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By Ooi Kee Beng Penang Monthly editorial, February 2017 Culture, if you ask me, is the joint expression of the inter-personal behaviours of a particular society over time. Within that, we find comfort and orientation in life. The key word is “time”. When profound changes come at us at great speed, how we behave towards … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng Penang Monthly Editorial, January 2017 How does one show respect? How does one show tolerance? How does one show acceptance? These are important questions to answer when the ethnic and religious diversity of modern societies are increasingly considered a persistent problem and not a cultural wealth. If we wish for greater … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng / The Edge Malaysia | December 29, 2016 This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on December 26 – January 1, 2016. THE YEAR 2016 is about over. It was a year of surprises globally, what with terrorist attacks in Europe, the refugee flows into Europe from the … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG Editorial December 2016, Penang Monthly It seems very little is written about the history of a key location like Ayer Itam (I take the liberty of using the old spelling here). And since Penang Monthly is running some articles about the village in this issue, I decided to seek out some … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng / The Edge Malaysia | December 10, 2016 This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on December 5 – 11, 2016. MALAYA GAINED independence on Aug 31, 1957; Malaysia on Sept 16, 1963. Those historic dates mark the end of British colonial control over the Malay peninsula and … Continue reading
Ooi Kee Beng For The Straits Times, 10 November 2016 Mass demonstrations are a strategic forcing of an issue to a head. This is definitely so in the case of Malaysia’s Bersih 5 rally planned for Nov 19. As its name reveals, this is the fifth street protest in a series. Organised by a huge … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial, November 2016, PENANG MONTHLY Most religions are defined by their rituals and by the regimenting the collective behaviour of its followers. That is what ultimately defines a “religious establishment”. During this process, things tend to get misunderstood and become issues for contestation despite starting out as rather rational and practical … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG For THE EDGE MALAYSIA, November 7, 2016 Southeast Asia has enjoyed relative peace since the end of the Cold War in 1991. Its major regional body, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), founded in 1967, was finally able to welcome all the countries in the region as members by the … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG Editorial in Penang Monthly, October 2016. Man’s discoveries and inventions revolutionise him. That is a truism. The conquest of fire altered how and what we eat; the invention of the wheel changed how we travel and how we construct machines; the discovery of germs increased human population as new modes of … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For The Edge Malaysia, 2 October 2016 The word “Governance” has the same roots as “Government”. However, the recent popularity of the use of “governance” comes from the growing notion of looking at political control as a technical matter, and of an increasing tendency to think of the government—and the governing—of … Continue reading
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