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By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for February 2025, Penang Monthly IT IS OFTEN SAID—way too often—that “History belongs to the Victor”. There is of course a lot of truth in the dictum. But it faults for being glib, and for being a discussion stopper. What I find more fruitful to consider is that “History belongs … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, Penang Monthly editorial for January 2025 YOU WOULD HAVE seen them. Mobile drone shots of cities, done with the camera pointed straight down to capture the topographical grid of streets and buildings. Whether done in daylight or at night, the effect is a reminder to us of how like those of … Continue reading
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, 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, 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, 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
OOI KEE BENG, Penang Monthly, June 2024 THE THEME FOR June 2024 is non-government oganisations—NGOs. This allows for the publisher of this monthly, i.e. Penang Institute itself, to do some soul-searching and to locate itself within the NGO world in Penang, and even Malaysia, in terms of its functions and aspirations. Penang Institute is known … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng May 2024 editorial in Penang Monthly IF YOU WISH to enhance material production, be this of electronic chips, fish and chips, or arts and crafts, the contemporary wisdom today is to aim for the establishment of a supportive ecosystem. Until recently, the word “hub” was the cool term to throw around in … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng, March 2024 Editorial, Penang Monthly WHETHER WE LIKE to think so or not, modern political thought gained effective sloganicexpression during the French Revolution (in 1789), incidentally around the time Penang wassettled (in 1786) by the English East India Company. No doubt the motto wasinstitutionalised only a century later during France’s Third … Continue reading
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