What has the Beijing Olympics 2008 taught us?

The Beijing Olympics 2008 has produced many hot stories in the Media around the world, but for Bruneians, the hottest and the most important story was that of Brunei’s very public expulsion from the Opening Ceremony. That was indeed a sad day for Brunei.

From my understanding, “participating” in the Beijing Olympics 2008 does not necessarily mean having to have guaranteed-gold-winning-bruneian-competitors competing in the games. It would have been enough just to participate as an observer. Some people may argue that to actively compete is the sole purpose of the games. Well in my humble opinion, what is more important within the spirit of the Olympics is having our country’s name being proudly called out by the Masters of Ceremony (MC) and seeing that bright yellow-black-white-and-red in the stands and on the track or field. This would’ve let more people know about the existence of our small country and have it actually recognised by the World by being more than ‘that country that’s oil-rich’. This type of relatively-free publicity is priceless. Patriotism comes in many forms, there’s nothing shameful about not being guaranteed to win back home a gold medal, because the people who would have participated were our own homegrown children and I for one, am proud of their spirit, that desire to see Brunei’s flag proudly raised and swaying in the breeze, alongside the other proud nations who had united their fellow countrymen and women together in the spirit of the Games, in the spirit of patriotism. It takes a lot more to face defeat and failure than it does to win all the time and the bruneian competitors had not expected to win at this stage, but the possibility of winning was still there, slim chance though it is.

So now, after being expelled from the opening ceremony, what? Well, in my humble opinion, it is very important to learn from what happened. We should prevent the same thing from happening again in the future. After all, “Once beaten twice shy, twice beaten forever shy”. I love Brunei, there may be so many crap ATTITUDES in it but I remain determined to believe that somewhere in there, in each and every one of us who are Bruneian, whether they were born as one or permanently reside as one, there still exists that core that is fiercely proud of Brunei, regardless of gold or oil or riches OR tapau-fever. What makes Brunei into Brunei, is our stubborn determined spirit to survive and succeed beyond all the obstacles set in our way, we’ve gone through wars and occupations, we’ve had our country cut down into a small land area compared to what it once was out of necessity, we’ve had to deal with irksome people who think we’re ‘part’ of Malaysia or Indonesia or Africa or Myanmar and now we are facing the shame, the utter utter shame of being called out on global-wide media of being expelled from the Olympics. So I say we push on, of course I am NOT condoning those who had been responsible for lacking the foresight to use the Olympics as a mechanism to catalyse and instill a deeper sense of patriotism in our people, especially the young, but most of us with no power to punish those people would do better to pool our energies towards a better Brunei, in many more ways than one.

There is a book called “La Tahzan” which translates as “Don’t be sad” in Arabic, in which we are taught that we should think positively despite what happened in life. This may be applied to us in the case of the Olympics Public Expulsion 2008. Although it was incredibly frustrating and utterly humiliating, and although it caused a huge dent in the patriotic Bruneian’s pride, what’s past is past and no matter how much we rant and rave and gripe, we still can’t do anything about it. All we can do is to learn from the past and come up with solutions to improve our nation. So, instead of breaking down, we should all keep our chin up and work together to turn this around. Blame games are all very well and in this case, seemingly well-deserved, but maybe we should try to turn this negative into a positive for the country, however far away this might seem.

I’ll close my thoughts on this matter by reciting a famous “doa” which asks Allah s.w.t to make it easier for us to deal with any problem, “Allah Humma Yasir Wala Tu’asir”, meaning, Oh Allah Make it Easy and Do Not Make It Difficult.

And on that note, Wabillahi taufik Wal hidayah Wasalamualaikum Warah Matullahi Wabarakatuh, Peace be upon all.