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By Ooi Kee Beng for The Straits Times 26 September 2016 According to its Constitution, Malaysia has to hold its next general election by Aug 24, 2018. That is still almost two years away. And yet, rumours of early elections persist, both at the state and federal levels. This needs some explaining, given how Prime … Continue reading
Ooi Kee Beng for The Straits Times, 8 September 2016, Malaysia’s former prime minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, surprised his countrymen by turning up at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Monday to shake the hand of his former deputy and protege, and (perhaps former) political foe, Anwar Ibrahim. This is a highly significant event, … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial, Penang Monthly, September 2016. Much of youth is definitely wasted on the young, and this is because the young as a rule are not aware enough of what it means to be old. They are not burdened by the growing sense of mortality that growing old brings. And that is … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For The Edge Malaysia, 29 August 2016 Studying history teaches us that the significance of events depends on what span of time and space one brings into play. As in geology, movements can sometimes be so painfully slow to be practically indiscernible, as with the tectonic plates covering lengthy periods of … Continue reading
Ooi Kee Beng For The Straits Times 26 August 2016 The issue of Bangsa Johor (Johor nationality) made national news again on Wednesday, when former prime minister Mahathir Mohamed was asked about it at a forum on relations between the federal government and state governments. Asked about Johor’s separation from Malaysia, a national concern fanned … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng, Editorial for Penang Monthly, August 2016 Artists – be these painters or sculptors, musicians or even authors in many cases – need sponsors. They need patrons. In our commercial age, there is of course the market, through which some artists can succeed. Those are few though, and the so-called market often … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng for The Edge Malaysia, 31 July 2016. The income gap, technically defined, is quite an easy concept to comprehend. One can compare Gross Domestic Product per capita or per household within a given country; and collectively, one can use the Italian sociologist Corrado Gini’s measure of statistical dispersion developed in 1912 … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For The Straits Times, Singapore. 22 July 2016. The civil lawsuits filed by the US Justice Department on 20 July 2016 to seize assets worth over US$1 billion stolen from Malaysia’s state fund, 1MDB, are sending tight ripples across the globe. Not only are these the largest set of cases brought … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG Editorial, Penang Monthly, July 2016. Penang’s free port status began eroding after the final boundaries of Malaysia were defined with the exit of Singapore in 1965. By 1974, the federal government had made it a thing of the past. Luckily for the state, the state government that was voted into power … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial in Penang Monthly, June 2016. This morning (May 20, 2016), my 12-year-old daughter asked me “what is Capitalism?”. Since the Cold War is over, this is actually a harder question to answer than one may think. So if you, dear reader, do not mind, I shall use this space to … Continue reading
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