What is the city without a soul!

This is a comment sent by Yong Chin Fook via sms:

I used to live behind the corner coffee shop. Spent a lot of time at Keda Pok Loh Yunang (Alam Akademik) during my younger days.

Actually, the row of (historic) shophouses ought to be retained. It’s a part of KT history. The shotlots cum carpark opposite is such an eyesore!

Look at Hotel Seri Malaysia, whoever approved that must be an idiot! Why block the river view?

I loved the clock tower. So iconic. Sad to see it demolished.

Actually, KT is strategically located by the river mouth and the South China Sea.

I could go all night lamenting about the poor town planning. I am quite passionate about it. What is the city without a soul!

Chin Fook sent this comment on 12 August 2009 – after reading about the protest I helped to organise against the planned demolition of the historical building. [I have been keeping it in my phone for the last 6 months as I really treasure such a support].

Read more here (among others): https://warisantrengganu.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/mb-tidak-berapa-faham-dengan-isu-peniaga-jalan-bandar-dan-jalan-banggol/

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Gone and Can Never Be Rebuilt

from: http://sulaimanian.wordpress.com/

It has been a while that this Sulaimanian blog was not updated (two weeks now). The pain was too much after knowing that the historic row of shop-houses at Keda Payang (Jalan Bandar) being demolished. As Awang Goneng said it well in Earth-Trembling Barbarism and Mabuk Kepayang, I was rather speechless or actually “hilang habis mood nak menaip”.

The final row of historic 100-years old concrete (not the shabby wooden one eh) shoplot at Keda Payang is now gone FOREVER!!! One cannot rebuilt it with whatever technology they have today. Even if they do – it will be a new one – a value void. What more when the new one is alien to the cultural and historical values of the town.

Six months ago, the traders along the row of Jalan Bandar and Jalan Banggol were issued a notice to evacuate the premise – just when they were preparing for the Raya sales. Together with the traders, we set-up the Action Committee (Badan Bertindak Peniaga Jalan Bandar dan Jalan Banggol) [Read our protest]. We only managed to voice out our protest and to delay the evacuation notice – well and good for the traders (I am happy to be able to do that little things for them).  (Read – the justification why a 30-days notice was such hooligan idea)

But we were unable to stop the ultimate demolition by the hooligans who things development must destroy strongly built structure and replace with sans historical values. Never had they learn the many “monetary motivated” projects that had collapsed or poorly built (especially in Terengganu). All their justifications to demolish the area does not stand at all. (read more: here)

I would be ashamed if those involved in the hooligan decision to destroy whatever heritage under the name of Heritage Board (Lembaga Tabung Warisan Amanah Negeri Terengganu) are Sulaimanians (shame shame on you!!!). (Read how a 14th year old girl values heritage) As that should not be the way we value culture, heritage and history. (also read Pokku’s article here)

But then our school had also faced similar destruction. An old building which was part of Sultan Sulaiman’s palace area given for the school that were later used as the scout den where we had our gatherings and meetings.

I was shocked after visiting the school many years ago to see the historical building is gone FOREVER !!! Replaced with a sans value water tower.We do not oppose the need to build such a water reservoir but is that the only location they can build it? With such a large 44.4 acres of land area the school have – why must it be there?

The building has its historical value. Picture below shows His Highness Almarhum Sultan Sulaiman photo session after greeting the group of business entourage from China and some local Chinese traders (including the three Al-Yunani’s) with the “scout den” as the background. The fact that the building was used as the backdrop to treatised the end of their meeting shows the significant of the building. Also seen in the picture were Almarhum Sultan Ali (then as a boy sitting next to his father) and Almarhum Sultan Ismail (then Tengku Paduka).

One has to see the building to appreciate. The flooring was with such a beautiful floral “mosaic/tile” that one can never find anymore. The carving in the interior, the unique carving on the roof top, and amazingly not a single piece of the wood used for the building show its age. The only damage one can see then (when the scout took over for its den) were the broken roof tiles which we then collected some money in the early 70s and had it repaired.

