The Name Was Never the Problem

For years, we argued over the names—Ali Baba, Ali Chandran, Ali Bangla. But what if the names were never the real story? This concluding essay asks a harder question: did we lose ground because others were stronger, or because we never built the institutions, ecosystems and discipline needed to compete ourselves?

KopiTalk with MHO

June 2026

Part 5 of the KopiTalk series on local economic participation in Brunei

From Ali Baba to Ali Chandran to Ali Bangla — the name has changed three times. The question underneath it has not moved an inch.

By Malai Hassan Othman

When this series began, Brunei was in the middle of another familiar cycle.

A viral complaint.

A new name.

A round of outrage on WhatsApp and TikTok.

Fingers pointing at foreign-run shops, foreign workers, foreign operators quietly building networks in spaces that local enterprise had left vacant.

The name this time was Ali Bangla.

But the name was never the problem.

It was never Ali Baba either.

Or Ali Chandran.

The name is what we reach for when we are not ready to say what we actually mean.

What we actually mean is this: Brunei has watched others organise inside its own market — systematically, patiently, effectively — while local economic participation has remained fragmented, cautious, and too often dependent on government support rather than commercial discipline.

That is not a complaint about foreigners.

It is a description of a structural failure that belongs to us.

Five parts.

One argument.

Part 1 named the pattern — how the same complaint has resurfaced under different names across decades, and why the name change is not the story. The story is why the system keeps producing the same outcome.

Part 2 explained the mechanics — how what looks like a shopfront is often the visible tip of a supply chain, and how the real competition is not between individual operators but between organised ecosystems and isolated individuals.

Part 3 placed the responsibility — who wrote the policy, who runs the system, who issued the licences, who rented them out, who chose the foreign stall over the local one. One finger pointed outward. Three pointed back.

Part 4 asked the harder question — so what do we build? And answered it: purchasing alliances, cooperative structures with commercial discipline, commercial spaces designed for small local businesses, financing pools, and a fundamental shift in what we count as progress. Not licences. Businesses that last.

Part 5 closes the circle.

Everything this series has examined — retail, food and beverage, construction, commercial property — tells the same story from a different angle.

In retail, the organised network survives on margins that would close an isolated shop.

In construction, the visible subcontractor is often the front of a labour, hardware and transport chain that stretches far beyond the project site.

In commercial property, shophouse lots in some of Brunei’s newer developments have been priced at levels that price out the local entrepreneur before they even open the door. When commercial space costs what it costs, and when banks will only lend against a leasehold with sufficient years remaining, the local operator starting alone is already at a structural disadvantage before the competition begins.

The pattern is the same in every sector.

The organised network absorbs cost, shock and risk across the chain.

The isolated individual absorbs it alone — and often closes.

This is not a coincidence.

It is what happens when a market is left to fill itself without a deliberate strategy to build local economic ecosystems alongside it.

The series has also been honest about something more uncomfortable than the structural failure.

The local licence holder who rents out his licence is not a victim. He made a calculation — that passive income is safer and easier than building a business. He was right, given the conditions. But the conditions were shaped by a policy environment that rewarded nominal ownership over active enterprise, that measured licences issued rather than businesses built, and that never asked, year after year, how many of those registered enterprises were actually running.

The local consumer who queues at the foreign stall is not disloyal. She made a calculation — that the price was better, the service more consistent, the product more reliably available. She was right, given what was on offer. But the offer was shaped by a market where organised operators had built the supply chain to compete on price and consistency, and where local enterprise had not yet organised itself to match.

The local contractor who hires foreign labour is not unpatriotic. He made a calculation — that the workers were more available, more willing, and often less expensive. He was right, given the labour market. But the labour market was shaped by decades of discouraging locals from entering certain trades, by a culture that associated certain work with status rather than skill, and by an education system that pointed everyone toward a desk job and called it aspiration.

In every case, the individual made a rational decision.

In every case, the system made that decision rational.

That is the reckoning the series has been building toward.

Not blame.

Not anger.

A clear-eyed look at how a system produces outcomes, and what it would take to produce different ones.

The regional lesson is worth repeating one final time, plainly.

Indonesia’s Benteng Policy gave preferential licences to indigenous citizens to build a merchant class. It produced rent-seekers, not entrepreneurs. It was abolished as a failure.

Malaysia’s affirmative action policy gave preferential treatment in contracts, equity and licensing. It helped some. It did not build a commercially disciplined entrepreneurial class. Decades later, the same conversation continues.

Singapore faced the same structural weaknesses in its Malay-Muslim business community and chose a different path — consolidation, professionalisation, shared infrastructure, institutions capable of competing at scale.

Brunei has had all three case studies available.

The question has never been whether we knew.

It has always been whether we were honest enough — and organised enough — to act.

So where does this leave us?

Not in despair.

The argument of this series has never been that Brunei cannot build a stronger local economic ecosystem. It has been that Brunei has not yet organised itself seriously enough to do it.

That is a different problem.

It has a different solution.

The solution is not a new policy name.

It is not another entrepreneurship programme.

It is not a crackdown on foreign shopfronts that leaves the underlying conditions unchanged.

It is local supply chains with local hands at every link.

Cooperatives governed like businesses, not committees.

Commercial spaces affordable enough for a local entrepreneur to survive long enough to become competitive.

Financing that reaches the people who need it.

