Foreword

Summary

Reading Ooi Kee Beng's Catharsis a month or so after the historic 9 May 2018 general election has been such a joy. These pages essentially express the early warning signs of the 2018 electoral tsunami. It is just that those on the Barisan Nasional side couldn't be bothered to listen, and many supporters on the Pakatan Harapan side probably thought it was outlandish to think that BN could be defeated against all the odds.

Kee Beng was one of the earliest to see the importance of the emergence of Dr Mahathir Mohamad as opposition leader and of his tactical moves to reconcile with Anwar Ibrahim.

Kee Beng's words are sharp and pointed: For instance, ‘a resignation by Mahathir (from UMNO) is not a throwing in of the towel but a declaration of war.’ But his concerns go beyond commenting on who would win and who would lose.

Nation building is what he cares about. How to shape a Malaysia that is at ease with itself and its multiethnic heritage in the rapidly changing world full of challenges – but also opportunities. Malaysia is not merely a collection of races and religions but a platform for individual citizens to thrive as citizens of a nation that they can all be proud of.

Kee Beng returned to the region in 2004 after having sojourned for more than two decades in Europe. I returned from Australia in 2005. Since our first meeting in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, we have in many ways participated in each other's careers, which somehow intertwined with the great changes in Malaysian politics that have been occurring since then. In the closing days of 2006, I was reading the then recently published The Reluctant Politician before it hit the bookshelves to become one of the most sold non-fiction books in Malaysian history, and through which Kee Beng became a favourite name among the Malaysian reading public. I remember clearly being at his house in Singapore in December 2007 telling him about my reluctance to contest in Penang as I wasn't sure about how much support could be gained in his hometown. I had no personal ties there.

So very much has happened ever since.

It is my great pleasure to have known Kee Beng all these years and to have him as one of my intellectual mentors.