Last week, the Centre for Policy Research and International Studies (CenPRIS) was invited to present a paper on the kampung at a gathering of like-minded souls — the Symposium of Kampung Mizan Research hosted and organised by Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) in Nilai, Negri Sembilan. It gives life to the kampung.
Some weeks before, we raised the issue of kampung in Penang under threat of development and urbanisation, apparently at the mercy of developers. We suggested a review of existing development strategies and policies.
The kampung has been reminisced about in many ways — a returning to our primordial origins, a perfect bliss embodied in the ramifications of the rumah — the rumah ibu (main/mother house), rumah keluarga (family house) or rumah gadang (the Minangkabau ancestral house). The Malay house has been the subject of many visuals set against the background of the greenery of padi fields — a heritage landscape.
But the kampung these days, in many parts of the country, like in Penang, are seen as clusters of chaotic, unorganised dwellings — marginalised and neglected. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are perceived by mainstream society and local authorities as residues of the past, squatters with a history and unworthy of respect.
Many kampung would disappear if nothing is done to protect and preserve their existence, and allow their inhabitants to live about their peaceful lives.
The existing model of development is far too destructive and insensitive. It needs to be challenged. For places like Penang, there are other ways to change, other models of development.
Infrastructure development and urbanisation cannot continue in the present manner at the expense of traditional and heritage villages.
We have to take stock of the models of development for places, such as Penang, shift gears and reevaluate urbanisation, punctuated with the thought of de-urbanisation, and reexamining the meaning of urbanism against socio-economic, demographic and cultural conditions of the state.
In fact, that was one of the overriding objectives of the symposium, as spelt out by Professor Emeritus Hood Salleh — as a means of stock-taking on the kampung from a variety of perspectives — the Built Environment, Architecture and Design, Islamic Studies, Sociology and Anthropology, and the Humanities.
The introduction of the 21 pieces of thoughts, reflections and empirical observations on the kampung describes the compilation as manifesting the insights and essence in sustaining the kampung.
The kampung is not only a tangible place, it is also intangible space — it is a spiritual and a moral dimension. The kampung is collective memory. The loss of the kampung spells the loss of the narrative, history and the past.
It would also be correct to assume that the kampung is victim to the ambivalence of history. More precisely, the negative attitude of society and the authorities toward the kampung and its inhabitants because they are seen to be a people without a history.
It does not matter to the planners and authorities if people from the kampung have a past. And in Penang, the contestation on history has even made worst its future.
The kampung, not only in Penang, but in other parts of the nation, needs to be reconstituted and reconstructed.
One article in the compilation talks about the journey from Kampung Selut to Kampung Makbul in the 1950s. Datuk Dr Anwar Fazal, chairman of Think City, narrated that unfolding events then that required the people to move.
They refused. They wanted to shape their own homes and their destiny. And they did not want any government consultants and committees to decide for them. They wanted their own representation.
And through discussions, debates, disagreements and consensus, the kampung was developed together with the city council. In the end, house plans and layout, designed on the basis of kampung architecture, came into existence. The new kampung, at the official opening, was appropriately renamed Kampung Makbul — the village of which its prayers were answered.
Cenpris suggests several approaches and methodologies that can be pursued in approaching each kampung, bearing in mind that for Penang alone, a total of 660 kampung have been identified.
Some have disappeared, some are on the verge of extinction. Many have the potential of being reconstructed like Kampung Makbul, even with a more appealing seamless-built environment.
Any study and policy on a kampung will have to be mindful of the following, deemed integral at sustaining the habitat — claiming, testimonies, story-telling, remembering, indigenising, intervening, revitalising, connecting, read, writing, representing, envisioning, reframing, restoring, returning, democratising, networking, naming, protecting, creating, negotiating, discovering and sharing.
The word is “Think Kampung”, as remarked by Professor Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, chairman of USIM board of governance and holder of the chair on Islamic leadership.
And perhaps also, Think City, a subsidiary of Khazanah Nasional, may want another subsidiary called Think Kampung, referring to the kampung as a lively hub, and to instill the thinking of the kampung as transcending the rural/urban divide. There are many kampung in urban areas, and as the pace of urbanisation grows geographically, kampung that were located outside the city would now be embraced within it.
And without a positive attitude towards history and the kampung, these spaces are deemed to be erased. A kampung preservation and advancement authority may perhaps be a useful body at the federal level if we are to spare the soul of the nation.
Datuk Dr A Murad Merican is a professor at the Centre for Policy Research and International Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang