world economy through industrialisation; the expansion of knowledge and technology through improved telecommunications and media connections; and the growth of Singapore as a global city. Such experience of modernity, it has been argued, means that traditions are transmitted and inherited in fragmentary ways. In the context of Singapore, it became drawn into the world system of nation-states with its structures and institutions upon independence in 1965. Citizens were constantly reminded that they owed their identities to belonging to the nation-state, rather than to their belonging to ethnic communities. Official discourse and exhortation focused for a long time on the importance for the peoples to recognise their "Singaporeaness" rather than their "Chineseness" or "Malayness" or their "Indianess". Further conditions of modernity that drew Singapore into global systems and networks were evident in the insistent entrenchment in the global economy through industrialisation, beyond the earlier entrepot trade; and the rapid improvements in telecommunications and media connections (earning the republic the reputation of "the intelligent island"). The overall effect of all these globalising processes is that there is a disjuncture with the past so much so that those aspects of life that might constitute traditional culture and heritage become relegated to the private sphere, and the rootedness and identity of local communities recede into the past. The response to these conditions has been to adopt one of two positions: to emphasise "traditionalism", that is, to actively seek to recover heritages, as if to return to some unproblematic golden past, or to adopt anattitude of "cosmopolitanism" in which one is freed from the yoke of tradition. Singapore’s reactions to this historical discontinuity have taken on both forms at different times and even simultaneously. Albeit a powerful impetus, globalising processes may sometimes be necessary but insufficient conditions for the invention of cultures and heritages. In the context of Singapore, the emphasis given to heritage in recent years also stems from political and economic concerns. Politically, the prominence given to the invention of cultures and heritages in Singapore’s national agenda in recent years is deemed necessary as part of an attempt to construct national myths and national identities and hopefully, by extension, national loyalties. Such efforts are paralleled particularly in Third World countries (recent ex-colonies) where the concern with a national past and the heritage it confers is a concern with independence -- not so much political independence as effective independence, that is, a sense that people are bound as one and have a continuity of shared ideas and sentiments. In this sense, culture and heritage have become more important than territory. In Singapore, this concern is borne out abundantly in the language in the Committee on Heritage’s report, as evident in the extracts below: These arguments are used in the conservation of heritage sites, for example, when it is said that blending new developments with the selective preservation of the city's older fabric would ensure the "unique character" of the city as a "distinctly Asian city of the 21st century" (URA Annual Reports,1984/85:3, 9, 11), and that a distinctive place identity is particularly valuable as it is inextricably linked to the nation's quest for an identity of its own. In a similar vein, the Committee on Heritage warned of the loss of Singaporean identity among the young in an increasingly westernised society and advocated, inter alia, the conservation and marking out of historical sites and locations as the best forms of psychological defence which serve to bind the Singaporean to his/her country. The conservation of Chinatown, for example, as a veritable repository of tradition, history and culture, can be understood not simply as a means of upgrading the built environment. Instead, by rendering heritage in material form, the conserved Chinatown landscape serves the sociopolitical purpose of binding Singaporeans to place, to the city, and ultimately and vicariously, to the "nation". The local interest to invent heritage and culture is also propelled by economic concerns. It has been recommended that cultural aspects of Singapore’s heritage be viewed as national assets, with monetary value as antiques and works of art and as a valuable tourism asset, making Singapore different and interesting for visitors. This economic impetus to recognise the importance of heritage was precipitated particularly by changes in the tourist industry. A sharp fall in the rate of tourist arrivals in the early 1980s led to the formation of a Tourism Task Force which was to identify the main problems and suggest solutions. One of their conclusions was that Singapore had "removed aspects of [its] Oriental mystique and charm ... best symbolised in old buildings, traditional activities and bustling roadside activities" in its effort to construct a "modern metropolis". To woo tourists back to Singapore, the Report recommended, inter alia, that Chinatown and other cultural and historical sites would have to be conserved, reflective of a broader recognition that Singapore’s heritage had tremendous potential to develop into a "heritage industry" supporting the "tourism industry". For a number of fundamental reasons then, cultures and heritages may be invented. The case of Singapore illustrates the integral link between the global and the local, the political, economic and socio-cultural. Indeed, the arts and heritage is as much an industry as it is a tool in nation-building and a cultural expression. |