Journey of the Heart: Don’t Be Sad

Before we ask, Al-Fatihah teaches us to begin with Allah.

Before we complain, it teaches us to praise.

Before sadness becomes too heavy, it reminds us of mercy.

Perhaps this is why the tired heart keeps returning to the same opening verses — not only to recite them, but to remember where healing begins.

 

KopiTalk Jiwa

Journey of the Heart: Don’t Be Sad

What Al-Fatihah Teaches the Tired Heart

 

 

When I was a child, my parents had a simple instruction before every school examination.

 

Recite Bismillah. Recite Al-Fatihah. Then go in.

 

No long explanation was given. No theology lesson followed. Just that quiet reminder, offered the way parents offer things they know to be true without always needing to explain them.

 

I followed the advice the way children follow things they trust — not because I understood the rationale, but because it worked. Something settled inside when those words were said. The nervous stomach calmed a little. The mind felt slightly less crowded. I walked into the examination hall carrying a little less fear than I had outside it.

 

I did not question it then. I simply held onto it.

 

It was only much later — sitting in a taddabur class as a grown man, reflecting on the opening verses of Surah Al-Fatihah — that something clicked quietly into place.

 

My parents were not simply teaching me a calming ritual before a school exam.

 

They were teaching me something far larger.

 

They were teaching me that this world itself is an examination hall.

 

That we enter it not knowing exactly what the paper will ask. That the tests come in forms we do not always expect — not only as questions on a page, but as loss, as waiting, as disappointment, as worry, as the slow weight of carrying things we cannot easily explain to others.

 

And that before we enter any of it, we are meant to begin the same way.

 

With His name. With praise. With the reminder that mercy is already present, even before we ask.

 

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alamin.

Ar-Rahmanir-Rahim.

 

In their own quiet way, perhaps my parents knew this. They may not have written it in those words. But they knew it the way people know things passed down through years of faith and lived experience — quietly, firmly, without needing to justify it.

 

The child who recited Al-Fatihah before walking into an examination hall did not understand why it helped.

 

The adult now sitting with its verses is beginning to.

 

 

 

In that taddabur class, one question stayed with me.

 

Why is Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim mentioned in Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, and then brought back again so early in Surah Al-Fatihah?

 

At first glance, it looks like repetition.

 

But perhaps it is not repetition in the ordinary sense. Perhaps mercy is repeated because the human heart needs to hear it more than once. Especially when it is tired. Especially when life is not going according to plan. Especially when we are trying to be grateful, but quietly struggling to hold on.

 

That small observation brought me back to something larger.

 

Al-Fatihah is not only a surah we recite. It also teaches us how to return to Allah. It teaches us manners — adab — before we even begin to ask.

 

Before we ask, we begin with His name.

Before we complain, we praise.

Before we speak of our pain, we remember His mercy.

 

There is a quiet order in those opening verses that the mind can miss if the heart is not paying attention.

 

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Begin with Allah.

 

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alamin.

Begin with praise.

 

Ar-Rahmanir-Rahim.

Begin with mercy.

 

Then bring your sadness to Him.

 

 

 

When life is difficult, our first instinct is often to look at the problem.

 

We look at what is missing. What went wrong. What people did or failed to do. What we lost. What we fear may happen next.

 

The problem becomes large. Sometimes too large. It fills the mind until the heart feels trapped.

 

Al-Fatihah quietly changes that direction.

 

It teaches us to begin not with the size of our problem, but with the greatness and mercy of Allah.

 

That does not mean the problem disappears. It does not mean sadness vanishes overnight. But something inside begins to shift. The heart begins to breathe again.

 

Because when we say Alhamdulillah, we are not saying life is perfect.

 

We are saying Allah is still worthy of praise, even when it is not.

 

That is a different kind of strength. And perhaps a deeper kind of healing.

 

 

 

Gratitude is often misunderstood.

 

Some people think being grateful means we should not feel sad, tired or disappointed. That a grateful heart must always appear untroubled.

 

But real gratitude does not deny pain. It simply refuses to let pain become the only truth in our life.

 

A person may be struggling and still say Alhamdulillah.

A person may be worried and still say Alhamdulillah.

A person may be waiting for answers, carrying responsibilities, facing uncertainty — and still whisper Alhamdulillah.

 

Not because the heart is free from burden. But because the heart still knows where hope comes from.

 

There is the Alhamdulillah of comfort — the one that comes easily when things go well.

 

And there is the Alhamdulillah of trust — the one that comes slowly, deliberately, from a servant who does not understand everything that is happening, but still believes Allah has not abandoned him.