KPIs that measure whether businesses lasted, not whether licences were issued.

And it is the consumer who chooses local — not out of guilt, but because local enterprise has organised itself well enough to deserve the choice.

The man in Muara who started with a barber shop understood something simple.

You do not wait for a policy to build an ecosystem.

You start with what you have.

You learn the trade.

You add one business.

Then another.

Then another.

One decade at a time.

That method is not foreign.

It is not complicated.

It is not beyond Brunei.

It just requires something that no policy document can mandate and no enforcement agency can deliver:

The decision to stop pointing at the name — and start building the thing.

The pattern is known.

The responsibility is ours.

The blueprint already exists.

The only remaining question is whether we are finally prepared to use it.

KopiTalk with MHO  •  Malai Hassan Othman

Substack: kopitalkwithmho.substack.com  •  LinkedIn: Distribution

Concluding part of the five-part KopiTalk series on local economic participation in Brunei.

The Currency We Cannot Carry

Every journey needs the right currency. We exchange money before crossing borders, yet often forget the longest crossing of all. When dunia ends, what we kept may stay behind. What we converted into sincerity, kindness and amal soleh may already be waiting in the only place that finally matters.

KOPITALK JIWA

A reflection on Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayat 23–26

By Malai Hassan Othman

I was at the money changer, handing over what I had, when the thought arrived without warning.

Not about exchange rates. About the one journey that does not have a counter like this.

The border I will one day cross alone, with no time to convert what I have been holding, no window to approach, no rate to check. What I carry into that crossing will already need to be in the right currency.

Perhaps it was the taddabur class earlier that week, sitting with Surah Al-Baqarah, ayat 23 to 26, that had put the thought there. Perhaps it had been waiting and the money changer just gave it a place to land.

Because these four ayat speak directly to what we are actually carrying.

First, a challenge to doubt.

Then a warning.

Then glad tidings.

Then a lesson about the smallest things.

—  —  —

Ayat 23 stopped me first.

If you are in doubt about what Allah has revealed, then produce a surah like it.

Not a gentle invitation. A direct challenge.

Produce something like it.

Call your witnesses.

Try.

Real truth is not afraid of examination. And the Qur’an came to a people who prized language above everything — whose poets could raise tribes and shame enemies with words alone. Yet when the Qur’an arrived, even those who opposed it felt something different.

This was not ordinary speech.

It entered the conscience.

It did not merely impress.

It exposed.

I know both kinds of doubt.

I have asked questions that were genuinely searching — unsettled, but sincere, wanting light.

And I have asked questions that were really just buying time. Dressed as inquiry. Quietly protecting something I was not yet ready to surrender.

The Qur’an, I find, is not unkind to honest searching.

But it does not flatter the second kind.

That is why Ayat 24 comes with weight. If the challenge cannot be met, then the heart must not treat truth as something harmless to postpone forever. There is consequence to seeing and still refusing. There is danger in turning doubt into a permanent shelter.

The warning of Fire is not there to crush the searching heart.

It is there to wake the heart that keeps playing with what it already knows.

—  —  —

Then comes the glad tidings.

Those who believe and do righteous deeds.

That word caught me.

Not those who believe, full stop.

Believe and.

Because iman is not meant to stay only as a feeling in the chest. It has to travel — to the tongue, to the choices, to how I earn, how I speak, how I treat the person who has nothing to offer me in return.

Faith that never leaves the chest has not yet become fruit.

I keep thinking about BND10.

In dunia, giving it away is a loss by any ledger. The wallet lightens. The numbers go down. But if that BND10 leaves the hand with sincerity — to ease a burden, to feed someone, to please Allah without anyone watching — then perhaps it has not disappeared.

Perhaps it has only been converted.

From money into mercy.

From the currency of dunia into something the next world will recognise.

From something I cannot carry across the grave into something that may already be waiting.

I find this thought both comforting and unsettling.

Comforting because it means nothing sincere is wasted.

Unsettling because it asks me to look honestly at what I am actually converting — and to admit what I am just spending on myself.

—  —  —

Then Ayat 26 takes a turn I did not expect.

After the challenge of revelation.

After the warning of Fire.

After the promise of gardens beneath which rivers flow.

Allah mentions a mosquito.

A mosquito.

Tiny.

Annoying.

Something I have swatted without a second thought my whole life.

I sat with that for a while.

Because the point, I think, is not the mosquito.

The point is the heart standing before it.

A humble heart can receive a reminder from the smallest thing. An arrogant heart can stand before the greatest sign and still find a reason to look away.

The same verse softens one person and irritates another.

The same reminder brings one person back to Allah and makes another more defensive.

I have felt both.

I know the quiet irritation when a reminder lands too close to something I was not ready to change.

I know the way the heart reaches for reasons to dismiss rather than receive.

The difference is rarely in the reminder.

It is in the posture of the heart standing before it.

—  —  —

So I came away from that taddabur class with a question I could not put down.

What am I converting?

Time passes through my hands.

Words.

Attention.

A little influence.

The ability to help, occasionally.

Some of it disappears into habit and distraction. But some of it — not all, but some — can still be converted into something the next world will accept.

That is the accounting I find harder to face than any financial one.

Not how much I earned.

But how much of what I earned became goodness.

Not how much I believed.

But how much of that belief became action.

The question is no longer only what is in my wallet.

