Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

is the Executive Director of Penang Institute. His recent books include The Eurasian Core and its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (ISEAS 2016).

310 posts

Small acts of courage to make the world a better place

5 min read

If he was not a household name before September 2, 2014, he should have become that after he, on that day, became the first academician in Malaysian history t...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Why the Opposition has a Shot at Toppling the Barisan Nasional with Mahathir at the Helm

5 min read

Malaysia’s Parliament will be dissolved sometime during the first half of 2018. That is a legal certainty.The general election that is to follow within...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Mayor of the World

8 min read

Dato' Maimunah Mohd Sharif with the children of Mathare.On December 22, 2017, the mayor of Penang, Dato’ Maimunah Mohd Sharif, was appointed Executi...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Outraged Enough to Go Vote or Cynical Enough to Stay Home?

12 min read

So many bizarre and inconceivable things have happened in recent years to damage Malaysia’s international reputation and self-image that, for a mortified...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Listen Up, Malaysians! You Are Now Individually the Agents of Change

4 min read

One of the greatest challenges that faces a society coming out of a period of authoritarian rule and bad governance is the need to break away from looking to po...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Malaysia – Where politics must be ethnically inclusive and exclusive at the same time

5 min read

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&rsquo...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Tun Lim Chong Eu: The past is not passé

4 min read

ONE easy way of approaching the history of a country is to study the life of a major player in that history. But as time goes on, such players tend to diminis...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Suffolk House-keeping

6 min read

Next to the Methodist Boys School stands what is destined to be one of Penang’s most renowned restored heritage buildings, Suffolk House. So named because...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Brain drain, once removed

8 min read

Petrina Lin Weilynn was born in Penang in 1986 and bundled to Hong Kong when she was just a few months old. Her father has been working at Hong Kong’s Sou...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Federalism going down the toilet

3 min read

Something that Malaysians have had to realise in recent months is that political power in the country has over the years become so centralised that local govern...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The man who industrialised Penang

6 min read

Any penangite born less than 40 years ago will not have known a Penang that was not a hub for the world’s electronics industry. Before the 1970s, the stat...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Colonial Penang's pre-modern roots

3 min read

Penang under the East India Company 1786-1858Andrew BarberAB&A. 2009; Hard cover;160 pagesReview by Ooi Kee BengThe salience of the approach Barber ch...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng