SUSTAINABILITY is a buzzword firmly entrenched in our lingo now that it is almost impossible to avoid.

The most common form of sustainability that we see espoused in this country is environmental or ecological sustainability, given the extent to which we as a civilisation (human beings) have plundered this planet of its natural resources with impunity through the centuries.

With the usual data and research findings on how much damage we have done to our environment and ecology, coupled with our own lived experiences of strange weather changes (climate change), among others, we truly are living in the midst of a paradigm shift that is not only conceptual but very, very real.

We also live in an increasingly bureaucratic world where what is being espoused is not really practised (as they say in Malay “cakap tak serupa bikin”) but rewards the espousing more.

This is especially prevalent among corporations where corporate executives are tasked with aligning the common goals of sustainability with the company’s own and propagating its own staff and whatever outside governing body or agency that rates the company for its “sustainable” efforts, on paper that is.

As a cultural practitioner, I have been reflecting a lot on this since I find all this fuss about sustainability is misguided because while all companies and corporations have jumped on the bandwagon, through my own lived experiences, nothing much has changed.

Most of the time, things are even worse (the traffic is one obvious example lived through by many fellow citizens) when it comes to the so-called environmental or ecological sustainability “pledges” made by companies and corporations.

I detest jumping on bandwagons, so I would like to discuss a bit about one sustainable goal often overlooked by these champions and cheerleaders of sustainability: cultural sustainability.

The three pillars of sustainability, from what I have browsed online, are made up of the environmental, the economic and the social.

Sustainability at its very core intends to reduce the impact (or “damage” through development as I would plainly call it) of human activity on one or more of these pillars.

It’s an interesting proposition and while the environmental is the most obvious and urgent of these, the social pillar also deserves a bit more attention.

I’m no expert in this matter but just an armchair commentator like you, my dear reader, so I refer to Wikipedia for my quick espresso shot definition of the concept which states:

“Cultural sustainability, as it relates to sustainable development (or to sustainability), has to do with maintaining cultural beliefs, cultural practices, heritage conservation, culture as its own entity, and the question of whether or not any given cultures will exist in the future…”

It’s an interesting definition and I would just like to circle this beast for the time being in the interest of brevity.

Some experts have argued that cultural sustainability should be a pillar on its own not only because of its growing importance in the contemporary world but also because “culture” itself is found in the social, the political, the environmental and the economic spheres.

One cannot escape culture – it is not a silo separated from the rest but instead it is the “programming” that shapes all the aforementioned spheres since these all involve human activity and culture is something inherently human, whatever it is you may do.

The sub-buzzword under cultural sustainability at the moment, from my ears and eyes as an arts practitioner, is cultural heritage.

My cynical self sees cultural heritage as something conceited primarily when it is coupled with the word that is the bane of all hipsters: gentrification.

Cultural heritage, which is important, can also generate revenue in revitalising old parts of whatever town or city into a site of curiosity about the history of a place and people who once lived there.

There are also wider incentives like getting on the Unesco heritage list and whatnot that will put the town or city or place on the map.

But like all things in life, being on the map also means that it will attract not only people who are curious but also tourists (of course!) and more commercial spaces will appear in these old, repainted and refurnished facades because of the fat money going through the place, which, in turn, will increase the value of the real estate that will eventually chase out any remaining remnants of the original population.

What you have left is a simulation, to borrow French postmodernist philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s concept, a simulacrum of the real.

So are we really living in a Malaysia that was here before? Or are we sustaining a so-called sustainable facade of a simulated Malaysia?

Let us ponder this in the coming weeks leading up to Malaysia Day. – September 2, 2022.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.