The question is what has already left my hand for Allah.

The money changer I visited before that trip is still there. Other travellers are still exchanging what they have into what the next place will accept.

But for the longest journey — the one with no return — the exchange cannot wait until the border.

What we kept stays here.

What we converted for Allah has already gone ahead.

— KopiTalk Jiwa

So What Do We Build?

Part 4 of the KopiTalk series on local economic participation in Brunei

Read here for Part 1: The Same Question, Asked Again, Part 2: Why Do Others Build Ecosystems While We Build Shops? and Part 3: Three Fingers Pointing Back

A man in Muara started with a barber shop. Thirty years later, he has branches across Brunei under different names, same network, same family. Nobody gave him an ecosystem. He built one. Part 4 of the KopiTalk series asks the only question left: so what do we build?

#KopiTalkMHO

KopiTalk with MHO

June 2026

The complaints are familiar. The diagnosis is done. The only question left is whether Brunei is serious enough to do what it already knows.

By Malai Hassan Othman

There is a man in Muara who started out with a barbershop.

Then a restaurant. Then a retail store. Now he has branches in more than one location, each under a different business name, each quietly connected to the same owner, the same family network, the same community of suppliers and workers stretching back to where he came from.

He has been in Brunei for over thirty years.

He did not arrive with capital. He arrived with patience, a trade, and the willingness to learn one business before moving to the next.

Nobody gave him an ecosystem. He built one.

That story comes from a 2019 UBD study on Ali Chandran’s businesses in Brunei. It is not exceptional. It is the pattern. The Indians first worked for Chinese retailers. They learned the trade. When the Chinese moved into white-collar jobs and professional careers, they stepped in and took over the retail space they had vacated. Then they diversified — into tailoring, restaurants, hardware, and construction-linked activities.

One business at a time. One decade at a time.

That is not luck. That is a method.

And if we are honest with ourselves, it is a method Brunei has been watching for thirty years without fully understanding what it was watching.

Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series have been uncomfortable reading — deliberately so. They named the pattern, explained the mechanics, and placed the responsibility where it belongs: not with Ali Chandran, not with Ali Bangla, but with the system we designed, the choices we made, and the culture we allowed to take root.

Part 4 does not relitigate that.

Part 4 asks the only question that matters now: so what do we build?

Start with the most basic truth the series has established. The real competition in Brunei’s retail and food-and-beverage sector is not between local and foreign shopkeepers. It is between organised networks and isolated individuals. The organised network almost always wins. Not because it is foreign. Because it is organised.

The scale of what is being contested is easy to underestimate. Wholesale and retail trade is the largest employer in Brunei’s private sector, with more than 27,000 workers, according to the 2022 Annual Census of Enterprises. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, retail sales reached almost BND448 million. These are not small margins at the edges of the economy. This is where tens of thousands of livelihoods sit — and where the competition between organised networks and isolated individuals plays out every single day.

And domestic retail is under pressure. Bruneians are spending more abroad. In 2017 alone, an estimated BND1.25 billion left Brunei’s retail market and crossed into Malaysia. The businesses that survived that outflow were the ones organised enough to offer something the Miri trip could not easily replace. The ones that were not organised enough simply closed.

So the answer to Ali Chandran and Ali Bangla is not enforcement alone.

Enforcement can close a shop. It cannot build a supply chain.

The answer is a local organisation. And Brunei has been talking about it since the Fifth National Development Plan in 1986.

That plan set out to make Bruneian Malays the leaders of industry and commerce. It did not deliver. The Ninth National Development Plan made the same promise. It did not deliver either. By the Tenth, the ambition was quietly broadened, and the specific target was quietly dropped.

Three development plans. The same aspiration. The same result.

The problem was never the aspiration. The problem was what was being counted as progress.

Licences issued. Programmes conducted. Businesses registered. These are the numbers that have been used to measure entrepreneurship in Brunei for decades. They count inputs. They say nothing about whether a business survived, whether it scaled, whether it employed anyone two years later, or whether the licence holder actually ran the business or quietly rented it out the following month.

A licence registered is not a business built.

A programme conducted is not an entrepreneur-made.

A recorded number is not an enterprise function.

If that is what progress means, Brunei will keep producing impressive statistics while the ecosystem around us continues to be built by someone else.

What genuine progress looks like is harder to count but not hard to define. How many registered businesses are still operating after three years? How many have moved from retail to wholesale, from one location to two? How many cooperative members have built businesses that outlasted the committee meetings? Those are the numbers that tell the real story.

There is another dimension this series cannot ignore, raised by a reader after Part 1 was published.

The commercial spaces that local entrepreneurs depend on — the shopfronts, the market stalls, the trading lots — are often owned by parties who have no particular interest in keeping rents affordable or local businesses alive. When property costs rise, the landlord passes it down. The isolated local operator absorbs it alone or closes. The networked operator absorbs it across the chain and survives.

You cannot build a local economic ecosystem if you cannot afford to stay in the building.

This is where urban planning has a role that goes beyond traffic management and zoning rules. Dedicated commercial spaces within public housing areas — affordable, accessible, designed for small local businesses rather than large commercial tenants — are not a luxury. They are infrastructure for local economic participation. The UBD study made this recommendation in 2019. It remains unaddressed.

So what do we actually build?