Why must our sans value development be made in the expense of our heritage and historical memorials?

Masjid Tertua Di Labuan Perlu Dikekalkan

Bayangkan sayangnya mereka terhadap sejarah mereka. Masjid ini baru hanya 40 tahun. Tetapi Kerajaan Terengganu telah merobohkan dua masjid yang telah berumur lebih 100 tahun

**********

LABUAN, Jan 19 (Bernama) — Pihak berkuasa tempatan terutamanya Jabatan Kerja Raya dan Jabatan Agama Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan perlu mengkaji semula cadangan untuk merobohkan masjid tertua di Labuan, Masjid Jamek Adam Kampung Lajau, kata Anggota Parlimen Labuan Datuk Yussof Mahal.

Beliau berkata masjid, yang berusia lebih empat dekad itu, mempunyai nilai sejarah yang tinggi kerana dirasmikan oleh Perdana Menteri pertama Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj pada 16 Dis 1967.

“Kita tidak mempunyai banyak struktur bersejarah di pulau ini, oleh itu apa yang kita ada perlulah dipelihara malah masjid itu juga boleh dijadikan sebagai satu produk pelancongan,” katanya di sini Selasa.

Yussof sebaliknya mencadangkan projek pelebaran jalan dilencongkan dan masjid itu diubah menjadi pusat pengajian agama atau perpustakaan.

Majlis Fatwa Wilayah Persekutuan telah memberikan kelulusan pada lewat tahun 2008 untuk merobohkan masjid itu bagi memberi laluan kepada projek pelebaran jalan, namun majlis itu menetapkan masjid hanya akan diroboh selepas sebuah masjid baru siap dibina di sebuah tapak baru.

Cadangan untuk merobohkan masjid itu sebelum ini mendapat bantahan penduduk yang mahu ia terus dikekalkan.

— BERNAMA

MB Masih Tidak Faham-faham

Merujuk kepada laporan akhbar Utusan Malaysia 19hb Januari 2010, nampaknya MB Dato Ahmad Said masih tidak faham-faham atau sengaja tidak mahu faham untuk maksud mencapai tujuan tertentu.

Utusan melaporkan berikut (komen dengan warna biru):

Kedai 100 tahun Jalan Bandar diroboh

Deretan kedai lama dua tingkat di Jalan Bandar, Kuala Terengganu yang berusia 100 tahun mula dirobohkan, kelmarin.

KUALA TERENGGANU 18 Jan. – Kini semuanya hanya tinggal kenangan.

Begitulah nasib yang menimpa deretan kedai lama dua tingkat di Jalan Bandar di sini.

Kedai-kedai yang berusia lebih 100 tahun itu akhirnya hilang daripada pandangan apabila ia mula dirobohkan beberapa hari lalu. [sila baca komen Awang Goneng di sini: Earth-Trembling Barbarism]

Rumah kedai yang sinonim dengan kegiatan perniagaan satu masa dahulu itu diroboh bagi memberi laluan kepada pembangunan semula bangunan perniagaan dan pejabat yang lebih sempurna. [sila baca: Diganti Tanpa Nilai Budaya dan Sejarah]

Kesemua peniaga diarah mengosongkan bangunan tersebut oleh Lembaga Tabung Amanah Warisan Negeri Terengganu (LTAWNT) pada 13 Ogos lalu.[sila baca: ]

Difahamkan 35 kedai di bangunan dua tingkat itu dirobohkan walaupun mendapat bantahan ramai peniaga di kawasan tersebut.[sila baca: Bantahan Aman 13 Ogos 2009]

Dakwa mereka, bangunan tersebut seharusnya dipelihara memandangkan ia menyimpan nilai-nilai sejarah seiring pembangunan Kuala Terengganu. [sila baca: Say “NO” to the plan to demolish a heritage row in Kuala Terengganu]

Bagaimanapun, mereka terpaksa akur apabila bermula minggu lalu operasi meroboh bangunan tersebut mula dijalankan oleh pihak berkuasa tempatan. [sila baca: GONE!]

