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By Ooi Kee Beng, Editorial, Penang Monthly, July 2017 It’s a complicated subject, this thing we call Economics. I don’t always know what it means. I remember once talking to Robert Kuok about it. His reply was (and I paraphrase from my vague memory of that conversation): “Economics is simply about living, isn’t it? As … Continue reading
The immediate success of Singapore led to a grim court battle to decide who her actual founder was. That clash continues in this new and superbly researched book. BOOK REVIEW Book review: William Farquhar and Singapore: Stepping out of Raffles’ Shadow by Nadia H. Wright. Entrepot Publishing, 2017. By OOI KEE BENG The present always … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng The Edge Malaysia Weekly (June 26-July 02, 2017). You know that you are living in the 21st century when you wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is reach across the bed — not to caress your spouse, but to embrace your smartphone. After all, it has … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng Editorial, Penang Monthly, June, 2017 EDITORIAL Ecotourism sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? We do know that tourism brings benefits to a place, but we cannot deny the larger truth of what I like to call The Paradox of Observation – the more we look at something, the more we change … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng The Edge Malaysia Weekly (May 2017) Humans are land animals. The history of humanity has been largely played out on land. The sea was something that rivers emptied into, and much of seafaring had hugged coastlines. Lakes were simply smaller seas. Access to fresh water, though, is vital to human life. … Continue reading
Review of “The ASEAN Miracle: A Catalyst for Peace” (Ridge Books, 2017) by Kishore Mahbubani and Jeffry Sng. In MEKONG REVIEW, May-July 2017, Volume 2, Number 3. By Ooi Kee Beng The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, founded on 8 August 1967, famously holds more than 1,000 meetings a year. Some say 1,400 would be … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG For The Edge, Malaysia. 1 May 2017. Although one may forgive those who laugh off the Sustainable Development Goals developed by the United Nations in 2015 as a vain exercise to create Heaven on Earth, it is nevertheless vital for the credibility of goals that seek to change the direction of … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for Penang Monthly, April, 2017 A racist act is the conscious effort by one group identity to effectively reduce the social status and the security, the rights and the privileges, and the integrity and dignity of another group identity. The intended dynamic is two-fold, and lies firstly in the racist’s … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng In The Compass, March 2017. Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia. With the world caught up in the reality show we call the Trump Presidency, it is important for those of us who are not Americans to retain some distance to the partisanship of their domestic politics. No doubt there is … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng For The Edge Malaysia, 27 March 2017. Also published in Penang Monthly, May 2017. I paid at the counter for a taxi at KLIA2 a few weeks ago to take me to Bandar Sunway. My cabbie was an elderly Malay man who liked quoting Shakespeare. (Well, he was somewhat older even … Continue reading
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