'A Famosa' Rescued?

The Malaysian Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage has proposed a RM12.8 million plan to ‘reconstruct’ a partial fortress wall of 'A Famosa' in Malacca.

According to report -The Star, Feb 18, 07- the reconstructed wall would offer tourists a glimpse of the the original sea-front defensive wall that once guarded the Portuguese against numerous sea invasions.

It is difficult to identify where the fortress walls are today because reclamation and senseless property development have altered the sea front of the historic city and the sea is now a good distance away.

This recent development prompted vested parties to claim it as a shot in the arms for Malacca conservation but how the whole episode involving the archaeological site has been unfolding is a worthy news in itself.

The same honorable minister had on a previous occasion came to the very same spot next to Malacca River and proudly launched a grand Malacca state scheme to build a revolving viewing tower.

It will take paying tourists for a bird-eye view of the Stadhuys and the Class I historical enclave across the historical river and also remnants of 'A Famosa'.

Despite overwhelming public objections including from this writer to the proposed Viewing Tower and our valid concerns that there would be unreversable damage to the area’s historical significance, the distinguished minister vehemently defended the state authority’s decision to go ahead with the construction of revolving tower (similar to Singapore’s Carlsberg Tower in Sentosa Island).

In a bizarre twist of fate, critics of the project were vindicated when men working on the tower foundation accidentally stumbled upon structural remains of Middleburg bastion!
For the very first time, the scale of the Portuguese Fortress is emerging and this archaeological find adds weight to ancient maps depicting four other similar bastions around 'A Famosa'.

Fortunately, good sense prevailed and an announcement was made, I suspected relunctantly by the parties concerned to halt the tower project. A decision quickly followed suit and the site of the viewing tower was moved assumingly to a less controversial one.

The same personnel from Perzim (Malacca Museum Board) and the Museum Department who had given the go-ahead with the Taming Sari Viewing Tower project now ironically have a new task at hand, presiding and spearheading conservation work to bring the bastion back alive.

Subsequently, Phase II will kick in and it involves a more ambitious project to ‘reconstruct’ the missing 300 meter fortress wall from same river side extending to Santiago Gate.

Reconstruction is controversial and is by no mean conservation. The Chinese has experimented with the Great Walls with devastating consequence at popular sites like Badaling near Beijing.

Ruins of the Great Walls are rebuilt based on purely academic guesses, and compromises were made at the expense of the integrity and the historical values of the Walls.

Today millions of tourists visiting there are disassociated to this fact, but they are essentially paying 40 yuan pax to merely see mock up walls catering very much to their tourist dollars.

In conservation, original artifacts i.e. rocks, manuscripts, bricks, weapons etc are the essential tools to invoke appreciation and instill better understanding for the historical subject.

Every efforts to replicate objects or materials no matter how authentic, should be the last resort to promote historical awareness and should never replace the original artifacts.

Will 'A Famosa' suffer the same fate? The answer lies with the Minister and Jabatan Muzium.

2 centuries ago -'A Famosa' or the beautiful fort, so named by the conquerer Alfonso D' Albuquerque - almost faded into oblivion until the timingly intervention by Munshi Abdullah and Sir Stamford Raffles.

Is 'A Famosa' finally enjoying the limelight it solely deserves or perhaps it is too premature to rejoice yet?

Note:
The 'Taming Sari' Revolving Tower - a RM23 million project by Perbadanan Melaka has since operated from the old Glutton's Corner. (Apr 2008)