Penang govt denies not doing enough to promote state history
GEORGE TOWN: A Penang executive councillor has dismissed criticisms that the state is not doing enough to promote interest in its history and archives.
Wong Hon Wai, who is the tourism and creative economy exco, cited as an example efforts to bring back a 5,700-year-old human skeleton known as the “Penang Woman”.
He told FMT that the state was working with the national heritage department to bring back the skeletal remains, unearthed in Seberang Perai, that were taken by Dutch researchers and placed in the Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum in Leideen, the Netherlands.
Wong was responding to criticisms by noted architect Lim Chong Keat who said that not much was being done by the state’s museum and library boards to boost interest in Penang’s history.
Lim said while it was “fine” for authors everywhere to write about Penang history or to fictionalise it, there must be more serious historical research by Penangites.
The Penang museum and library should be compiling the documents for Malaysians to study, he said.
Lim, a prominent figure on Penang culture and heritage, also said the state museum and library should be compiling the documents for Malaysians to study.
“And we should also ask, what is the status of our Penang museum and library, and all the cultural institutions in the state?” he said in a talk on Penang history on Saturday.
Lim, the brother of Lim Chong Eu, the state’s longest serving chief minister, said a lot could be done if the museum and the library were activated into dynamic research institutions, like the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
While Wong did not address Lim’s suggestion that the museum and library should be compiling the documents nor the latter’s claim that not much was being done by the two bodies to kindle interest of Penang’s history, he did say that the renovation to the main building of the state museum took longer than expected due to the pandemic.
It had been previously reported that the building had been closed for the past seven years.
However, there would be a soft opening in May with a major exhibition at the renovated museum on World Museum Day, Wong said.
“We expect to have a full opening of the museum by next year,” he told FMT.
Wong said Lim should have written to the state government to seek answers and provide suggestions.
“If he does not ask us anything, how are we to answer? If there’s no answer from us, then he can blame us.”
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