Menteri Besar Terengganu, Datuk Ahmad Said dalam kenyataan akhbar sebelum ini berkata, tindakan meroboh bangunan tersebut penting agar bangunan usang dan uzur tidak lagi mengisi pemandangan di Kuala Terengganu. [USANG? Baca ini: MB Kata Usang! –  UZUR? – suruh MB lihat deretan kedai di Kg. China yang dikekalkan – jauh lebih uzur – baca ini: Mungkin Ini Yang MB Maksudkan Usang?]

Katanya, tidak timbul kerajaan negeri mengabaikan kepentingan peniaga asal di kedai tersebut dengan meroboh bangunan berkenaan.

“Kita telah memberi notis yang secukupnya kepada peniaga tersebut, maka tidak timbul soal kerajaan tidak realistik dalam arahan mengosongkan kawasan itu dalam masa yang telah ditetapkan,” katanya. [MB mudah lupa: Pindah 30 hari tidak realistik atau dia tidak reti baca surat ini: Rayuan Kepada Menteri Besar]

MB memang tidak faham dan keliru dengan bantahan – MB Tidak Berapa Faham Dengan Isu Peniaga Jalan Bandar dan Jalan Banggol

Apakah MB sekadar melaksanakan janji-janji yang telah diberikan mereka kepada pemilik projek untuk janji pemilik projek untuk mereka pula? Kenapa tergesa-gesa? Kenapa tidak mendapat pandangan orang ramai – kerana suara bantahan telah pun dihebah.

Keperluan memulihara warisan sejarah dan budaya negeri amat perlu. Bukannya semua tanah di bandaraya Kuala Terengganu telah dibangunkan – banyak lagi tanah yang terbiar – kenapa hendak dirobohkan bangunan bersejarah yang kukuh dan kekal tegap walaupun sudah 100 tahun. (Jauh bezanya dengan pelbagai bangunan baru yang runtuh satu demi satu!)

Di mana perginya Persatuan Sejarah?

Di mana pihak Muzium Negeri?

Apa jadi dengan Lembaga Tabung Warisan Amanah Terengganu – yang bukan menjaga warisan tetapi meruntuhkan bangunan warisan bersejarah.

Mana pergi slogan kerajaan “Terengganu – Where Nature Embraces Heritage” apakah sudah bertukar menjadi “Terengganu Government Embarrasses Nature and Heritage“ ??? Malu … amat memalukan.

Diganti Tanpa Nilai Budaya dan Sejarah

Inilah gambar pelan bangunan yang bakal mengantikan bangunan sejarah yang telahpun menyembah bumi. Apakah ertinya bangunan baru seperti ini tanpa sebarang nilai sejarah jauh sekali nilai budaya. Ianya hanyalah struktur konkrit baru yang bakal menambahkan kesesakan yang sedia ada. Bangunan-bangunan seperti ini lebih wajar dibina di atas tapak kosong yang masih berselerak di bandaraya pra-matang ini.

GONE!

IT IS NOW GONE FOREVER  …

Before:

26 December 2009 – getting ready to demolish:

Getting ready to get rid of the historical buildings

Rear View - 26 December 2009

15 Jan 2010:

Earth-Trembling Barbarism

by Awang Goneng – http://kecek-kecek.blogspot.com/

Two weeks before it came crumbling down

Ignorance may be a misfortune, albeit a voluntary one, but vandals are a curse on the land no matter who they are or whatever their name. By their words and by their deeds they have blotted our landscape and despoiled our land, and now on a pile of rubble they are standing triumphant on the remains of what used to be a row of fine shop houses in Kedai Payang.This is the deed of people with no care nor love for the land. They are a product of generations that they do not love, their forefathers are buried in the sand, the glory of their past work now piled on them, but they in the present care not for history nor our precious inheritance.