 

The second one is harder to say. But it is also the one that carries the most weight.

 

 

 

Al-Fatihah also reminds us that Allah is Rabbil ‘Alamin — Lord of all the worlds.

 

The world outside us belongs to Him. But so does the small world inside us.

 

The world of our thoughts. The world of our sadness. The world of our fear. The world of our quiet tears and the things we cannot easily put into words.

 

Sometimes we can tell people what we are going through. Sometimes we cannot. Sometimes we do not even know how to describe what we feel.

 

But Allah knows.

 

And perhaps that is why mercy is mentioned again, immediately after.

 

Ar-Rahmanir-Rahim.

 

Almost as if the heart needs to hear it more than once. Because we forget.

 

When we are blessed, we forget that ease is mercy. When we are tested, we forget that mercy may still be present, even inside hardship. When doors close, when people disappoint us, when plans collapse, when the future feels uncertain — Alhamdulillah becomes heavier on the tongue.

 

Yet perhaps that is exactly when it becomes most meaningful.

 

 

 

This is where patience enters.

 

Sabr is not pretending to be strong all the time. It is not hiding every tear. It is not acting as though nothing hurts.

 

Sabr is the quiet strength to remain connected to Allah while passing through what we do not fully understand.

 

Sometimes it is not dramatic. It is holding back an angry word. It is choosing silence when the ego wants to win. It is continuing to do what is right even when the heart feels tired. It is accepting that some answers take time — and trusting that not every delay is punishment, and not every difficulty means Allah is far away.

 

 

 

In the examination hall of this world, the tests do not always arrive as hardship.

 

Some come as fear. Some as loss. Some as disappointment. Some as uncertainty.

 

But some of the hardest tests arrive as ease.

 

When life is difficult, we remember Allah. When life is comfortable, we sometimes forget. When we are in need, we raise our hands. When we feel in control, we may quietly begin to rely too much on ourselves.

 

That is why the heart needs Al-Fatihah every single day.

 

Not only when we are broken. But also when life is going well.

 

Because gratitude protects the heart from arrogance. And patience protects the heart from despair.

 

One teaches us not to forget Allah when we are given. The other teaches us not to lose hope when something is taken away.

 

 

 

The life of Nabi Ibrahim AS was never a life without tests. He was tried through separation, sacrifice, obedience and an almost incomprehensible surrender. And yet what remains from his story is not bitterness or exhaustion.

 

It is faith. It is return. It is the image of a heart that kept coming back to Allah, regardless of what the examination demanded of it.

 

Most of us will never be asked for what Ibrahim AS gave. We are simply trying to pass through our own small tests with a little more grace, a little more patience, a little more honesty.

 

But that too is part of the journey.

 

To fall, and return. To worry, and remember. To feel tired, and still whisper Alhamdulillah.

 

 

 

Perhaps this is the quiet wisdom inside Al-Fatihah.

 

It does not shame the heart for being sad. It does not insist that a believer must never feel pain. Faith does not ask the heart to become stone.

 

It simply teaches us where to go with what we carry.

 

Begin with Allah.

Praise Him.

Remember His mercy.

Then ask for help.

 

That order itself is healing.

 

A heart that begins with Allah does not see life in the same way as a heart that begins only with fear. A heart that says Alhamdulillah slowly learns to see what remains, not only what is lost. A heart that remembers Ar-Rahman and Ar-Rahim slowly learns that mercy is not always loud.

 

Sometimes mercy comes as strength. Sometimes as patience. Sometimes as protection from something we wanted but did not need. Sometimes as a quiet opening after a long season of waiting.

 

We walked into examination halls as children, carrying those words without fully understanding them. Some of us are still walking into examination halls — different rooms, harder papers, higher stakes — carrying the same words.

 

Only now we are beginning to understand what they were always for.

 

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Alhamdulillahi Rabbil ‘Alamin.

Ar-Rahmanir-Rahim.

 

Again and again, Al-Fatihah brings the tired heart back to where it belongs.

 

Not to despair. Not to endless complaint. Not to loneliness.

 

But to Allah.

 

And in that return, the heart begins to heal.

 

 

— KopiTalk Jiwa

Not Political. Just Honest.

 

KOPITALK WITH MHO

By Malai Hassan Othman · 21 May 2026 · Bandar Seri Begawan

The rejection came quietly.

A WhatsApp message, four lines, received at 4:12 on a Wednesday afternoon. A bookstore had decided, after careful consideration, not to carry a particular book. The title was political, the message explained. It did not fit the store's current product selection. Thank you for your understanding. Best wishes with the publication.