Purchasing alliances, so local businesses can buy at the same scale as networked operators. Cooperative structures that are governed like businesses, not managed like committees. Commercial spaces that belong to local enterprises, not to whoever can afford the highest rent. Financing pools that give local entrepreneurs access to working capital without having to borrow alone and fail alone.

And we change what we count.

Not licences. Businesses that last. Not programmes. Entrepreneurs that scale. Not registrations. Supply chains with local hands in them at every link.

The man in Muara who started with a barber shop did not wait for a programme. He did not rent out his opportunity. He worked it — one decade, one business, one branch at a time.

He understood something that three national development plans and decades of entrepreneurship slogans have not managed to instil at scale: that you do not build economic power by registering a licence. You build it by using one.

The question is not whether Brunei knows how to build an ecosystem.

The question is whether we are finally ready to start.

This concludes the four-part KopiTalk series on local economic participation in Brunei. The argument across all four parts is this: the pattern is known, the responsibility is ours, and the blueprint already exists — in the quiet, patient method of those who built ecosystems while we debated who was to blame.

KopiTalk with MHO  •  Malai Hassan Othman

Substack: kopitalkwithmho.substack.com  •  LinkedIn: Distribution

Part 4 of a four-part series on local economic participation in Brunei.

When the Heart Walks Only by Flashes

Sometimes the heart does not fear darkness, but the light that exposes what it has long avoided. This KopiTalk Jiwa reflection walks through fire, lightning, thunder and rain to ask: when truth finally arrives, do we walk towards it — or cover our ears until the storm passes over us?

KOPITALK JIWA

When the Heart Walks Only by Flashes

A reflection on Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayat 17–22

I was afraid of lightning as a child.

The flash always came first — sudden, sharp, and without asking permission. For one brief second, it showed everything the darkness had been kindly concealing.

The room.

The shapes.

The real scene, whether you were ready or not.

And then came the thunder.

That was the part that frightened me more.

Because thunder meant the truth had not merely flashed. It had arrived. That deep, rolling sound filling the chest felt like a warning — something much larger than you had entered the room and could no longer be ignored.

As a child, I thought I was afraid of lightning.

Perhaps I was really afraid of the truth it brought.

I thought about that childhood fear during a recent taddabur class on Surah Al-Baqarah, ayat 17 to 22. Because both images are in these verses — the light that reveals, and the thunder that announces. And sitting with them, I began to wonder whether the child’s anxiety and the heart’s anxiety are not so different after all.

The flash shows what is there in the darkness.

The thunder tells you that you cannot pretend you did not see.

—  —  —

Allah gives us two images in these verses.

The first is a fire. Someone lights it, and for a moment, light spreads around him. Everything becomes visible — the path, the people, the comfort of being able to see. Then Allah takes away the light. And the person is left in darkness, unable to move.

It is a frightening image because it tells us something the heart does not always want to hear.

Not all darkness begins with ignorance.

Sometimes darkness comes after we have already seen.

The munafiq was not someone who had never encountered truth. He saw the light. He felt its warmth. He walked among believers and experienced the comfort of belonging, the language of faith, and the outer shape of guidance. But because the heart refused true iman, the light did not settle inside.

It remained outside him.

And here is the part that stays with me. Knowledge received but not lived does not simply disappear. It remains. As evidence. As a quiet argument against the very self that was given it.

That is the more frightening darkness.

Not the darkness of never having seen.

The darkness after knowing.

—  —  —

Then comes the second image. The one closer to my childhood.

Allah describes a rainstorm — darkness, thunder, lightning. Whenever the lightning gives them light, they walk. When darkness covers them again, they stop.

But notice what they do with the thunder.

They put their fingers in their ears.

Not merely because it frightens them. But because the thunder announces what the lightning has just revealed. The flash shows the truth. The thunder declares that you cannot pretend otherwise — that the weight of knowing has arrived, and with it, the obligations that follow.

The discipline. The ego-lowering. The demand to be consistent, not merely inspired.

The munafiq wanted the warmth of belonging without the surrender of the heart. He wanted the identity of faith without the interior work faith requires.

So he blocked the thunder.

When faith feels easy, he walks.

When it asks for discipline, he stops.

When reminders comfort him, he walks.

When they correct him, he stops.

When religion gives him language, he walks.

When religion asks him to become truthful, he stops.

He was not afraid of the lightning.

He was afraid of the oncoming truth.

—  —  —

That mirror does not point only outward.

It is easy to read verses about hypocrisy and think of someone else. But the journey of the heart begins by noticing the small contradictions within ourselves.

I think of the good I delay though I am able. The apology I owe but keep postponing. The advice I reject because it stings. The truth I know but do not say because silence protects my comfort.

Small things.

But small things repeated become a direction.

And perhaps that is how the darkness returns — not all at once, but little by little, each time we choose not to walk after the light has shown us the road.

—  —  —

Then, after all the darkness and the storm, the Qur’an turns and says something very simple.

O mankind, worship your Lord.

This — according to the scholars — is the first direct command to all of humanity in the Qur’an’s arrangement. Not to one tribe or one generation. To all of us. After parables, after warnings, after images of fire and storm, the call is simply: return to foundation.

The purpose of that worship is not ritual without soul. It is taqwa — a living shield between the heart and what destroys it.

The ground beneath our feet — He provided it. Before we learned how to walk, the earth was already beneath us. Before we understood hunger, provision was already written.

