Look around you. How much of what you can see and touch is a thousand years old or half a century for that matter? Other than that haunting heirloom left by a deceased relative or the grandfather clock whose pendulum swings remind you that time is in motion, there are few items from the past that can compete with the things you have in the present. Unless of course, you’re an antique lover who makes a shrine out of your living room where objects of antiquity take centrestage in glass showcases.

Like a step-child that is often ignored and neglected, heritage conservation rarely finds favour in a nation’s scheme of modern living. Rapid urban development, religious decrees, political motivations and financial constraints have all combined to work against conservation efforts. What’s more, at a time where one of the most powerful icon is but a wafer-thin Pentium 4 chip, these monuments look like clumsy giants. As a result great monuments are finding themselves in a worse predicament than before despite having survived the ravages of time.

In a way, the conservation of heritage sites is vital for the preservation of human civilization. Like an old photo in the family album, these monuments provide a sense of nostalgia linked to a different community in a different era.

Ahmad Ghafar, an associate professor at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, who is also a heritage conservation consultant, says heritage buildings and sites should be conserved because they help us better understand our past and the mood that was prevalent during those times.

Says Ghafar, "Some old buildings or heritage sites are conserved because they reflect emotional ties or rather symbolize the cultural identity of a certain community during a particular time."

Standing structures (or rather what’s left of it) pay tribute to a colourful history, architectural splendour and cultural aesthetics. They are also a boon to tourism, when local and international visitors pay for that walk down memory lane.

Rather than demolishing these old buildings, Ghafar feels that some are worthy of conservation also because of their immense financial potential.

"They may portray aspects of the past or continuing culture of a country. This would attract tourists and eventually promote heritage tourism in the country or region," he says.

"Provided that the old buildings are in reasonably good condition and requiring the least structural alterations, then some financial gain can come of it.

"For example, the Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco is more profitable as a tourist attraction than it was as a chocolate factory," says Ghafar, who received his PhD in Building Conservation from the University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.

Conservative conservation

Dr Linda Young, a senior lecturer at the University of Canberra in Australia who teaches cultural heritage management shares the same sentiments, but cautions that preservation should not be compromised by commercialisation.

She makes her views known via e-mail: "Many places are damaged by being opened up to thousands of visitors, or by inappropriate uses such as being turned into hotels. But the decision has to be made whether the place is such a valuable public resource that extra money (usually from the government) can be allocated to preserve it. Governments never have enough money to conserve all the places that can be argued to deserve it."

According to heritage experts, it is important to safeguard conservation areas and the structures in them, because they are an invaluable source of historical evidence, architectural research and for educational purposes.

"Research significance may also justify conservation, so as to be able to learn more about human social, artistic, or economic development. Others are material evidence of historical processes and thus have considerable educational and didactic value," says ICOMOS world heritage coordinator Dr Henry Cleere.

Through its 21 international scientific committees of experts from around the world, and through its triennial General Assembly, ICOMOS establishes international standards in the management, preservation and restoration of world heritage sites. Other functions include compiling and distributing information on conservation principles, techniques and policies.

The world heritage convention defines cultural heritage as a monument, group of buildings or site of historical, aesthetic, archaeological, scientific, ethnological or anthropological value.

Destroying history

Unfortunately the hands that help protect it are also the ones that destroy it. Such mindless acts of plundering the past have little respect for the heritage value inherent in these old places and treasures.

According to some experts, some good can come out of this dark patch of conservation history. In fact, recent events have created more awareness on the importance of heritage conservation, at the same time generating international and national interest in this area.

In Cleere’s opinion, the Taliban’s action has ironically given heritage conservation greater significance. The publicity has managed to produce a positive effect, in terms of intensifying efforts in the preservation of world heritage sites and artefacts.

Young agrees, adding that it won't affect conservation efforts anywhere else on earth.

"(The) Bamiyan statues were unique. Maybe it will encourage people to value the ancient, unique things that survive from their culture's past, knowing that if they are destroyed, they're gone forever."

Another Malaysian conservation advocate Khoo Salma Nasution, also based in Penang, begs to differ, condemning such acts as befitting those of barbarians and saying that how a society interprets and values its heritage often reflects on its civilization.

"Destruction means no statues, no conservation efforts. It's people who put a value on things. If a society doesn't value their heritage, then it reflects ‘low civilizational values’," contends Khoo Salma, secretary with the Penang Heritage Trust.

Ghafar Ahmad reasons that even if the statues are against the teachings of Islam, the Taliban regime could have at least "acknowledged them as historical evidence or remnants of the past that carry some values to the country's history and development."

The recent desecration of Buddhist statues and pre-Islamic sculptures to a certain extent, parallels that of the 1992 destruction of the Babri Mosque in the Indian northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Some quarters claimed that the world was silent when a Hindu mob destroyed the 16^th century-old mosque to make way for the building of a temple.

On the same issue, Cleere’s response via e-mail from Paris is this: "With respect, I would say that there was a considerable protest from around the world about what happened in Ayodiya. But it was to no avail. This was a case, like the deliberate targeting of churches and mosques during the wars of the past decade in former Yugoslavia, where the symbolic value of religious heritage was recognized and singled out for demolition,"

As the preservation of heritage projects goes, conservationists find the budget pill the hardest to swallow. Usually done on a large-scale, these projects require huge investments in expert resources, time and effort.

But Young points out that there are more distressing matters than financial matters. Political issues, that is.

"As recently seen in the wars of former Yugoslavia, the deliberate targeting of heritage buildings and collections is a forceful means of attacking civilian morale. The blue cross that is meant by the Hague Convention to protect cultural property in times of armed conflict has proved to be a bullseye marker for malicious demolition.

"In exactly the same way, the Taliban order to destroy the figurative expressions of ancient Afghan culture murders evidence of previous generations' values and beliefs and suppresses the roots of its people today," Young wrote in the Canberra Times.

Held ransom in the hands of an unpredictable political will, heritage conservation also finds itself in another painful situation. With the guns of greed pointed at its head, there seems to be no escaping from the bullets of the black market where priceless artefacts are traded illegally.

"Third world poverty induces some people to harvest the arts of their ancestors as a commodity to enable individual survival. Delicate, figurative elements of temple sculpture are decapitated and sacred tomb goods are looted for sale on the voracious American and European market for antiquities.

"This is a trade that exists only because there is a market. Without western demand for unique objects as markers of taste and status, the architectural and archaeological treasures of Asia, Africa and South America would be valuable only where they belong," says Young of the fate of priceless Asian artefacts.