That was all.

Polite. Almost apologetic in tone. The door closed without a sound.

But something about that message stayed with me. Not the disappointment of a book not reaching a shelf. That happens. What stayed was the word used to explain it.

Political.

I have been writing about Brunei for more than forty years. I have covered government, economy, social affairs, faith, and the quiet anxieties of everyday life. And in all that time, one thing has remained stubbornly consistent: the fastest way to end a conversation in Brunei is to attach the word political to it.

It works like a full stop.

Discussion over. Window closed. Move along.

The book in question was not about elections. It was not campaigning for any party, and it was not calling for the overthrow of anything. From what I understand, it explored governance, participation, procurement, food security, youth engagement, and the honest question of whether Brunei is executing well enough on its own ambitions.

The kind of content one might find in a serious policy journal.

The kind of conversation that takes place in boardrooms, ministries, universities and, yes, in kopitiams across this country, every single day.

But it carried a label.

Political.

And that was enough.

Here is what I want to ask, simply and without malice: when did thinking seriously about our country become political?

There is a Malay concept that I find far more accurate for this kind of writing.

Muhasabah.

Self-reflection. The honest act of looking at where we are, what we are doing, and whether we are doing it well enough.

Muhasabah is not an act of opposition. It is an act of care. A Muslim who performs muhasabah at the end of the day is not attacking himself. He is trying to be better tomorrow. The same principle, applied honestly, holds for a nation.

"When a columnist writes about why government procurement takes too long, that is not politics. These are questions any responsible citizen, any thoughtful leader, any good manager should be asking. They are questions of national muhasabah."

When a columnist writes about why government procurement takes too long, that is not politics. When a researcher asks whether Brunei's youth are being given meaningful opportunities to contribute, that is not politics. When a policy thinker examines why Wawasan 2035 targets are not moving fast enough, that is certainly not politics.

These are questions any responsible citizen, any thoughtful leader, any good manager should be asking.

They are questions of national muhasabah.

The trouble is that we have allowed the word political to do the work that discomfort wants done. If a discussion makes us uneasy — if it asks us to examine systems we built, decisions we made, or habits we have settled into — it is easier to label it political and step away than to sit with the discomfort and think it through.

That habit, I would argue, is far more dangerous to Brunei's future than any book about governance.

Think of it this way.

If an engineer cannot discuss why a bridge is cracking, the bridge does not get fixed. If a doctor cannot discuss why a patient is not recovering, the patient does not get better. If a nation cannot discuss why its institutions are underperforming, its institutions do not improve.

Silence does not solve problems.

Silence only makes them harder to see until they are too large to ignore.

There is an irony here worth naming carefully. In many countries, including some in our own region, bookstores and public libraries often carry shelves of books on governance reform, economic policy, institutional failure, leadership mistakes, national renewal and public accountability. These societies are not perfect. They have their own red lines, pressures and sensitivities. But they have generally learned to treat serious policy discussion not as a threat in itself, but as part of the wider process of national learning.

That is the distinction we need to understand.

Discussion is not the enemy of development.

Discussion is part of development.

Wawasan 2035 is an ambitious vision. It speaks of a dynamic and sustainable economy, a skilled and educated people, and a high quality of life. But visions do not deliver themselves. They require honest conversations about what is working, what is not, and what genuinely needs to change.

They require intellectual courage — the willingness to ask difficult questions without needing to create difficult enemies.

They require citizens who feel empowered to think aloud, and institutions secure enough to listen without flinching.

A bookstore that will not stock a book about governance because it might seem political is not necessarily trying to silence anyone. It may simply be making a commercial decision in an environment it understands better than most of us care to admit.

That is why I do not blame the bookstore.

What is worth examining is the environment itself — the one in which a book about participation and accountability feels like a risk worth avoiding rather than a contribution worth considering.

Perhaps the real question is not whether a book is political.

Perhaps it is a simpler one: does it help us think more clearly, act more honestly, and build something better together?

If the answer is yes, then whatever label we choose to put on it, it deserves a place in our national conversation.

A nation does not grow through silence, ceremony and slogans alone. It grows through the courage to say, clearly and without bitterness, that we can do better than this.

That is not politics.

That is love for country.

---
KopiTalk with MHO · kopitalkmho.blogspot.com

When a Chip Company's Earnings Report Becomes Brunei's Warning

 GEOPOLITIK · KOPITALK WITH MHO · INAUGURAL EDITION

A chip company’s earnings report may look like a business story. But in today’s world, chips are no longer just chips. They are power, security, intelligence and leverage.

