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By Ooi Kee Beng, Editorial for October 2023 in Penang Monthly MODERN ECONOMICS and modern living are paradoxically based on sustained advances in means of mobility, on the one hand, and in the human ability to live in huge settlements, on the other. Bringing human individuals into close proximity with each other in regular and … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG The steady fall of the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional (BN) from power, stretching from 2008 to 2018,and its ability to remain in government thereafter in one role or another tells an incredible tale thatcould not have been predicted and that still leaves most pundits confounded. Some of the implications of UMNO’s recent … Continue reading
September 2023 PENANG PROFILE Professor Dato’ Dr. Zulfigar Yasin may be best known today as one of Malaysia’s top marine biologists, but much of his professional life has been spent in areas of great consequence to the nation. And by that, we also mean his influence as a teacher, mentor and leader of the young and … Continue reading
By Dato’ Dr. Ooi Kee Beng. Editorial in Penang Monthly, September 2023 ANYONE WHO HAS achieved something they are proud of, when revisiting the memory of it later in life, tends to feel a warm and tingling sensation of “Wow, did I do that? Was that me?!” Much can be gleaned about ourselves from this … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 21, 2023 – August 27, 2023 Seldom had state elections seemed so important to the future of the country as the six that took place on Aug 12, 2023, nine months after federal elections put Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim … Continue reading
Tan Twan Eng, one of Penang’s most famous authors today, was in town in July. He granted Penang Monthly an interview at the E&O Hotel, where some key scenes in his new book are played out. Ooi Kee Beng: Congratulations on the success of The House of Doors, Twan Eng. I imagine the experience of finishing a first … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng, Penang Monthly August 2023 editorial “BEST PRACTICES” is quite a clever term. I had trouble accepting it at first, trained to be relativistic as I am by the social sciences. I had to ask questions like: Who decides such things? Who decides that a practice is “best”? Over time, I came … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng for MySinChew (Sin Chew Jit Poh), on 31 July 2023 THERE ARE MANY things to say about Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, truly one of the founding fathers of Malaysia. Without a doubt, The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time, published by ISEAS Publishing in 2006, brought him back … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG OVER THE YEARS, as one studies Malaysian history in all its aspects, an uncomfortable feeling grows strong that the ethnic diversity of its post-colonial population, by falling into the nation-state trap of racial ranking, has turned attention away from the geopolitical and geo-economic conditions in which the country develops under. Nothing … Continue reading
GROWING UP IN the foothills of the Penanghighlands, the towering heights — ever verdant, ever extant — always acted as the backdrop to my young life. It comforted with its weighty presence, albeit that its vibrancy often suggested danger. One has to be cautious climbing the slopes. Scorpions, snakes and spiders were always around, always enchanting but always mysterious in … Continue reading
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