Orignally created on 24th October 2010.
Just a week ago I read in the papers that a plan in the works for a skyscraper to be built within farting distance of Stadium Merdeka being a project endorsed by the current government. The name of the ‘scraper? Surprise surprise, Warisan Merdeka.
An acquaintance remarked that it’s another case of ‘mine is bigger than yours” syndrome, Zunar the controversial cartoonist seems to think that Warisan Merdeka is a symbol of the PM’s love to his wife, kinda like the Taj Mahal. Heck I’m sure its going to be more mahal than the Taj. As for me, I see it as another phallic symbol protruding the skies of the Kuala Lumpur and a great waste of tax payer’s money. The proposed development is nothing more than a continued policy of big buildings equals uber bigger prestige which is stupid if you ask me. How the heck could you blend in a skyscraper with two aging stadiums?
First of all the proposed site is right next to the aging yet historic landmark of the country, Stadium Merdeka where the Independence was first declared 53 years ago. The blasphemy of it! It’s like putting up a taller and grander building right next to Istana Mestika and thumbing your nose to the Sultan of Selangor, the nerve of it! and What guarantee is there that the works on the ‘scraper will not jeopardize the structural integrity of the highly historic stadium? and I could not for the life of me understand the logic of building a 100 storey commercial and condominium portion in a historic area and naming it Warisan Merdeka, for what? I would not want my children and their children when asked what merdeka is to point to a scraper full of shops and condo. Wouldn’t that be ironic? To associate a building full of shops and houses, the symbol of our fixation with money and consumerism with independence. Merdeka Abah kau!
Call me an ardent opposition to the project, call me an anti-development traditionalist, call me pessimistic of the government motives because I am all of the above. If the intention is to develop the area then the surely it has occurred to the demented heads behind the project that development equals increased traffic into the area? That there will be more cars coming and going into the area? Since our fair KL is notorious for its traffic jams is the road system there efficient enough for the increased traffic? Or is the public transportation good enough to handle the hypothetical torrents of public coming and going into the area. If it is indeed to be both a commercial and residential zone mashed into one then the number of cars that is coming and going will be ten if not threefold.
Then there is the problem of parking those aforementioned cars. Again, if the project is going to be both commercial and residential in nature then the amount of parking space would be humongous, I mean picture parking spaces the size of a huge cavern, okay I may be extrapolating here but you get what I mean. In this day and age, no sane man or woman would be going shopping to a glitzy new place by taking the public transport, that is so not cool. Further, since it’s a proposed combination of both commercial and residential area ala the Gardens then surely the residents would want the space to park their cars and the cars of their visitors, think again of the space needed to accommodate that alone. If it is to be basement parking then there’s a question of digging deeper foundation for the building, again the aging stadium next door comes into the picture, will the digging and piling works affect the grand old stadium and his equally old friend to the northeast?
When you say d-e-v-e-l-o-p-m-e-n-t of an area then it involves transforming the area into something new, the Warisan Najib..sorry. I mean Warisan Merdeka is just the start, one big beginning for smaller buildings that will mushroom over the area in the subsequent months if not years and WM will be the one big-ass building to rule over them all. In the light of this it is not possible that some fool in the near future with the rights over the Stadium Merdeka (currently the stadium is under the care of an unnamed Trust) would, in an ill-concieved corporate decision making decide that the old stadium is a sight for sore eyes and a new mall would look better in its place. It can happen you know, the government has a dubious record of preserving heritage sites, just look at the old Pudu Jail.
When you build big-ass projects like this the question that will be asked is who will benefit from the project and will it really like my dear mother told me create more jobs for the locals and inject economic growth? First off let us consider the building aspect of the proposed project. Since it’s a big- ass project, logic dictates that there’s bound to be outside experts toiling on the project as architects, joint and welding experts, soil surveyor and stuff. Despite having growing number of big names in the building field we remain skeptical of local talents. I don’t blame em. It’s the PM’s pride and glory. Surely he would want only the best to work on his pet project. That’s money going out of the country when what you want as in for the current economic state is for the money to roll inside the country. As for the labourers, despite our continuous deportation of them, large number of Indonesian labourers will do all the heavy lifiting. They’re good at it and they’re cheap. Who could ask for more? Don’t even ask what about our boys, menial labour is below them, they have chronic allergy to sun exposure and the only remedy for that is to bathe themselves in artificially generated cool mist thus limiting their work choice.
That was in the building stages, when its finished and launched with all the tepung tawar-ings ,ribbon cuttings and fireworks streaming the night sky then came the issue of populating the empty spaces. Who would fill up the empty shop/office lots. For one you’re not going to find the likes of a makcik selling kerepek in the building, obviously its going to be those who can afford to pay the rent or buy the lots outright and its not going to be small time businesses or average joes and janes like you and me. Its always going to be to the big corporations, to the big brand names with their boutiques, its going to be like another KLCC or Pavilion. A place full of world class goods that none of us living from salary to salary could ever afford. Who’s the target market then? The rich and the moneyed of course, that and the tourists, especially those from Middle East.
What about job opportunities then? Be assured that there will be jobs aplenty, if you can beat the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis and Nepalese and Tibetians and Myanmarese, Vietnamese and the ..Africans? (I really don’t know, theres way too much immigrants in the city today that you can never keep track of them) ..to it. Odd jobs, cashiers at the fast food joints which will surely pepper the building, if they’re really good and with the proper level of education there might even be better jobs awaiting them in the management department of the finished building. That’s a big if.
What about the residential levels then? Buying a house in KL will cost you and arm and leg (and a toe) nowadays, now it goes without saying that a house at the newfangled place would probably cost you your soul. The point of having a house in a high-rise is almost exclusively for the view that one gets from the living amongst the clouds, what manner of people who would inhabit such houses then? Of course its going to the extremely moneyed which I dare say would not be locals like you and me who would be struggling to get a decent house at a decent rate. Foreigners di utamakan, rakyat tak berumah. That’s just great.
The main thing here is that I do not see the need for another skyscraper. Chiefly, from whose pockets would the money come from, the taxpayers. Secondly, if the government has the time and money (taxpayer’s money) to waste on this project surely it does not present a problem to them to do the same in order to preserve Stadium Merdeka and all other heritage sites in this country because the same destructive patterns is repeating itself everywhere I see. In the name of capitalistic gods and goddesses of money and greed, the old historic sites are either turned into a joke or left forgotten to rot and ruin and in its place, brand new shopping complexes touted as a sure –fire way of getting tourists to come here. The fallacy with this line of thought is that, what the tourists are looking for are what constitutes as our identity, what made us us. Its our heritage, the relics of our past. That’s what they came here for, they wouldn’t bat an eyelid over the shopping complexes, they have a lot of those back home. The Italian authorities wouldn’t have spent euros battling tides and coming up with ways to stop Venice from slowly sinking, the London authorities wouldn’t have let Tower of London stand in the middle of London, preserved like a cherry if not solely for their historical significance (and not to mention the money it makes). These foreigners/westerners knew the value of history, and if we ourselves have no regard for our own past then I pity us, I pity the next generation for history forgotten is as good as lost and needless to say, a forgotten history has the nasty habit of repeating itself. I could never forgive myself if ever my children or my children’s children ever to confuse the sacred word of ‘merdeka’ with a skyscraper built in blasphemy to the memory of it. That reason alone is enough to oppose the building of Warisan Merdeka.
No comments:
Post a Comment