Yet the heart still bows before status. Still gives its deepest fear to what cannot create. Still gives its deepest hope to what cannot provide the very ground on which it stands.

That is not only ingratitude.

It is simply illogical.

Tauhid is not a sentence on the tongue. It is the reordering of what the heart obeys.

—  —  —

The Qur’an chose these images — fire, darkness, lightning, thunder, rain, fruit — not to deliver a cold lecture. But because the body already understands them. Before the mind explains, the heart recognises.

Fire that goes out after you finally found its warmth.

Darkness that comes not at the beginning, but after the light.

Lightning that shows everything, whether you are ready or not.

Thunder that announces you must now live by what you saw.

Rain that softens what has become hard.

Fruit that only grows from ground willing to receive.

Maybe that is the real question.

Not whether we were moved by the flash.

Many of us have been moved before — by a verse, by a loss, by a quiet moment after prayer, by guilt that visited when no one else was watching.

The question is whether we allowed the rain to reach us.

Whether the ground is still soft enough for something to grow.

Because a heart touched by guidance should eventually produce fruit — not spiritual excitement that fades by morning, but something quieter and more lasting. A more honest life. A heart that remembers Allah not only when thunder shakes the sky, but also when the day is calm and ordinary.

—  —  —

The storm may still frighten me.

But I understand now what the child did not fully understand.

The lightning was never the real thing to fear.

A flash is brief. A flash asks for emotion. It allows us to feel moved without yet being changed.

But thunder is different.

Thunder asks for honesty. It asks: now that you have seen, what will you do?

Perhaps the deeper prayer is this: Ya Allah, when the truth arrives, do not let me cover my ears.

What I fear more now is a heart that has learned to walk in the flash — and cover its ears before the thunder.

— KopiTalk Jiwa

When a Small Nation Sits With a Big Power

At Kazan, Brunei’s meeting with Russia was more than protocol. It signalled how a small state navigates a divided world: keeping channels open, protecting ASEAN’s relevance, pursuing national interest, and speaking on Palestine, Iran and peace. Diplomacy gave Brunei a seat; consistency will determine its weight at that table tomorrow.

Brunei, Russia and the quiet dignity of diplomacy

A Geopolitik column by Malai Hassan Othman

For many Bruneians, the image from Kazan was more than just another diplomatic photograph.

There was His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei, seated face to face with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Beside His Majesty was His Royal Highness Prince ‘Abdul Mateen, Brunei’s newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.

To the outside world, it may have looked like another formal meeting between two leaders.

But to us, as Bruneians, the image carried a deeper meaning.

Brunei is a small country. We do not have Indonesia's population, Singapore's economic weight, or the military reach of the great powers.

But small does not mean insignificant.

That image reminded us that Brunei still has a seat at the table. It has a voice. It has sovereignty. It has relationships. And in a world where big powers are pulling in different directions, the ability to sit, speak and be heard is not a small thing.

That is why the Kazan meeting matters.

It was not merely about protocol. It was not only about courtesy. And it should not be read too narrowly as Brunei moving closer to Russia or choosing one side over another.

That would miss the larger point.

Brunei was present.

For a small nation, presence matters. We cannot afford to disappear from important conversations while larger powers reshape trade, energy, security and diplomacy around us.

Brunei and Russia are marking 35 years of diplomatic relations this year, a relationship formally established on 1 October 1991. Over the years, cooperation has developed in education, defence, security, culture, trade, energy and people-to-people exchanges, supported by mechanisms such as bilateral consultations, a Joint Working Group and regular Navy Staff Talks.

These may sound like official phrases. But put simply, they mean Brunei is keeping communication channels open with a major power.

In a world where misunderstanding can quickly become tension, and tension can quickly become conflict, small nations need channels. They need working relations. They need the ability to speak directly with major powers, even when the global mood is difficult.

This is not a weakness.

This is survival with dignity.

The presence of His Royal Highness Prince ‘Abdul Mateen as Minister of Foreign Affairs also gives the meeting added institutional weight.

It was not just a royal presence. It was also a foreign policy moment.

His Royal Highness’s role signals both continuity and preparation. It places Brunei’s next generation of leadership directly within the practice of diplomacy, where relationships are built slowly, files are followed through carefully, and national positions must be defended with discipline. Foreign policy is not only about today’s handshake. It is also about tomorrow’s relationships and the machinery needed to sustain them.

For Brunei, this matters.

We live in a region where every major power wants influence. China is rising. The United States remains deeply engaged. Russia is looking more seriously towards Asia. India is expanding its reach. Japan, Korea, Australia and the European Union remain important partners.

Where does a small country like Brunei stand in all this?

The answer is not to shout.

The answer is to be steady.

Brunei must know its size, but also know its worth.

This is where ASEAN becomes important.

Alone, Brunei is small. Within ASEAN, Brunei sits as part of a regional family that all major powers must take seriously.

ASEAN Centrality may sound like diplomatic language, but the meaning is simple. Southeast Asia should not become a playground for big-power rivalry. The region should not be forced into simple choices of “with us” or “against us”.

For Brunei, ASEAN gives our voice a wider reach.

That is why His Majesty’s appreciation of Russia’s support for ASEAN Centrality was important. It showed that Brunei’s message was not only bilateral. It was also regional.

Brunei was saying, in effect, that Southeast Asia must remain in the driver’s seat of its own region.

