Contesting Space in Colonial Singapore: Power Relations and the Urban Built Environment

Chapter 8: The Control of 'Sacred' Space: Conflicts over the Chinese Burial Grounds

8 The Control of 'Sacred' Space: Conflicts over the Chinese Burial Grounds The cemetery stood in a place, valueless when it was chosen, which with the increase of the city's affluence was now worth a great deal of money. It had been suggested that the graves should be moved to another spot and the land sold for building, but the feeling of the community was against it. It gave the taipan a sense of satisfaction to think that their dead rested on the most valuable site on the island. It showed that there were things they cared for more than money.! Singapore should adopt the modern idea of putting all future graveyards well away from the city, where they cannot interfere with free development.2 The 'Sacred' in the Urban Built Environment IN traditional societies, a sense of the 'sacred' is often inherent in the form of the urban built environment, which in turn, cannot be understood apart from the 'mythical-magical concern with place'.3 According to Mircea Eliade, the act of settlement itself is perceived as a reenactment of the mythical creation of the world.4 Ancient Indian cities were designed according to a mandala replicating a cosmic image of the laws governing the universe and similarly, Chinese cities were conceived as 'cosmo-magical symbols' of the universe. 5 These cities were laid out as terrestrial images of the macrocosmos, distinct spaces sacralized for habitation within a continuum of profane space. 6 As Paul Wheatley observes, 'for the ancients the "real" world transcended the pragmatic realm of textures and geometrical space, and was perceived schematically in terms of an extra-mundane, sacred experience. Only the sacred was "real", and the purely secular-if it could be said to exist at all-could never be more than trivial.'7 Unlike 'pure' geometric space, sacred space, 'the space of myth and magic' is non-isotropic because it is structured by rules of inherence. 8 Space and substance are 'fused' rather than distinct, and every position and direction in mythical space is endowed as it were with a particular 'accent' or 'tonality' of its own.9 As such, in the sacred spaces of 8 The Control of 'Sacred' Space: Conflicts over the Chinese Burial Grounds The cemetery stood in a place, valueless when it was chosen, which with the increase of the city's affluence was now worth a great deal of money. It had been suggested that the graves should be moved to another spot and the land sold for building, but the feeling of the community was against it. It gave the taipan a sense of satisfaction to think that their dead rested on the most valuable site on the island. It showed that there were things they cared for more than money.! Singapore should adopt the modern idea of putting all future graveyards well away from the city, where they cannot interfere with free development.2 The 'Sacred' in the Urban Built Environment IN traditional societies, a sense of the 'sacred' is often inherent in the form of the urban built environment, which in turn, cannot be understood apart from the 'mythical-magical concern with place'.3 According to Mircea Eliade, the act of settlement itself is perceived as a reenactment of the mythical creation of the world.4 Ancient Indian cities were designed according to a mandala replicating a cosmic image of the laws governing the universe and similarly, Chinese cities were conceived as 'cosmo-magical symbols' of the universe. 5 These cities were laid out as terrestrial images of the macrocosmos, distinct spaces sacralized for habitation within a continuum of profane space. 6 As Paul Wheatley observes, 'for the ancients the "real" world transcended the pragmatic realm of textures and geometrical space, and was perceived schematically in terms of an extra-mundane, sacred experience. Only the sacred was "real", and the purely secular-if it could be said to exist at all-could never be more than trivial.'7 Unlike 'pure' geometric space, sacred space, 'the space of myth and magic' is non-isotropic because it is structured by rules of inherence. 8 Space and substance are 'fused' rather than distinct, and every position and direction in mythical space is endowed as it were with a particular 'accent' or 'tonality' of its own.9 As such, in the sacred spaces of CONTESTING SPACE 282 traditional clues, geographical locations, geographical directions, and other spatial properties are infused with enormous intrinsic significance. With the penetration of a...