When Nvidia reports record revenue while China is kept out of its forward outlook, the real story is not only about profit. It is about the hardening rivalry between the United States and China — and the quiet pressure now reaching small states like Brunei.

We may not manufacture semiconductors. We may not sit at the centre of the AI race. But our investments, digital infrastructure, foreign partnerships and policy choices are already being shaped by a world where technology has become geopolitics.

The question is no longer whether Brunei should pay attention.

The question is whether we are reading the world carefully enough before its consequences arrive at our doorstep.

#Geopolitik #GeopolitikBN #KopiTalkMHO #BruneiPerspective #AI #Geopolitics

By Malai Hassan Othman · 21 May 2026

It came in with the morning emails. Not spam — just one of those newsletters I subscribe to, the kind that arrives daily and competes quietly with everything else in an inbox that never quite empties.

The headline was about Nvidia — the American chip company — reporting an 85 percent jump in revenue.

My first instinct was to scroll past.

After all, what does a semiconductor company's earnings report have to do with me? What does it have to do with Brunei?

I am glad I stopped.

Because the more I sat with it — coffee in hand, the morning still slow — the more I realised this was not simply a business story. It was a geopolitical story wearing a business story's clothes.

And Brunei, whether we are paying attention or not, is sitting inside it.

That, in many ways, is what Geopolitik KopiTalk hopes to do: to read global events not as distant headlines, but as signals that may one day arrive at Brunei's doorstep.

FIRST, WHAT IS NVIDIA?

Nvidia makes semiconductors — the chips that power advanced computing.

Not only the ordinary chips inside phones or laptops, though those matter too. Nvidia makes the high-performance chips that power artificial intelligence, data centres, supercomputing and increasingly the systems behind modern economic and military capability.

Every time we use an AI tool, analyse large data sets, generate content, automate decisions or train complex models, there is a strong chance that somewhere behind the curtain, Nvidia's hardware is part of the engine.

In the current global race to build artificial intelligence, these chips are not just products.

They are strategic assets.

Whoever controls access to these chips holds enormous influence over who gets to compete, who gets delayed, and who may be left behind.

That is where the story stops being about technology and starts being about power.


"The chip restrictions are not merely a technical standards dispute. They are strategic economic pressure through commercial law — and ASEAN sits uncomfortably close to the crossfire."

THE POWER PLAY UNDERNEATH

Buried inside Nvidia's record results is a detail that deserves more attention than it received.

The company has excluded China from its forward revenue outlook for certain data centre chip sales. Not because China is an unimportant market. It is enormous. But because the United States government has imposed export controls and licensing restrictions on the sale of advanced AI chips and related technology to China.

The restriction is framed in the language of export controls and national security.

But we should be honest about what sits underneath.

Washington has concluded that advanced semiconductors are no longer ordinary commercial goods. They are the foundation of modern military, intelligence and economic power — precision weapons, autonomous systems, signals intelligence, cyber capability, strategic planning and advanced surveillance.

In American strategic thinking, allowing China unrestricted access to cutting-edge AI chips may mean helping a rival close a critical technological and military gap.

So the chip restriction is not merely a trade dispute. It is a deliberate attempt to slow China's technological rise in areas Washington considers strategically sensitive.

This is the power play that the comfortable word "standards" can sometimes hide.

When decision makers treat the issue only as a technical question — interoperability, data privacy, intellectual property, procurement standards — they may miss the engine driving it.

There are no technical standards alone that explain why the world's most powerful economy is prepared to sacrifice billions in commercial revenue to deny critical chips to a rival.

Only strategy explains that.

WHY THIS LANDS AT BRUNEI'S DOORSTEP

Brunei is a small sovereign state. We do not manufacture semiconductors. We do not have a chip industry. We are not sitting at the centre of the AI hardware supply chain.

So where exactly does this land?

Closer than most of us may realise.

Consider Hengyi Industries — Brunei's largest foreign direct investment, a Chinese petrochemical refinery operating on Brunei soil.

This is not to suggest that Hengyi is under sanction, or that Brunei has done anything wrong. The point is simpler: when a small economy builds a major part of its downstream industrial future around a large foreign strategic investor, it must also understand the geopolitical atmosphere surrounding that investor.

The United States has already demonstrated, through its sanctions regimes against Russia, Iran and others, that it is prepared to penalise third parties doing business with designated entities. That architecture exists.