The meeting also touched on practical possibilities, and this is where diplomacy becomes more than ceremony.

His Majesty welcomed Russian businesses to explore investment opportunities in Brunei, including downstream oil and gas, food, services, tourism and ICT. Russia has also pointed to energy, tourism and humanitarian exchanges as areas with potential, supported by existing people-to-people links and visa-free travel arrangements.

The invitation is genuine. Brunei needs capital partners, and its diversification agenda is real. But investment talk is not neutral. It carries weight, and it sends signals.

Brunei should move with deliberation. Exploration is not the same as commitment. But it is not without consequence either, especially at a time when Russia’s international position remains deeply contested, and many countries are watching how others engage with Moscow.

The areas worth pursuing are those where cooperation is practical, grounded and unlikely to complicate Brunei’s broader relationships. The art is in choosing carefully and then following through with the same care.

That is why the distinction must be made clearly: engagement does not mean endorsement.

Talking does not mean agreeing with everything.

Cooperation does not mean surrendering judgment.

This is the line small nations must learn to walk.

His Majesty’s remarks on the Middle East gave the meeting a dimension that went well beyond trade or bilateral ties.

He expressed deep concern over Palestine and Gaza. He reiterated support for an independent State of Palestine based on the two-State solution and pre-1967 borders. He called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and unimpeded humanitarian access.

His Majesty also spoke on Iran, opposing the use of force and calling for diplomacy and dialogue. He referred to the Strait of Hormuz — a place far from Brunei on the map, but close to the world’s economic nerves.

Why should Bruneians care about the Strait of Hormuz?

Because when that region burns, the world feels the heat. Oil prices move. Shipping routes become nervous. Trade becomes uncertain. Small economies feel the ripple.

So when His Majesty raised Palestine, Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, Brunei was not speaking as a distant observer. Brunei was speaking as a small Muslim-majority nation, an energy economy, an ASEAN member, and a country that understands the cost of instability.

This is why diplomacy matters.

Some may ask: why meet Russia?

Perhaps the better question is: how can a small country afford not to talk to major powers?

Talking is not a weakness. It is not surrender. It is not taking sides.

It is one way small nations prevent silence from being mistaken for irrelevance.

But there must always be principles.

Brunei’s foreign policy cannot be reduced to friendship with everyone and silence on everything. That would be too easy. True diplomacy must carry both courtesy and conviction, especially when the issues are uncomfortable.

It must be able to shake hands and still speak about peace.

It must be able to discuss trade and still speak about Gaza.

It must be able to welcome cooperation and still stand by the rules-based international order.

That is the balance Brunei must maintain.

Kazan was not only about Brunei and Russia.

It was about a small nation showing up in a divided world — not with arrogance, but with a clear sense of where it stands and what it needs.

His Majesty raised Palestine, Iran and the Strait of Hormuz not as diplomatic courtesy, but as a reminder that Brunei’s interests are not confined to its own borders. When energy routes are threatened, Brunei feels it. When the Muslim world is in pain, Brunei speaks. When international rules are strained, Brunei has reason to defend them. That is not sentimentality. That is a small nation defining its own terms of engagement before others define them for it.

The real test of Kazan is not the meeting itself.

It is what Brunei does in the months that follow.

Whether the investment conversations move forward with the discipline they require. Whether the channels opened with Russia are used to advance Brunei’s interests, or simply to fill a calendar. Whether the principles His Majesty articulated in that room — on Palestine, on dialogue, on restraint and on the rules-based international order — are carried forward consistently, including when they are inconvenient.

A seat at the table is earned once.

Credibility at that table is earned repeatedly.

Brunei sat down in Kazan.

What it does next is the column that has not yet been written.

The Other Diversification

Brunei’s diversification debate focuses on oil and gas. But the pension series revealed a harder question — can a country change what it earns from without changing how it governs itself? Economic diversification is necessary. Civic diversification may be what makes it last. — KopiTalk with MHO

Four essays about pencen tua have led, unexpectedly, to a bigger question.

Not about pensions.

Not even about welfare.

About the kind of country Brunei is becoming — and whether the changes it needs are only economic.

Every time Brunei’s fiscal challenges come up in serious conversation, the answer points in one direction: diversify.

Move away from oil and gas. Build new industries. Develop tourism, financial services, the halal economy, digital services and downstream industries.

The message has appeared in development plans, budgets and policy papers for decades.

And it is the right message.

The economic case for diversification is not in dispute.

But the pension debate exposed something that economic diversification alone cannot fix.

It exposed a political culture — a set of habits, expectations and relationships between the state and its people — shaped by the same oil wealth the country is now trying to move beyond.

You can change what a country earns from.

The harder question is whether you can also change how the country governs itself, and how citizens relate to that governance.

That question is rarely asked out loud.

Let us ask it.

When economists talk about a rentier state, they mean a country whose government revenue comes mainly from natural resources rather than from taxing the productive activity of its citizens.

The state does not depend heavily on the people’s money. Instead, it provides welfare, subsidies, employment opportunities, public services and a relatively affordable cost of living.

Over time, that arrangement shapes behaviour.

In countries where citizens pay income tax, the accountability reflex is stronger. People ask where their money goes because they can feel it leaving.

In Brunei, the relationship has long worked differently.

The state gives.

Citizens receive.

