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By OOI KEE BENG For TODAY NEWSPAPER SINGAPORE, 28 September 2015 Following the Red-Shirt rally in Kuala Lumpur on Sept 16, discussions have been rife that the government of Prime Minister Najib Razak was “playing the racial card” to bolster support and to distract the public, especially its Malay supporters, from distressing issues at hand. … Continue reading
BY OOI KEE BENG TODAY NEWSPAPER, SINGAPORE 28 OCTOBER 2015 Just 20 months short of turning half a century old, the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) will officially become an integrated community. On Dec 31 this year, rotating ASEAN chair Malaysia will declare this to be the case. The integration has essentially been and … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG The Edge Malaysia, 26 October 2015 What any Malaysian knows at heart is that the Malay community will always dominate the politics of the country. This means in concrete terms that Malaysia’s key leaders will always nominally and in reality be Malay Muslims. However, the country’s population is a very mixed … Continue reading
Editorial for Penang Monthly October 2015 Tourism has been vital to Penang for decades, but a competent history of it has yet to be written to give due credit to the key actors involved, to describe the twists and turns and ups and downs of the industry over time, and to understand the debates and … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For Penang Monthly, October 2015. [Also published in Digital Edge Weekly, 31 August 2015 as “Merdeka – Unfinished Liberation”] It takes two hands to clap; there is no shore unless there is sea; and one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor, as the poet rightly claims. You get the point. There … Continue reading
Editorial for Penang Monthly, September 2015 Pulau Tikus. The name always sounded exotic to the ears of a boy growing up in the general area of Ayer Itam (yes, not Air Itam), Reservoir Gardens and Rifle Range. At a time when I still measured distance by bicycle speed, the place was far enough away to … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For SING, August 2015 “50 Years, and Counting…” [Singapore Association of Hong Kong]. This tiny nation may be heavy-handed at times, but many laud it adaptive, responsive, progressive and even creative. Ooi Kee Beng examines the paradox that is Singapore, and why it has been so successful the last 50 years. … Continue reading
Editorial for Penang Monthly, August 2015. I WAS IN Abu Dhabi recently for the first time. The United Arab Emirates is a strange land. Its citizens make up only 15% of the whole population. The rest are foreigners of one kind or another and from all parts of the world. It is in that sense … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For The Edge Malaysia | July 7, 2015 I have always enjoyed the story — almost certainly a false and libellous one, but that does not matter here — about the tragic French Queen Marie Antoinette watching in consternation from a palace window as rebels rioted on the streets of Paris … Continue reading
For THE EDGE Malaysia, May 31-June 6 2015 (titled “Democracy is Necessarily Multi-tiered” By OOI KEE BENG It is time we pay careful attention to the essential multi-tieredness of democracy. Democracy is in essence much more than simply the electing of a central government. It is about electing representatives at different levels in order to … Continue reading
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