If US-China tensions escalate to the point where secondary sanctions become an instrument of pressure, Brunei's downstream energy industrialisation story could become exposed — not because Brunei chose a side, but because one of its largest economic bets may be read through the lens of great-power rivalry.

That is the uncomfortable reality small states must understand.

Exposure does not always come from intention.

Sometimes it comes from association.

Consider too the digital infrastructure choices being made today — in government systems, telecommunications, financial services, cybersecurity, cloud services and data governance.

If Brunei builds its digital economy too deeply on platforms, equipment or standards from one bloc, and the technological decoupling between rival blocs hardens, we may one day find ourselves constrained by choices made years earlier. Not by declaration. Not by ideology. But by procurement decisions, vendor relationships, system dependencies and infrastructure pathways that quietly lock us into one side of a divided technological world.

And consider what neutrality actually costs in a world of hardening choices. Brunei has managed its external relationships with great skill, maintaining ties with Washington, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Riyadh and others at the same time. That balancing act has served the country well.

But it becomes significantly harder when the two largest powers are no longer simply competing for influence, but increasingly demanding alignment.

Neutrality remains important.

But neutrality without strategic awareness can become wishful thinking.

THE GAP WE CANNOT AFFORD

My concern — and it is a genuine one — is that decision makers may see this mainly as a matter of technical standards between the West and China, and fail to see the power play underneath.

That is a comfortable reading.

It is also an incomplete one.

Small states often manage each bilateral relationship in isolation. One ministry sees an investment opportunity. Another sees a security dialogue. Another sees a digital upgrade. Another sees a trade opening. Each transaction may make sense on its own.

But the harder question is not whether each relationship is useful.

The harder question is whether the combined exposure is understood.

A minister dealing with a Chinese infrastructure proposal may see investment. A minister attending a US security dialogue may see diplomacy. A regulator assessing digital infrastructure may see technical compliance. A business agency promoting downstream industries may see growth.

All of them may be right.

But who is looking at the whole board?

Who is asking what happens if the global environment changes, and the relationships we once treated separately begin to collide? Who is stress-testing Brunei's economic model against a world where technology, trade, finance, security and diplomacy are no longer separate files, but one connected geopolitical system?

That question does not have an easy answer.

But it needs to be asked — plainly, carefully and without the comfortable assumption that Brunei's careful neutrality will protect us indefinitely from choices we have not yet made.

A QUESTION TO CARRY AWAY

I started the morning almost scrolling past a chip company's earnings report.

I ended it wondering what kind of world Brunei is preparing for.

Are we reading global developments deeply enough? Are we connecting the dots between technology, investment, trade, sanctions and national resilience? Are we preparing for a future where choices made quietly today may become strategic constraints tomorrow?

The world, as it turns out, has its own plans.

The least we can do is read them carefully.


---
Geopolitik · KopiTalk with MHO · kopitalkmho.blogspot.com 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: BRUNEI CAN HELP FEED THE WORLD. BUT CAN IT FEED ITSELF?

A fertiliser plant that serves farmers across the world raises a quieter question about the farmers at home.

 

KopiTalk with MHO
By Malai Hassan Othman

Brunei can now help feed the world.

Read that again and let it settle. For a small country that spent most of its modern life selling oil, that is something worth pausing over.

Brunei Fertilizer Industries — wholly owned by the Government of Brunei Darussalam and built at Sungai Liang in the Belait District — is now one of the largest single-train fertiliser plants in Southeast Asia. Its customers stretch from Thailand and Vietnam to Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas. The plant produces 3,900 metric tonnes of granular urea every day. More than 1.3 million tonnes a year.

These are not paper targets. This is a working plant, serving real farmers in real countries, helping grow real food.

That is a point of genuine national pride. And it should be said clearly before anything else.

But pride should make us more honest, not less.

Because here is the quieter, harder question that follows: if Brunei can produce fertiliser at that scale to help farmers across the world, how much of that same strength is helping the farmers here at home?

The answer, based on official data, is more uncomfortable than we might like.

In a January 2026 briefing, officials confirmed that Brunei had reached 112 per cent self-sufficiency in eggs and 100 per cent in broiler chicken. Good progress, and it deserves acknowledgment.

But the same briefing told a different story for almost everything else on the plate. Local rice production covers only 8.5 per cent of national need. Beef and buffalo meat: 1.6 per cent. Tropical fruits: 43 per cent. Vegetables: 78 per cent. Fish and shrimp: around 63 per cent.

These are not abstract statistics. They are the gap between what Brunei grows and what Brunei eats — a gap that gets paid for every day in import bills, and felt acutely whenever global prices rise, shipping is disrupted, or a producing country faces its own crisis.

