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LIKE people in most developing countries, Malaysians suffer automobiles not only as a necessary tool for modern living, but as a purported key driver of the economy. Having a car-making industry supposedly generates an army of suppliers of parts from simple nuts and bolts to sophisticated electronics. The consumption Ringgit needed to keep a car … Continue reading
THE UNESCO decision to put Penang jointly with Malacca on its World Heritage List two years ago signified a few fascinating things. For one thing, it was of course a satisfying triumph for the many NGO activists in Penang who had been patiently pushing for that status for years. Secondly, the listing of the two port-towns … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng THE PASSING of Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu in November last year threw a challenge to all serious scholars of Malaysian history. Not much has so far been written about him. No doubt most books on the country’s political history do mention episodes such as his successful challenge against Tan Cheng … Continue reading
LIKE MOST new countries founded after colonialism’s fall, Malaysia lacks good historical studies about itself that are based on solid empirical data. No doubt, some do exist, but they tend to emerge at certain fixed levels. Either they are officially sanctioned hagiographies, academic works clothed in cautious terms, or memoirs by retirees who are unable to … Continue reading
Editorial for December 2011 By Ooi Kee Beng, Something that increasingly troubles me is the received supposition that urbanites are cosmopolitan by virtue of being urbanites. Not only does that bias attribute what in modern eyes is a morally desirable quality to the mere experience of living in densely populated areas, it also assigns the … Continue reading
Editorial, November 2011, By Ooi Kee Beng IN THE DAYS before nation states, polities in Southeast Asia were largely trading ports. These dots, constituted the maritime routes along which fortune-seekers of old travelled. All sorts – those with brains as much as much as those with brawn – went where conditions were most promising for the moment. … Continue reading
Penang Profile One hot afternoon in July, Ooi Kee Beng sat down at a Muslim cafe on Kandahar Street in Singapore for a cold Arabic coffee and a chat with one of Penang’s many big names in the academic world. Professor Ho Eng Seng, a Penang Free School alumnus, shared with him some of the … Continue reading
Editorial, September 2011 By OOI KEE BENG THE BIGGEST trick that the nation-state concept has pulled on modern man is the proposal that there is an essential line between the external and the internal. Sovereignty over precisely demarcated physical territory is the underlying notion. It is here the nation-state is most easily understood. And so, … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng for Penang Monthly, July 8, 2010. A politician may point the way, but without competent and dedicated civil servants to do the work, not much gets done. This gets truer the more adventurous the politician’s goals are. So, when Dr Lim Chong Eu envisaged Penang as the production base for international … Continue reading
PROFILE OF NICOL DAVID [Standfirst] Champions don’t grow on trees, especially champions like Nicol David, who has been World No. 1 in Women’s Squash since August 2006. Ooi Kee Beng tries to find out what makes her tick, and tick so consistently and impressively. What he finds out is that although this 26-year-old already dominates … Continue reading
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