-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
(Talk given by Ooi Kee Beng at the Johor Bahru Rotary Club on 14 June 2011) I SUPPOSE we are here today to discuss the question, Why so much ado about an election that saw the incumbent still controlling 81 of 87 parliamentary seats at the end of it? What is the big deal? Why … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng [Article for the photograph exhibition by Wei Leng Tay — Discordant Symmetries, held at Baba House, Singapore on September 2011 to March 2012] WE ALL TRAVEL more or less nowadays, and every good trip tweaks our perspective of state, society and self to some extent. Numerous short trips leave us with … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng I REMEMBER fidgeting for endless hours on the Internet back in the mid-1990s. To be honest, that was the reason why my studies took so long to complete. The browser available then was a little application called NCSA Mosaic. There were very few pages to go to at that time, to … Continue reading
Ooi Kee Beng | 21 Sept 2010 Comment in Malaysiakini.com IN MOST WAYS, Selangor and its politics cannot help but set the tone for Malaysian governance in the years to come. The federation succeeds or fails, depending on what happens in this key state. One could go so far as to claim that the nature … Continue reading
— By Ooi Kee Beng THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER, APRIL 30, 2010 — Ethnocentrism is not the opposite of multiracialism. For some reason, we tend to suppose it to be so. The truth of the matter is, the contradistinction between the two is political, not logical. Like all terms that lend themselves to political polarisation, these two … Continue reading
By Teo Cheng Wee in The Straits Times, KUALA LUMPUR, 21 May 2011 It has been burned by angry protesters, while opposition supporters have used it to publicly wrap nasi lemak to show their disdain. Arguably no newspaper in Malaysia evokes stronger emotions than Utusan Malaysia, the Umno-owned Malay daily which has been at the forefront of … Continue reading
Wazir Jahan Karim (Ed): Straits Muslims: Diasporas of the Northern Passage of the Straits of Malacca. Straits G.T. of Intersocietal and Scientific, 2009. REVIEW by Ooi Kee Beng Maritime Southeast Asia was – and is – a region filled with port cities. Such urban centres tend to concentrate both power and money. But more than … Continue reading
By Alan Ting for BERNAMA KUALA LUMPUR Tuesday, 17 May 2011– Although the People’s Action Party won more than two-thirds majority in the recent Singapore general election, its popular votes dropped and the opposition made inroads. There are a few reasons for this that political parties on this side of the causeway may want to digest … Continue reading
By Tarani Palani, for Free Malaysia Today, May 14, 2011 Utusan Malaysia’s contentious headline is a ‘ploy’ by right wingers within Umno for Najib Tun Razak to take a hardline stand on Malay issue, says a political analyst. PETALING JAYA: The latest Christian Malaysia controversy propagated by Malay daily, Utusan Malaysia, whilst merely a “wayang” involving … Continue reading
SINGAPORE’S ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has never been one to take chances. Believing in its ability to identify society’s best talents and recruit them into its ranks, the party developed scant respect for the electoral democracy inherent in the country’s political structure. Its ever powerful control of the mass media, its unconstrained changing of … Continue reading
Wikibeng 