Over time, receiving can come to feel less like a policy and more like a settled way of life.

This is where the syukur tah mindset grows — the feeling that citizens should simply be grateful, avoid asking too much, and not appear inda pandai besyukur.

Gratitude is a virtue.

But gratitude should not become silence.

To be grateful for stability does not mean we stop asking how that stability can be protected for the next generation.

In a resource-dependent system, legitimacy often rests on what government provides rather than on active public participation.

Governance tends to flow from the top down.

Policies are announced.

The public adapts.

This is not a criticism of any individual or administration.

It is an observation of what resource-dependent systems often produce over time.

And here lies the question that matters most for Brunei’s future.

A country can diversify its economy, reduce dependence on oil and gas, attract investment and build new industries — yet still keep the same old habits.

The source of income changes.

The relationship between the state and society does not.

If that happens, Brunei may solve part of the fiscal challenge while leaving a deeper governance challenge untouched.

New industries.

Same habits.

New revenue.

Same silence.

That is not transformation.

That is substitution.

Brunei’s own development journey has long recognised that progress is about more than income alone.

Economic plans can create opportunities. But lasting development depends on the quality of institutions, the readiness of citizens and the ability of society to adapt.

A productive economy ultimately requires productive citizens.

Not merely workers and consumers, but people who think, participate, contribute ideas and take responsibility for the future they will inherit.

What Brunei needs alongside economic diversification is civic maturation — a gradual evolution in how citizens understand their relationship to the state and to one another.

Not disruption.

Not dismantling what has been built.

But deepening something already present within the country’s own foundations.

Because MIB — Melayu Islam Beraja — is not a passive framework.

Sometimes accountability and civic participation are discussed as though they are foreign concepts.

They are not.

Long before modern political theories emerged, Islamic civilisation placed great emphasis on consultation, stewardship, learning and public responsibility.

These were not merely rights.

They were obligations.

The challenge, therefore, is not whether Brunei should import new values.

It is whether we are fully applying the values we already claim as our own.

Islam carries within it syura — consultation and the seeking of counsel.

It carries amanah — trust, stewardship and accountability.

It carries the Maqasid framework, which seeks the protection of faith, life, intellect, family and wealth.

These are not decorative concepts.

They are standards against which governance can be measured.

They are already embedded in the country’s identity.

The question is whether they are being applied with the fullness they deserve.

Political evolution within MIB does not mean copying the political models of other countries.

It means something more basic.

It means citizens asking honest questions about public resources because they care about the future, not because they seek confrontation.

It means institutions — ministries, advisory bodies, the Legislative Council, civil society organisations and the media — functioning as meaningful channels of feedback and accountability.

It means a public conversation that can discuss challenges honestly without being mistaken for disloyalty.

This is not an argument for confrontation.

It is an argument for feedback.

Every successful organisation understands this principle.

Businesses seek customer feedback.

Schools assess performance.

Families discuss problems around the dinner table.

Yet when it comes to national issues, difficult questions are sometimes treated as discomfort rather than information.

The result is that concerns can be heard by everyone except the people best positioned to act on them.

That is not healthy for any society preparing for a more difficult future.

Citizens should see themselves not only as beneficiaries of the country, but also as stewards of it.

The pension debate provides a small but revealing example. Three essays on pencen tua generated thoughtful public discussion about fiscal sustainability, welfare reform, retirement preparedness, generational fairness and the responsibilities of both government and citizens.

What made the discussion valuable was not that everyone agreed.

They did not.

Some argued for greater assistance.

Others emphasised fiscal realities.

Some focused on protecting the vulnerable.

Others stressed personal responsibility.

That is precisely how a healthy public conversation should work.

Serious societies do not avoid difficult questions.

They work through them.

The greater risk is not disagreement.

The greater risk is silence.

Yet the discussion also revealed a familiar gap — between what is being discussed publicly and what appears to be heard institutionally.

Between conversation and response.

That gap is part of the broader challenge that economic diversification alone cannot solve.

Wawasan 2035 speaks of a highly educated and skilled people.

It speaks of quality of life.

It speaks of a dynamic and sustainable economy.

Those ambitions are important.

But achieving them requires more than infrastructure, investment and policy targets.

It requires citizens who think independently, ask sensible questions, solve problems and contribute ideas without fear that every difficult conversation will be mistaken for criticism.

A knowledge economy cannot be built on passive citizenship.

Innovation requires curiosity.

Accountability requires engagement.

Progress requires a willingness to examine honestly what is working and what is not.

We are now less than a decade away from 2035.

The economic diversification agenda is well known.

The civic dimension receives far less attention.

Yet the two are connected.

The periuk nasi metaphor from the earlier essay still applies.

We are fields drawing water from the same source.

The quality of governance affects the economy.

The quality of public discourse affects governance.

The quality of citizenship affects both.

Brunei does not need to abandon its foundations to make this transition. The principles are already there — in MIB, in syura, in amanah and in the belief that leadership and responsibility go hand in hand.

Economic diversification may change what the country earns from.

Civic diversification may determine what kind of country those earnings ultimately build.

Brunei already has what it needs for both.

The principles are stated.

The values are embedded.

The foundation is there.

What the next nine years require is the courage to apply them — fully, honestly, and without mistaking difficult questions for disloyalty.