Now here is the detail that makes this picture even sharper.

Among BFI's newer products is a fertiliser specifically developed to help rice grow better. The science is straightforward: without the right nutrients in the soil, rice yields fall short — and one of the most common and correctable causes of poor rice harvests is a soil deficiency that targeted fertiliser can address directly. BFI identified this problem and developed a product to fix it.

Brunei grows 8.5 per cent of the rice it eats.

BFI has a product designed to help close exactly that kind of gap.

The question this raises is not whether BFI has done its job. The question is whether that product — and others like it — is reaching Brunei's own padi farmers, at workable prices, backed by proper soil guidance and farmer support. Or whether its main practical impact remains concentrated in larger export markets.

That question deserves a clear, public answer.

To be fair, this is not BFI's burden to carry alone. Growing more food in Brunei requires more than better fertiliser. It requires land, water, training, financing, market access and young people who see a future in farming worth pursuing. No single company solves all of that.

But BFI is not just any company.

A plant of that scale, owned by the government, sitting at the upstream end of the food chain, carries a public-interest importance that goes beyond export volumes and production records. Its value to the nation should be measured not only by what it sells abroad, but by what it enables at home.

There are signs that the domestic link is being taken more seriously. Borneo Bulletin reported in April 2026 that BFI had appointed Wasan Milling Company — which last year more than doubled Brunei's national rice milling capacity — as local distributor for domestically produced fertiliser. In May 2026, BFI and UNISSA formalised a strategic partnership through a memorandum of understanding to strengthen research and industry collaboration.

These are encouraging moves.

But encouragement is not the same as a system.

A distributor appointment does not transform agriculture. An MoU does not put more local produce on the supermarket shelf. What turns individual initiatives into genuine national progress is whether they are connected — whether there is a clear strategy linking fertiliser supply to soil testing, farmer training, crop planning, market access and measurable improvement over time. And whether anyone is tracking, honestly, whether things are actually getting better.

Are Brunei's farmers getting access to BFI's products at the right price and in the right quantities? Is fertiliser supply translating into better yields? Is the drive for rice self-sufficiency being coordinated with the very plant that produces the nutrients rice needs most?

These are not complicated questions. They are basic accountability questions. And they deserve clear answers from the agencies responsible.

Wawasan 2035 promised Brunei a diversified, sustainable economy — one that builds real capability across multiple sectors and leaves the next generation with more options than the last. Food security is part of that promise. So is making sure that strategic national assets work for the whole country, not just the export ledger.

Brunei has a consistent pattern of building impressive things, and then not quite connecting them to the next national priority. A plant gets built. A plan gets written. An MoU gets signed. And somewhere in between, the farmer in Tutong is still running the same calculations he ran five years ago, wondering whether planting another season still makes sense.

That is not necessarily a failure of vision. It is a failure to follow through.

And it is the kind of weakness that does not announce itself loudly. It builds quietly — in rising import bills, in shrinking agricultural land, in a younger generation that sees farming as a last resort rather than a serious livelihood.

Brunei does not need to grow everything itself. That is not the point. But it must decide which food categories matter most, which local sectors deserve serious long-term investment, and which national assets — BFI among them — can be deployed more deliberately to close the distance between what we produce industrially and what we can actually put on our own table.

That journey must not stop at the export jetty.

It must reach the field. The farmer. The padi grower weighing whether to plant another season.

It must reach the market.

It must reach the dinner table.

So yes — well done, BFI. Well done, Brunei.

We should be proud that this country can now help feed the world.

But pride should not stop us from asking the harder question.

Can Brunei also feed itself?

That is the real food for thought.

— Malai Hassan Othman
KopiTalk with MHO | kopitalkmho.blogspot.com

Wawasan 2035: What the Numbers Don't Say — Part Three of Four

For eighteen years, Brunei has spoken of diversification.

The plans are there. The roadmaps are there. The committees, consultations and policy language are all there.

But the flatlines remain.

Perhaps the harder question is not whether Brunei has ambition. It clearly does.

The harder question is whether the system around that ambition is strong enough, urgent enough, and accountable enough to deliver it.

Government job security. Missing scoreboards. Fragmented responsibility. Subsidies that soften pressure. Tourism constraints that few want to name too plainly.

These are not secrets.

They are the invisible walls between aspiration and delivery.

KopiTalk with MHO — Part Three: What Nobody Wants to Say

 

KopiTalk with MHO

 

 WHAT NOBODY WANTS TO SAY

The structural factors behind the flatlines — and why they have rarely been named plainly.