We shall all now hang down our heads in shame.

None of the reasons given by the goverment are valid. Historical means dilipidated to the MB (http://akarimomar.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/mb-kata-usang/)

We have raised voices for the sake of that historic lot on this sacred earth. The centre of Kuala Terengganu with its cloistered walkways and the old Abdullah Alyunani bookshop. The cafe that served sweet roti kaya and sold satay for breakfast (perhaps the first in the land), and the Kedai Fernandez, and the Redi Photo Studio (formerly known as Kedai Yamada), and the limbless Orang Timun (the Cucumber Man) who was placed on the five-footway on Friday and Saturday morns, begging for alms, and fierce Nepalese men selling their concoctions and semi precious stones and rude coils of animal genitalia with their implicit promises of flagging men reborn – they are now all gone.

Kampung China may have been the commercial centre but Kedai Payang was the hub of town. There was the Duyung Ikhwan, a shop where our Uncle Daud sold Pfaf sewing machines in a general store owned by his friend Wang Ngah of Duyung. In the back of this row of shop houses was the famous Pasar Kedai Payang (not Pasar Payang, the name given to it by people who do not know the town ), there were watermelons heaped in piles and durians encased in thorns, and rambutan on plastic sheets and people and noise and the blaring of cars, and the shrill sound of taxi horns.

In one fell swoop they are all gone.

Masjid Bukit Besar - 2008

What is left of Masjid Bukit Besar. The minaret the last to be demolished.

We should not pretend to be surprised as this is not the first time the dastardly deed is done. In the last few years they have mown down the Masjid Chendering, a heritage building much loved by Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah, a gentle man who photographed with great skill his great inheritance in this land. In another swing of their beastly ball and chain they broke another Mosque in Bukit Besar, a rare heritage building that was unequalled in Darul Iman. And the broken bits and hearts and flowers and tendrils of work that witnessed the vicissitudes of our past, they left them to weep silently on the ground.

We hear that the rubble of the historic shophouses of Kedai Payang was sold to the highest bidder. It is left to them to take the broken bits as keepsakes and to wonder at the beauty of past times; they – the vandals – were too mean and cowardly even to let the local Terengganu museum keep and display them as mementoes of our barbarism.

Masjid Chendering no more

Even as the earth was being broken by the weight of falling stones, our buried past emerged from the ground: coins and artefacts and narratives of olden times. Not surprising as on the land on which these shops were built was a thriving community of local sailors and traders who travelled to as far away as Sambas in the Nusantara, and to Senggora in the North. Our grandmother lived in a tumbledown house in the back of the shop and I remember seeing her sitting up in the dark, beneath intricate fretwork pieces and hefty pillars. The remains of that community whose past has been disturbed and unearthed with no ceremony nor respect. O the ghosts how they seek revenge!

Our children and we ourselves shall continue to curse those who did the deed, whoever they be whatever their name, and the filthy lucre in their hands.

DON’T CHANGE THE OFFICIAL SLOGAN FROM

“Terengganu – Where Nature Embraces Heritage”

TO

“Terengganu Government Embarrasses Nature and Heritage“

Previous posting on similar topic by Awang Goneng (http://kecek-kecek.blogspot.com/):

• Mabuk Kepayang

Yang Baru Dibina Runtuh Yang Lama Pun Nak DIRUNTUHKAN Juga

Tidak cukup dengan bangunan-bangunan baru yang dibina runtuh nampaknya kerajaan negeri Terengganu berkeras untuk meneruskan usaha meruntuh dan memusnahkan bangunan warisan tinggalan sejarah yang tidak dapat dicari ganti lagi.

