Bukit Brown Cemetery is one of Singapore's oldest and historically rich cemeteries. The Singapore government's Urban Redevelopment Authority and Land Transport Authority have announced that the cemetery would have to make way for a highway, housing development project and a mass rapid train station. Bukit Brown is not the first cemetery to come under the bulldozer in Singapore. Many old burial grounds in the nation state have suffered similar fates, all in the name of "development". When I wrote to the newspaper, calling on the government to conserve what little is left of local history, the reply was a simplistic and unreflexive "Bukit Brown is needed in the future for housing" (Straits Times, June 11: A42, 2011). No mention was made of possible ways to conserve the cemetery or of its rich historical record and lavish flora and fauna. The destruction of the 19th cemetery burial ground with its magnificent tomb stones and wondrous histories of the founding fathers and mothers of Singapore will eradicate a slice of Singapore's history forever. It will sadly also signal the transformationof but another area in Singapore full of birds, animals and plants into an urban sprawl of concrete, glass and manicured gardens. I strongly urge the people and government of Singapore, through this petition to reconsider its plans for the "future" and conserve the old burial ground as it is. We need to protect what little we have left of history and flora and fauna in the urban metropolis. A nation lacking in local material histories is a nation without a cultural backbone and hence one that sadly lacks an identity.

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