‘Tak kenal maka tak cinta’

In her maiden speech to Parliament in 2012,  NMP (Nominated Member of Parliament) Faizah Jamal defined what is land in relation to self and nation, framing  it in terms of “nature, national identity and character.” She spoke of  an old Malay phrase “tak kenal maka tak cinta”,  loosely translated as “you cannot love what you do not know”.

The land she was speaking about was Bukit Brown Cemetery, which had been  propelled into the headlines as a result of the government’s announcement to build what is now Lornie HIghway. 

It was an announcement that ignited nascent voices in heritage and habitat circles, which were to anchor themselves to established civil society – the Singapore Heritage Society (SHS) and the Nature Society of Singapore (NSS). Both submitted papers positioning the cemetery as a valuable heritage and historical site of early 19th century migrants which resided uniquely in a lush habitat that had flourished in benign neglect. 

The engagement between civil society and the government that played out in newspaper headlines was not without sound and fury.  But It was in the midst of the din in 2012 that we found our voices to advocate and speak for saving Bukit Brown Cemetery. 

We hit the road running with “Celebrating Bukit Brown”, a one-day  exhibition and discussion on Bukit Brown’s future with SHS at the Substation, followed by another  eight-day exhibition Our Roots, Our Future  with the Chui Huay Lim Teochew Club. In between, we contributed to an eight-part documentary series called “History from the Hills”, which was translated into Chinese and Malay, and a Tedtalk by a brownie  “How I found my heart and home in Bukit Brown”  capped the year of 2013. 

The 2015 Singapore International Festival of the Arts included a tribute to Bukit Brown Cemetery in an onsite performance and a piece of forum theatre by Drama Box, which was played to critical acclaim. It was a community approach in its entirety involving  all the stakeholders in Bukit Brown – descendants, academics, art practitioners and activists. 

The book WWII@BukitBrown followed in 2016 – a collection of essays on the war dead to serve as a curtain raiser for the 75th anniversary commemoration of the fall of Singapore. We are working on a sequel.

Wayfinder Bukit Brown was introduced in 2017 as a DIY primer to heritage, habitat and the history of the cemetery. Wayfinder 2025, has been upscaled, redesigned based on user feedback, and has now gone digital. The Wayfinder Bukit Brown and WWII@BukitBrown projects have been made possible with the help of grants from the National Heritage Board. 

We have not journeyed alone – we are part of a wider community that consists of descendants,  tomb keepers, clans, environmentalists, artists, academics, students, passionate individuals, and the general public who continue to contribute to the discourse surrounding the importance of Bukit Brown in diverse ways. 

In 2014, Bukit Brown was the first and only site to date to receive a listing as a heritage site under threat  by the World Monuments Fund, a leading independent organisation in global heritage preservation. It is still under threat. 

In 2015,  for also for the first time The Singapore Botanic Gardens was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is still our only site on this list. 

A distance of 12 km via road on Lornie Highway separates these two heritage sites. The Gardens exemplifies our colonial past, while Bukit Brown tells our migrant story from Nanyang (the Chinese of the South Seas) to the Nusantara (the Malay world). 

The journey continues. 

by Catherine Lim