Ini adalah rakaman terbaru keadaan bangunan bersejarah di Jalan Bandar yang ingin dimusnahkan.

http://akarimomar.wordpress.com/

Deretan Kedai Jalan Bandar Lebih Tua Dari Bangunan Sultan Suleiman

Tahniah kepada kerajaan negeri Selangor kerana dapat mengekalkan bangunan lama mereka sebagai bangunan bersejarah. Sungguh sayang sekali deretan bangunan di Jalan Bandar Kuala Terengganu yang lebih tua dari di Selangor itu akan tetap dirobohkan juga.

Walaupun bantahan telah dibuat oleh pelbagai pihak, nampaknya kerajaan negeri tetap berdegil untuk merobohkan bangunan yang telah menyaksikan pelbagai peristiwa bersejarah di bandaraya itu.

Mungkin hanya kerana peluang untuk menjana duit untuk sesetengah pihak telah membuat beberapa orang hilang pertimbangan untuk mengekalkan warisan sejarah yang akan hilang tidak dapat diganti lagi. Segala alasan yang diberi kerana pembangunan, peluasan jalan dan bangunan yang usang tidak masuk akal semuanya.

[baca ulasan dan bantahan sebelum ini di laman blog https://warisantrengganu.wordpress.com/]

*******************

Bangunan Sultan Suleiman Diisytihar Warisan Kebangsaan

KLANG, 15 Dis (Bernama) — Bangunan Sultan Suleiman di sini mencatat sejarahnya tersendiri apabila menjadi bangunan warisan sejarah pertama di Selangor diisytihar sebagai warisan kebangsaan.

Majlis pengisytiharan itu disempurnakan oleh Sultan Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah di perkarangan bangunan itu di sini.

Timbalan Menteri Penerangan Komunikasi dan Kebudayaan, Senator Heng Seai Kie, berkata bangunan yang diberi pengiktirafan berprestij itu, adalah sebuah bangunan tersohor di samping mempunyai identiti dan sejarahnya tersendiri.

Beliau berkata Bangunan Sultan Suleiman mempunyai gaya seni bina yang memaparkan sentuhan neo klasik lampau yang menggambarkan fungsinya yang praktikal untuk pentadbiran, di samping mempunyai nilai-nilai estatik yang dipadankan melalui strukturnya.

“Kriteria warisan tersebut menjadi semakin penting apabila digandingkan dengan memori sejarah kegunaan bangunan ini.

Kepentingannya sebagai bangunan pentadbiran telah dapat dibuktikan, maka sewajarlah bangunan ini merupakan kebanggaan yang harus dilindungi, dipelihara dan dipulihara,” kata Heng.

Turut hadir Menteri Besar Selangor, Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim dan Pesuruhjaya Warisan Jabatan Warisan Negara, Datin Paduka Prof Emeritus Zuraina Majid.

Bangunan Sultan Suleiman yang kini menempatkan Galeri Diraja Sultan Abdul Aziz dibina pada 1909 semasa pemerintahan Sultan Selangor ketika itu, Almarhum Sultan Sir Ala’eddin Suleiman Shah. Nama bangunan itu kemudian diisytihar oleh Almarhum Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah pada 22 Feb 1989.

Ikon bersejarah ini telah melalui banyak perubahan besar yang bersesuaian dengan zamannya, antara yang terawal ialah, bangunan ini dijadikan sebagai sebuah Istana Hinggap bagi Sultan Suleiman. Ia juga berfungsi sebagai Bangunan Pejabat Lembaga Bandaran Klang, Pejabat Agama Islam Daerah, Mahkamah Rendah/Tinggi Syariah Daerah Klang, Ibu Pejabat Kontinjen Polis Selangor dan cawangan Majlis Perbandaran Klang.

Bangunan itu juga pernah dijadikan Markas Pemerintah Tentera Jepun bermula tahun 1941.

Prof Zuraina pula berkata sehingga ini, sebanyak 21 warisan sejarah di Selangor sedang dalam proses diisytihar sebagai warisan.

Kini terdapat 26 bangunan dan monumen warisan kebangsaan di negara ini.

— BERNAMA

Selamat Hari Raya

Minal Aidin wal Faizin

Maaf Zahir & Batin