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    The heritage battles of Penang, Kuala Lumpur, and Melaka in Malaysia
    This paper examines the political battles over heritage in Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka since Malaysian independence. These preceded the successful listing of George Town in Penang and Melaka as World Heritage in July 2008, helping raise public consciousness on the value of built heritage in Malaysia. The decision to make George Town and Melaka World Heritage cities was taken in 1998 by the Malaysian government in conjunction with the Penang and Melaka State governments after a long succession of heritage battles led by Malaysian Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The key heritage battles include the 1984 galvanising of the Chinese community against the development of Bukit China in Melaka. For Penang, the focus is on the protest against rapid urban redevelopment in George Town during the real estate boom of the early 1990s. According to architect and Vice-President of Badan Warisan Malaysia (the Malaysian Heritage Trust), Laurence Loh, speaking in 1996, ‘More old buildings have been knocked down in Penang in the last five years than in the last 30 years’. The paper traces the role of NGOs in these heritage battles. The creation of the Badan Warisan Malaysia (BWM) in Kuala Lumpur during 1983 and the Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) in 1985 are examined. The paper also surveys the heritage battles in the 1970s and 1980s before the creation of the BWM and PHT. These were fought by other NGOs, such as the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP), formed in 1969, Institut Masyarakat (the community institute), organised in the mid-1970s, and Aliran, founded in 1977. These Malaysian NGOs pursued heritage conservation as part of a broader agenda of what they referred to as ‘sustainable development’. They rejected the model of development advocated by Malaysian councils and state governments, as well as property developers that meant destroying what the NGOs saw as heritage areas and replacing them with modern shopping complexes, office towers, and tourist theme parks. The paper evaluates the impact of the Malaysian heritage NGO’s ideas of ‘sustainable development’ across several decades.
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