 

By Malai Hassan Othman | Investigative Journalist & Policy Analyst, Brunei Darussalam

 

The previous two columns examined what the numbers show. This column examines what they do not — and why.

 

The Brunei Economic Outlook 2026 is a candid report by the standards of official analysis in a small country where institutional relationships matter and political sensitivity is real. It names declining retail, structural fiscal deficits, the feedstock dependency of downstream diversification, and the flatlines across four of five priority sectors.

 

These are important findings. But there are structural factors behind those findings that official reports — for entirely understandable reasons — have approached with caution.

 

These factors are not secrets. Anyone who has worked in or studied Brunei's economy recognises them. They surface in careful language in AMRO consultation reports, in peer-reviewed academic papers, in the footnotes of development studies. They are discussed, quietly, in offices and over coffee.

 

What they rarely are is said plainly. In public. With the clarity that a policy conversation about such matters requires.

 

That is what this column will attempt.

 

─────────────────────────────

THE JOB THAT NEVER NEEDED TO BE EARNED

─────────────────────────────

 

For two generations, the rational career path for a capable Bruneian graduate has been the same: seek government employment. Stable income. Pension. Predictable hours. Social status. The security that no private sector employer in tourism, food, ICT, or services can credibly match.

 

This is not a criticism of those who made that choice. It is a description of rational behaviour in a system that makes it the obvious one.

 

The consequence is structural. The private sector in non-oil sectors — the sectors Wawasan 2035 depends on — competes for talent against an institution offering security that no commercial enterprise can replicate. It loses that competition more often than not.

 

The BEO 2026 notes, carefully, that the government has adopted a stance of "no longer acting as employer of first resort." That is the stated position. The social expectation, built across decades, has not shifted at the same pace.

 

In measurable terms, the number of locals employed in the private sector rose from approximately 75,000 in 2019 to more than 90,000 in 2024. That is real progress. But much of that movement came from necessity during the pandemic years, when foreign workers left and firms had no alternative. The deeper question — whether young Bruneians are choosing the private sector or being drawn into it by circumstance — remains an open one.

 

Until the career calculus changes — not through exhortation but through a private sector that can credibly compete on opportunity and reward — the four flatlined sectors will continue to struggle for the talent they need to grow.

 

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THE PLAN WITHOUT A SCOREBOARD

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Here is a structural feature of Wawasan 2035 that is rarely discussed publicly: it has no hard numerical targets per sector.

 

No percentage of GDP that ICT must reach by 2030. No tourist arrival number that constitutes success or failure. No employment benchmark for the food sector. No investment threshold for services.

 

The BEO 2026 confirms this. Wawasan 2035, it notes, "does not set out rigid numerical targets such as specifying a percentage GDP share for each sector or a fixed number of jobs per industry." The operational roadmap translates the vision into priorities and directions. Not into measurable, time-bound outcomes with clear ownership attached.

 

Without a scoreboard, there is no accountability. Without accountability, there is no urgency.

 

Without urgency, there is activity — committees, strategies, roadmaps, MOUs, consultations, launches — but not necessarily results.

 

This is not a conspiracy. It is a design feature. And it is the architecture that has allowed eighteen years to pass, four sectors to flatline, and the distance between Wawasan 2035's ambitions and their delivery to remain, as yet, without a formal owner.

 

The gap between intention and execution is real. The gap between execution and accountability has, in the absence of hard targets, remained difficult to measure.

 

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EVERYONE'S PROBLEM IS NOBODY'S PROBLEM

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Ask a straightforward question: who is accountable if Brunei's tourism sector falls short of its 2035 ambitions?

 

The Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism holds the mandate. The Brunei Economic Development Board courts investors. The Ministry of Finance and Economy controls the budget. Local authorities govern land use. Immigration determines visa policy. Halal certification falls under a separate institutional domain entirely.

 

An investor navigating this landscape does not encounter a single government. They encounter a series of offices, each with its own process, its own timeline, and its own set of approvals. Every door has a key. Finding the person who holds all the keys is a different matter.

 

The same fragmentation applies to food security, ICT, and professional services. Multiple agencies with overlapping mandates. Multiple planning cycles that do not always align. Multiple approval layers that, in a more streamlined system, could move faster.

 

The AMRO 2025 consultation report identifies constraints related to Brunei's "bureaucracy" alongside labour market and cultural factors. The BEO 2026 calls for "bankable roadmaps" with "clear links to power reliability and skills development" — a call that reflects both the distance still to be covered and the urgency of covering it before 2035.

