KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 (Bernama) -- The former chief minister of Penang Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu was known to be a person who rarely gave interviews to the media, particularly after he retired from politics.
True to his nature, most of the time, his encounter with the media ended up with only a brief conversation.
However, he agreed to a brief interview with the "Penang Economic Monthly" in its first edition in October last year, where the man, dubbed the architect of Penang's transformation, talked about the powerful relevance of the past on the future.
In the interview, he told the magazine's editor Dr Ooi Kee Beng about matters long past, especially the circumstances under which the British came to the region.
"What was the East India Company? We have to remember that we were actually ruled by this international commercial entity. What creature was this? Many of the early colonialists were in fact basically pirates," he was quoted in the interview.
Dr Lim later encouraged Ooi to check on the history of Province Wellesley, just as an example on how to convince Penangites that they should be interested in the state's early history.
Ooi, who wrote the best-seller "The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time", later recounted the interview he had with Dr Lim, saying "This is part of what I found out. It may be common knowledge that Province Wellesley, which was handed over to British Penang on perpetual lease in 1798, was understandably named after Richard Wellesley, who was then Governor-General of British India."
"What is less known is that the brother of this Irish aristocrat, Arthur, who was nine years younger and who served with great distinction as a military officer in India, went on, as the Duke of Wellington, to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo in 1815.
"Arthur later served for seven months as Prime Minister of Britain in 1828, and though a conservative, he is fondly remembered for overseeing the granting of full civil rights to Catholics in the United Kingdom," Ooi said in the article, "Tun Lim Chong Eu: The Past is Not Passe" published in the magazine's inaugural edition.
Perhaps, it was true that this history had shaped Chong Eu's practical approach in politics when he later decided that it was best for Gerakan to join Barisan Nasional as one of its founding member.
The Penang Economic Monthly quoted Dr Lim as saying: "One must never forget the strands in history. Especially in this part of the world, which is archipelagic, and resources were moved around a lot.
The politics and the economics were therefore always tightly bound together. Production is one thing, but logistics is something else, and equally, if not more, important.
"But after all these years, we are still victims of our geography, and how that configured our thinking. We have not been able to lift ourselves beyond the conditions placed on us by geography."
True to his nature, most of the time, his encounter with the media ended up with only a brief conversation.
However, he agreed to a brief interview with the "Penang Economic Monthly" in its first edition in October last year, where the man, dubbed the architect of Penang's transformation, talked about the powerful relevance of the past on the future.
In the interview, he told the magazine's editor Dr Ooi Kee Beng about matters long past, especially the circumstances under which the British came to the region.
"What was the East India Company? We have to remember that we were actually ruled by this international commercial entity. What creature was this? Many of the early colonialists were in fact basically pirates," he was quoted in the interview.
Dr Lim later encouraged Ooi to check on the history of Province Wellesley, just as an example on how to convince Penangites that they should be interested in the state's early history.
Ooi, who wrote the best-seller "The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time", later recounted the interview he had with Dr Lim, saying "This is part of what I found out. It may be common knowledge that Province Wellesley, which was handed over to British Penang on perpetual lease in 1798, was understandably named after Richard Wellesley, who was then Governor-General of British India."
"What is less known is that the brother of this Irish aristocrat, Arthur, who was nine years younger and who served with great distinction as a military officer in India, went on, as the Duke of Wellington, to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo in 1815.
"Arthur later served for seven months as Prime Minister of Britain in 1828, and though a conservative, he is fondly remembered for overseeing the granting of full civil rights to Catholics in the United Kingdom," Ooi said in the article, "Tun Lim Chong Eu: The Past is Not Passe" published in the magazine's inaugural edition.
Perhaps, it was true that this history had shaped Chong Eu's practical approach in politics when he later decided that it was best for Gerakan to join Barisan Nasional as one of its founding member.
The Penang Economic Monthly quoted Dr Lim as saying: "One must never forget the strands in history. Especially in this part of the world, which is archipelagic, and resources were moved around a lot.
The politics and the economics were therefore always tightly bound together. Production is one thing, but logistics is something else, and equally, if not more, important.
"But after all these years, we are still victims of our geography, and how that configured our thinking. We have not been able to lift ourselves beyond the conditions placed on us by geography."
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