The Tourism, Arts and Culture Ministry was in the national spotlight recently, after its minister, Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, was directly involved in the KLIA Terminal 1 immigration flap that resulted in the prime minister descending onto the airport to see first-hand the process of clearing foreign tourists entering the country.
Thus far, Tiong appears to be exclusively immersed in tourism matters and has not uttered anything on the other two portfolios within the ministry – namely, arts and culture. One wonders if he has delegated these two portfolios to the deputy minister, who seems to be incommunicado and missing in action.
Since the establishment of the unity government, there has not been any pronouncements by the minister or his deputy on the development of the national social cultural policy.
It is as if arts and culture do not factor in national development. One cannot be faulted in assuming that this is the myopic attitude of the lawmakers in the unity government.
If the current attitude persists, arts and culture will be sidelined – consigning them to just ‘tourism products’ – when in fact, they are much more than that.
Culture encompasses the whole gamut of our lives, involving the values of interpersonal relationships, societal organisation, beliefs, our behavioural patterns, and artistic expressions.
However, we tend to limit the arts to only the expressive arts (performing and visual arts), which is the designation that circumscribes the ministry’s portfolio, apart from tourism.
One cannot be faulted for assuming that the ministry regards these expressive elements as mere entertainment to be used in celebratory events.
The intellectual, aesthetic, and philosophical configuration of the arts beyond the physicality of the forms, as well as their social and economic implications, are not being valued, nor considered.
The arts convey an expression and perception of reality beyond the mundane, involving visual thinking and non-verbal communication that also appeal to the intellect.
There is, therefore, a need for a paradigm shift in the perception of the arts as mere entertainment, to one that expresses the ethos of a community’s cultural heritage, as well as tradition, reflecting norms and values, and an integral part of individual and communal development.
The ministry’s current structure is not conducive to realise this philosophy of cultural heritage and ethos. To give them their due credit, and to implement them as a tool in nation-building, arts and culture deserve a dedicated ministry that can focus on social, artistic, and cultural development.
This new ministry must reclaim its former divisions, like the museums and the archives, coalescing into a cohesive whole that engages all aspects of the creative enterprise – performing, visual, and literary arts and crafts – to the museums that display these creative efforts, and the archives that are the custodian of our creative heritage.
This ministry needs to develop a socio-cultural-artistic policy that lays out the philosophy, vision, and strategies that will guide the theory and practice of the creative arts.
One of the strategies that should be implemented is education and training in the arts. This will entail not only developing skilled practitioners, but also generate an appreciation of the arts and culture among the populace.
Currently, except for the ministry’s training arm Aswara – Akademi Seni dan Warisan (Academy of Arts and Heritage), there are no other formal institutions focused on producing skilled and virtuoso performers. And neither is there an apprentice experiential learning of the arts through existing traditional performing groups.
The performing arts programmes in several universities offer only general arts courses in the theory and practice of mainly Western music, dance, and theatre, and a cursory acquaintance with traditional forms of the arts.
Western musical instruments, mainly keyboards, strings, and wind instruments, are taught. But there are no practical courses for learning the rebab or serunai. Only gamelan, a percussive traditional instrument, is taught in some universities.
Only Aswara places equal emphasis on both traditional and Western instruments.
Western performance arts is thriving, promoted not only by the ministry, but also by the private sector. There is a tremendous audience support for both classical and pop music, especially pop, as seen in the Coldplay and Taylor Swift concerts, where tickets costing in the hundreds and thousands of ringgit, were sold out within hours.
Likewise, local Western pop music concerts enjoy similar support. Both local and international performances of Western-styled music and dances get widespread print and electronic media coverage.
On the other hand, the traditional arts are languishing in the doldrums, without much public, financial, or media support.
To alleviate this imbalance and to preserve, conserve, and promote our traditional cultural heritage, the ministry needs to seriously craft strategies and implement programmes to develop, enhance, and popularise the traditional arts.
To achieve this, we need to establish a conservatoire, which emphasises virtuosity and artistry, both in the performance and visual arts. And the most logical choice is Aswara, which already has the infrastructure that can be developed into a conservatoire of fine arts.
At the same time, the ministry needs to develop the infrastructure and create performance opportunities for traditional performers. Such an infrastructure would include developing moral and financial support for the arts through grants and sponsorships from both the public and private sectors. It also entails re-educating the public on the beauty of the traditional arts to elicit their support.
This proposal will only happen if there is a dedicated arts and culture ministry, headed by ministers with the knowledge, the right mental attitude, foresight and vision, that see the arts as critical to national development.
The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of Twentytwo13.