 

When responsibility is spread across enough agencies, it is difficult to say who answers for the overall result. This is not a failure of individuals. It is a structural challenge. And structural challenges can be addressed — but only if they are named clearly enough to be acted on.

 

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THE SUBSIDY THAT COSTS MORE THAN MONEY

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Energy subsidies account for approximately 6 percent of GDP, according to the BEO 2026. That is the fiscal cost. The economic cost is less frequently examined.

 

Subsidised fuel, electricity, and other household provisions reduce the pressure that, in other economies, drives enterprise. When the cost of living is cushioned substantially by the state, the push that motivates people to build businesses, take commercial risks, and create new industries is moderated. Not removed — but moderated.

 

The evidence appears in an unexpected part of the BEO 2026. Brunei's financial institutions have grown their foreign lending portfolio from 11 percent of total loans in 2020 to 31 percent by the third quarter of 2025 — the highest level on record.

 

In plain terms: capital is finding its opportunities abroad.

 

The domestic private sector, in the non-oil sectors Wawasan 2035 depends on, is not generating the investment pipeline that a diversifying economy should be producing. Local banks are not making a poor decision. They are responding to a market that is not yet offering enough to keep that capital at home.

 

Subsidy reform is the hardest policy conversation in Brunei. Not because the economics are complicated — they are not — but because subsidies are part of the social contract. They are the tangible expression of what oil wealth has meant for ordinary Bruneians across two generations. Reforming them requires touching something more than a budget line.

 

But the BEO 2026 is clear: a credible medium-term fiscal framework requires rationalisation of energy subsidies and a broadening of the non-oil revenue base. The fiscal arithmetic demands it. The elevated oil prices from the Middle East conflict offer a rare window to begin the transition with a buffer in place.

 

That window will not remain open indefinitely.

 

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THE HONEST TOURISM RECKONING

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This is the observation that successive tourism strategies have tended to frame carefully rather than resolve directly.

 

Brunei's tourism offering — pristine rainforest, Islamic heritage, safety, quiet authenticity — appeals to a specific and relatively small segment of the global market. It does not appeal, structurally, to the majority of travellers who drive volume tourism in Southeast Asia.

 

The government's own strategy acknowledges this implicitly by adopting a high-value, low-volume regenerative model centred on eco-tourism, cultural heritage, and wellness. That is the appropriate response to real constraints. The BEO 2026 itself rates tourism's 2035 viability as "low" — the only sector to receive that assessment — noting that "strict local regulations make it difficult to compete with mass-market heavyweights like Bali, Phuket, or Sabah."

 

The structural constraints are specific. Ground transport for independent travellers remains limited. Hotel room inventory is insufficient for scale. Air connectivity has shrunk from 29 routes before the pandemic to 22 today. The high-value visitor that the regenerative model targets requires a premium product — in Temburong eco-infrastructure, wellness facilities, trained guides, and digital marketing — that has not yet been built at the pace the model requires.

 

The honest conversation is this: tourism, as currently structured, may contribute more reliably to national identity and cultural positioning than to GDP and employment at the scale Wawasan 2035 originally envisaged. Acknowledging that openly would allow policy attention and investment to concentrate where returns are demonstrably higher — in logistics, aquaculture, professional services, and ICT. That shift requires naming the constraint clearly first.

 

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WHY THIS MATTERS FOR WHAT COMES NEXT

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None of the five factors above are secrets.

 

None require insider access or classified information. They are observable, documented, and acknowledged — in careful language — across multiple official and academic sources. What they have lacked is a plain public naming. A clear statement that connects these structural realities to the outcome the data shows: eighteen years, four flatlines, nine years remaining.

 

These are not technical problems. They cannot be resolved by another strategy document, another stakeholder consultation, another roadmap placed beside the previous one.

 

They require political will. And political will, in any system, grows from honest public conversation — the kind that makes it easier to act than to wait.

 

In the final column, we ask what accountability actually looks like in practice — not in theory, but in the specific, achievable steps that the remaining nine years still make possible.

 

Nine years is not enough to do everything.

 

It is enough to do the right things.

 

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Next: Part Four — "The Reckoning We Cannot Defer"

 

Data sources: Brunei Economic Outlook 2026 (CSPS, April 2026); BDKI 2025 (DEPS); AMRO 2025 Annual Consultation Report on Brunei Darussalam; BEO 2026 Labour Force Survey data; UBD Institute of Policy Studies Policy Brief 2024; Department of Economic Planning and Statistics quarterly reports 2024–2025.