PRESERVATION efforts must go beyond museums and annual festivals. Culture truly lives only when the younger generation can use, practise and see its value in their own lives, says Prof Datuk Dr Awang Azman Awang Pawi, who is the Academy of Malay Studies dean at Universiti Malaya.
“Digital technology need not be a threat. It can be a preservation tool through community archives, podcasts, documentaries, digital dictionaries, digital storytelling, and even artificial intelligence to help document and revive underused languages.
“Most importantly, preservation efforts must be led by the communities themselves. Outsiders may record dances, document rituals, or digitise artefacts, but only the communities themselves can sustain the social relationships, values and meanings behind the heritage.”
Concurring, Institute for Development Studies Sabah research associate Ariff Adi Putera Anwar says greater effort must be made to ensure that the histories and perspectives of Sabah and Sarawak are embedded not only within Malaysia’s popular cultural imagination, but also within its official national imagination.
He says one of the clearest examples is the relative prominence afforded to National Day compared with Malaysia Day.
“Merdeka remains an enormously important historical moment and should continue to be commemorated as such. Yet the formation of Malaysia on Sept 16, 1963, represents the birth of the federation in its present historical sense, and therefore deserves far greater prominence as a genuinely national occasion.”
For Sabah and Sarawak, this distinction matters a great deal, according to Ariff Adi.
He says Sabah Day may now receive greater recognition, but it can still be overshadowed by the wider National Day celebrations surrounding Aug 31.
“Meanwhile, Malaysia Day has not always generated the same degree of national fanfare, symbolism or public mobilisation, despite marking the formation of the federation itself.
“There should therefore be a concerted effort to elevate Sept 16 as one of the central national celebrations of Malaysia, rather than allowing it to be perceived primarily as a date of particular significance to Sabah and Sarawak.
“Doing so would require gradually rebalancing decades of national narratives in which Merdeka has occupied overwhelming symbolic primacy. This need not diminish the importance of Aug 31; rather, the two dates should be understood as commemorating different historical moments.”
This, he says, would affirm Sabah and Sarawak as foundational participants in the Malay-sian story, strengthen confidence that their historical experiences are taken seriously, and accord them a dignity and centrality that can too easily be overlooked in national narratives.
