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By OOI KEE BENG, Penang Monthly 15th Anniversary bumper Issue, October 2024 WE ARE AT one of those self-appraising points in time when we—not only Penang Monthly, but also Penang Institute as a whole—stare hard into the rearview mirror in order to orientate our journey forward. In fact, individually, we do that all the time … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, in The Edge Malaysia (Picking on the Present column) 28 Sept – 4 Oct 2024. IS THE WORLD still caught in the ethnocentric fervour of European colonialism, during which the multiple revolutions in political organisation, in energy harnessing, in science and technology, and in military prowess, backed by creative ideological innovations … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for Penang Monthly September 2024 I have an iPhone 15 Plus Max. It’s equipped with the best phone camera in the world and I use it quite often to capture events and people I meet on a daily basis. Visitors to my office seldom get away without posing with me … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, Cover story for Penang Monthly September 2024 A baby should cry at birth. It must be traumatic being born. The compressing comfort of the womb is gone, the noises and lights once gleaned through the mother’s body are now unfiltered. The first journey the former foetus takes is a watery slide, … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG* , pp. 28-33 in Economics & Society Volume 1, 2024: Man & Generations. The Economic Society of Singapore. Singapore: World Scientific. MODERNITY IS MORE often than not defined from a European point of view, milestoned by events selected to highlight the progress of scientific methods, the radical restructuring of society following … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, for The Edge Malaysia, 25-31 August 2024 THE MULTIPOLAR WORLD is upon us. And the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has a vital role to play. The need for it to evolve—to finally mature, some would say—to meet new challenges posed by the post-unipolar era is strong, and this is … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng, Editorial in Penang Monthly, August 2024 WE LIVE IN the Era of Nation-States. At the moment, there are 193 members in the United Nations (UN). Inevitably, we have to compare them to see what we can learn from each of them and to understand their level of comparability. But how? It’s … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG IT IS NOW fashionable in education marketing to add “A’ to “STEM”, as a means to extend and deepen the range of topics a school covers. While teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to the young has been commendable in many ways, albeit mainly in providing talent to corporations, the … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, RSIS Working Papers WP342 18 July 2024 Abstract The last 25 years in Malaysian political history have circled around the personalities of Mahathir Mohamed and Anwar Ibrahim, with several minor (in hindsight) actors playing supportive—or destructive—roles. Although over 20 years apart in age, they have participated in the same protracted play … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, Penang Monthly, Editorial July 2024 The key difference that I observe when visiting a thriving city and a striving one is in the manifest gap in ambition and maintenance between private places and public spaces. In fact, the role of government—be this federal, state or local—is on obvious display when one … Continue reading
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