By Ooi Kee Beng For THE EDGE, Kuala Lumpur. 28 April 2012. With Myanmar opening up faster than anyone ever expected the question how ASEAN is to develop as a community in the near future gets ever more interesting. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” is of course a saying … Continue reading
Book Review: P.G Lim’s Kaleidoscope: The Memoirs of P.G. Lim. Petaling Jaya: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre. 2012. By Ooi Kee Beng This much-awaited volume lives up to all reasonable expectations and should be read by anyone – historian, lawyer or layman – interested in Penang, in late colonialism, and in the early history … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For THE EDGE, Kuala Lumpur, 26 March 2012 I am sitting at a dear friend’s apartment in Hong Kong’s Wanchai district, looking across to Kowloon. Well, that’s not totally correct. I can actually not see Kowloon at all. The mist is so dense that even the vessels floating in the straits … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng [This article is part of ANU’s New Mandala “Malaysia after regime change” article series, edited by Greg Lopez] Malaysia had to begin life as a federation because, like all federations, its diversity of polity, culture, history, ethnicity and economy was simply too deep for a centrally controlled regime to be practicable. … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng [Editorial for Penang Monthly, 2012] How concepts relate to each other is always revealing. A close look at them always arouses new ways of thinking. The same goes for discovering the lost origins of words. Most of us have feasted ourselves on the connections between “revolution”, “evolution” and even “involution”. Lately, “devolution” … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng (Editorial in Penang Monthly, February 2012) Why is it so important to scientists to discover extra-terrestrial life forms? They know the odds are astronomically small. Well, they are hoping against hope, certainly. But I think that it is because they intuitively know that the leap in knowledge about Life and the … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For TODAY, Singapore│10 January 2012 The High Court verdict on Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy trial must be seen as a big triumph for the three-member opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (PR). One of the biggest challenges that it has in trying to win federal power is to convince voters that it has the … Continue reading
By Dr Ooi Kee Beng (9 January 2012) for BBC Online To the great surprise of many of his followers, Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was found not guilty of the sodomy charge brought against him by a former aide. High Court judge Zabidin Mohamad Diah declared him innocent early on Monday morning, while huge … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng This interview with YB Liew Chin Tong, outgoing Executive Director of Penang Institute and Member of Parliament for Bukit Bendera, discusses his understanding of the tasks think tanks need to adopt in the 21st century. Malaysian nation building has not been an easy process, and one of the negative developments it … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng [Editorial in Penang Monthly, http://www.penangmonthly.com] It has now been two years since this magazine, Penang Economic Monthly, was revamped into a new colourful product meant for wider circulation and sale. The reasons why that had to be done are still valid. In fact, they are more valid than ever. After March … Continue reading