Penang Stands for Multilateralism, Multiculturalism—and Peace

By Ooi Kee Beng, opening speech at the Penang Peace Dialogue, 5-6 September 2026.

First, let me say that Peace is not simply the Absence of War. Peace is not merely a Ceasefire. It is a state of mind, a culture, a value system.

War is easy, by all present accounts. Peace is hard. Keeping the peace is harder than making war. For Peace to be the default condition for mankind, there needs to be a cultural propensity for peace, an ideological insistence for peace, and stable economic conditions for peace.

We can sense this idea best if we think of militarising to be the opposite of civilising. Militarising is easy to understand and to start, while civilising is more vague and requires time to achieve.

The global political discourse is central to this discussion. There are discourses that are more warlike than others, behaviours that seek confrontation more than others, attitudes that are more aggressive than others.

The question then is: How do we minimise such a mentality? What makes a society peaceful and accepting of differences? Curious when faced with change? Resilient when faced with crisis?

ON PENANG

What better way to promote such a discussion than to hold it in a place like Penang? Penang is a peaceful and progressive place, embracing of foreigners and foreignness and accepting of change. At the risk of overselling Penang and its virtues, let me nevertheless for the next 15 minutes, describe my hometown in terms of its geographical location, its geopolitical history, its demographic diversity, and its geo-economic relevance.  

For all sorts of reasons, it is a welcoming place:

• diverse in all the ways one can imagine,
• exposed to the world,
• conscious of the difficulties and the benefits of multicultural interactions,
• cognizant of the many Easts (plural) and the many Wests (plural) at play, and;
• though insular in many ways, it is a city that acts global on a daily basis.

There are many ways to describe Penang’s geographic, geopolitical and geo-economic condition. Penang is where many seas meet, and where civilisations congregate. Like the monsoons, these civilisations come from opposite directions. They overlap and they leave their mark.

Penang is in fact located at:

1. The Northern end of the Straits of Melaka
2. The Southern end of the Andaman Sea
3. The Eastern end of the Bay of Bengal
4. The Western end of the Nusantara

Even if we choose to accept the modern geopolitically-coined concept of Indo-Pacific within which to place the Southeast Asian region, Penang is still centrally located. In fact, even more so.

ON THE REGION

We have to necessarily see Penang’s history and future as being intimately connected to Southeast Asia’s history and future. To recognize the dynamics of the region’s politics, demography and economy, one has to understand it as fully as possible.

This archipelago is a meeting place, a concourse, and an emporium for religions, traders, armies; for peoples, goods, and capital:

• China, whether rising of falling, has always been to its north; inescapably (whether in dynastic, nationalist, communist and “capitalist” form). SE Asia has for 2,000 years been at the fringe of Chinese governments, now of the People’s Republic of China. We know of their cyclical rising and falling. That has always affected us greatly. In fact, there is good scientific reason to include the historical dynamics of southern China, coastal China, and Taiwan when trying to understand the region.
• The same goes for the Indian sub-continent. Indian civilization provided the Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim influences that underlie much of SE Asia’s foundational culture. The Nusantara was called Farther India by the British for good reason. And the term Indonesia simply means the Indian Archipelago.
• Japan’sninvasion has to be seen in that context of world colonialism and the struggle between colonial ambitions.

PENANG’S GEOPOLITICAL SETTING

Penang since the late 1700s has been a key player in all this interplay of human trade and conflict, of peace and war.

• It was a colonial frontier and supply post for British India in Britain’s forward movement towards China, as part of the Straits Settlements and of British Malaya.
• It was where Western religions and philosophies met Eastern systems of thought, in many ways hybridizing them and integrating them.
• It was where all manners of school systems rooted themselves
• It was where printing houses and publishers and newspapers established themselves, along with banks and international organisations.
• As an entrepot port, it helped develop the surrounding regions. This is seen in how Penang Hokkien spread to surrounding areas, and how Penang businesses and capital penetrated neighbouring territories to develop tin mines and other industries.
• This led to it having a diverse population made up of groups from around the Andaman Sea, the Straits of Melaka, the Malay Peninsula, Indonesia and Sumatra, and of course from China, India and Europe.

Now, enough about Penang’s historical background. What can Penang offer the world in terms of promoting peace in the region in the near future?

Within the Federation of Malaysia after 1963, it has played a key role in the country’s industrialization. more recently becoming a production node in the manufacturing supply chains of most major economies; it is now a critical location in the Chip War.

In evolving from a population based on a Port Economy to one based on Industrial Zones:

1. Penang became a Semiconductor and Electrical and Electronics Hub: We are partially a city of Engineers, Managers, Technicians. We are rightly called the Silicon Valley of the East.

• Based on the nature of its past, Penang is also clearly a Cosmopolitan Cultural Hub today: Famous for its NGOs, for being a UNESCO Heritage Site and a UNESCO Biodiversity Reserve, among many other accolades.

• It has a strong international reputation, also for liveability.

• Penang has a veritable and proyd diaspora, respected across the world.

THE FUTURE

What about the future? What this conference is about is to raise our own confidence in the role we can play in stopping the winds of war, and to generate dynamics for peace in the region. This requires Penang to take on globally relevant roles that can contribute to that ambition.

We are already living in the age of Modern Multipolarity. It is up to us to make that age a peaceful and inclusive one. Penang has a part to play in that process.

Among the many issues to be discussed this weekend is that concerning a United Nations Secretariat being set up in Southeast Asia. This would indeed strengthen the geopolitical role of ASEAN and the region. Multipolarity means that Southeast Asia must claim its right to be an influential player in the world, understand its own importance, and accentuate the inclusiveness of difference and acceptance of change that our rich history and diverse cultures have offered us.

It does not take much for us then to imagine that Penang—proud of being humble, global yet local, modern yet with feet sufficiently planted on the ground—can be the home for that Secretariat. It is up to us.

Our job is to inspire ourselves before we inspire others. I leave you with that thought. Welcome again to the first Penang Peace Dialogue. Your presence here today is something for you to remember, and to boast to your grandchildren about.