A little Penang chess history

Today's blog item is dedicated to my chess friends in Penang. It's a bit of chess history as well, seen from my point of view. As we chess players here know, the Penang Chess Association was facing a significant transition last month. At its annual general meeting, there was a change of the guard with Dr Toh Kin Woon voluntarily standing down and Lee Ewe Ghee stepping in as the new president.

Since 1990 or so, the association had been caught in a curious mindset that its president should only be someone from the Parti Gerakan Malaysia. An unfortunate mindset but a very convenient one. You know how it started? Let me tell you the story.

In the 1980s, the PCA was in deep shit. It was almost dormant to the point that it faced deregistration by the Registrar of Societies. But before it happened, I had taken the initiative to revive the association. Together with a few friends, we convinced Dr Choong Sim Poey to helm the association and I volunteered to become the secretary to assist him through this period. The 1990s became a golden age for the PCA, much like the 1970s was. We had even organised the Asian team chess championship in 1991 and a Penang international open championship in 1998. We unearthed and encouraged the growth of a lot of potential young, homegrown chess players ... people like Ooi Chern Ee and Ronnie Lim (possibly Dr Lim Chuin Hoong by now) among them.

We all clicked as a well-oiled team but soon, it became clear than Dr Choong wanted to move on when he felt that the PCA was already functioning efficiently as a society. Dr Choong was a Gerakan partyman and in the transition, he arranged for Dr Toh Kin Woon to replace him. Dr Toh was also a Gerakan member and one of the Penang state executive councillors. Therefore, from about 1990 until this year, the president's post has continuously been filled by someone from the Gerakan party.

Here's an anecdote. About six years ago, Dr Toh had wanted to step down as the PCA president. I was still in the PCA committee then and I remember that we were rather reluctant to accept his decision. Nevertheless, we felt that if he wanted to go, there was nothing we could do but to look for a replacement. At that time, the other committee members felt that the association needed another politician at the top so a few names were being bandied around. I had different ideas. I was questioning why we needed another politician as the president. Shouldn't the association be apolitical? Anyway, if they really wanted another politician, why must the person be from the Gerakan party? Why not, say, a politician from the Malaysian Chinese Association? After all, an MCA politician would also be from the government too, right? Not that I had anyone specific in mind. Anyway, I didn't hear any more about my proposal (if you can call it as one) but the next thing I heard was that Dr Toh had been persuaded to stay on as the president. Maybe my suggestion was too unpalatable for many people to stomach!

But I knew that sooner or later, Dr Toh would want to step down again. Publicly, everyone knew that he planned to retire from the state government. He wouldn't be seeking re-election in the next General Election. That would mean that he would want to vacate the PCA president's post too. He would be leaving all that behind.

By 2000, I had already withdrawn myself completely from the PCA committee although I still offered help wherever I could. You can describe my position as one from the outside looking inside into the association. I loved this role. I could continue to contribute in whatever way I liked without any responsibility on my part. But though I had left the committee, I still maintained good contact with Dr Toh. I really appreciated it when he described me as a very good friend during the PCA annual general meeting last month.

But as we all know, the winds of change were sweeping across the country last March. The Barisan Nasional government fell in Penang and the Pakatan Rakyat took over. If there were any slight hope that Dr Toh would re-consider his position as the PCA president, the state election results put an end to that hope.

It was back to the drawing board for the PCA committee and finally, a candidate arrived in Lee Ewe Ghee, a local developer. His sons had been playing in the PCA junior events for several years now and he agreed to take over as the president. After the AGM, I took him aside and impressed on him that the new committee must be prepared to unshackle itself from the old mindset. We cannot be continuously associating ourselves with people from any one political party. That was the weight on the old committee's shoulders. The glass ceiling that the old committee couldn't break through.

As I mentioned earlier, the association should be apolitical, that is, above all the political shenanigans. The association serves the people of Penang who are interested in chess. That's all its role should be. So, don't be afraid to dissociate ourselves from our old Gerakan friends. They will remain our good friends but there's now a new reality. The association has to be bold enough to approach the new state government and make new friends.

I'm glad that Lee agreed with me. I've just learnt that the Penang state government under the Pakatan Rakyat has approved RM10,000 in funding to the PCA. I'm certain that it was hard work to convince the government and it took a lot of legwork by the new PCA president but now that the money has been approved, please make sure that the association makes the best use of it for the good of the Penang chess movement.