―

Note: This is the fifth and closing essay in the KopiTalk with MHO pension and welfare series. The earlier essays are BND 500 Is Already There, BND 500 for Whom? The Pension Question Brunei Still Has to Answer, Pencen Tua Was Born in a Different Brunei, and When the Comfortable Go Quiet.

The series began with a question about pensions. It ends with a larger question about citizenship, responsibility and the kind of society Brunei hopes to become. The pension debate may have provided the starting point, but the conversation should not end here.

A Titah That Means Business

A new Cabinet has been sworn in, but His Majesty’s titah was more than a welcome. It was a reminder that titles mean little without delivery. With Wawasan 2035 approaching, Brunei’s test is no longer planning. It is whether the rakyat can finally feel the results of government action.

KopiTalk with MHO

By Malai Haji Othman | KopiTalk with MHO | June 2026

There is a version of a formal address that every government knows how to produce.

It lists achievements. It thanks ministers. It speaks of progress, confidence and continuity.

It is safe. It is familiar. It offends no one.

What came out of the 92nd Cabinet Council Meeting on 15 June 2026 was not that version.

His Majesty delivered two titahs — one at the opening and one at the close. Read separately, each carries weight. Read together, they form something more important: a clear message to the new Cabinet on what Brunei must now fix, how the Government must work, and why time is no longer a luxury.

Pull up a chair. This one matters.

ROYAL PRESENCE, PUBLIC STANDARD

This was the first Cabinet Council meeting for the newly appointed Cabinet for the 2026–2030 term.

It was also the meeting where His Majesty formally welcomed the royal princes into the Cabinet and the Cabinet Council, expressing confidence that they would play important roles based on their inclination and previous experience in government.

That is the formal record.

But the wider message of the titah was not about personalities. It was about standards.

In the same address, His Majesty reminded all ministers to carry out their duties with honesty, integrity and ethics. He also stressed that the government machinery must remain free from cronyism, nepotism and any form of abuse of power that could affect the credibility of the Government.

That line applies not to one person, not to one group, and not to one ministry.

It applies to everyone entrusted with public office.

That is not a small thing.

THE MIRROR OF PUBLIC REACTION

There was another signal in the opening titah that deserves more attention than it will likely receive.

His Majesty acknowledged that the appointment of the new Cabinet had drawn various reactions from inside and outside the country, with much of it expressed through social media.

Overall, the new lineup was received positively. But those reactions also carried expectations: that ministers would discharge their trust properly and perform better than in the previous term.

Then came the line that matters most.

Constructive criticism should be treated as a reason for self-reflection and as motivation to correct weaknesses.

In a country where public commentary is often careful, that statement gives responsible criticism a legitimate place in the national conversation. It does not mean every comment online is wise. It does not mean every criticism is fair.

But it does suggest that when criticism is constructive, it should not automatically be treated as hostility.

It can be a mirror.

It can be a warning light.

Confidence in office is not given once and forgotten. It must be earned through conduct, delivery and results.

COORDINATING MINISTERS: TITLE OR TRUST?

The appointment of three Coordinating Ministers is not merely a change in title.

His Majesty made clear in the closing titah that these posts carry an important amanah. Their task is to ensure that ministries under national security, economy, and social and human capital do not move separately, but in line with national goals.

In plain language: the old silo problem has been named.

Every government knows this problem. One ministry plans. Another delays. One agency approves. Another asks for more documents. One committee meets. Another committee waits.

The rakyat only sees the result — slow delivery, unclear responsibility and policies that look good on paper but do not always move on the ground.

Coordinating Ministers have been given the mandate to issue directives on cross-cutting issues of national importance.

But there is a critical limit.

Any decision involving new policy, strategic policy change, significant resource allocation, or major inter-agency consequences must first receive His Majesty's consent.

This clarifies the nature of the post.

Coordinating Ministers are not being asked to become independent power centres. They are managers of execution, not architects of policy. Their authority lies in coordination, discipline and follow-through.

Their task is to close gaps, not create confusion.

That is both a constraint and a clarity.

For years, Brunei has had many plans, many committees and many frameworks. The issue has rarely been the absence of ideas. The issue has been delivery.

That is what this structure is now being asked to fix.

WAWASAN 2035: THE CLOCK IS LOUDER THAN THE PLAN

Less than a decade remains before 2035.

Not twenty years. Not fifteen. Less than ten.

His Majesty said every approved KPI and target must be translated into concrete action plans, complete with timelines, assigned responsibilities and effective monitoring mechanisms.

Not frameworks.

Not workshops.

Not another round of consultations or committee minutes that produce polite agreement but no visible outcome.

The question being asked is now simpler.

Who is responsible?

What is the timeline?

How will progress be monitored?

What happens when a target is missed?

That is the language of delivery.

His Majesty also said every blueprint, strategy and plan must be regularly reviewed to remain relevant to changing conditions.

A plan is not sacred because it was printed nicely. If the world changes, the plan must change. If circumstances shift, government must be responsive enough to shift with them.

For those watching Brunei's governance cycles for decades, this lands with weight. Too many blueprints have been produced, launched, celebrated — and then quietly left to gather dust while the next planning cycle begins.

His Majesty appears to know this too.

Planning is not governance.

Delivery is.

NATIONAL SECURITY JUST GOT BIGGER

Perhaps the most substantive policy signal in either titah is the one that may receive less commentary than it deserves.

His Majesty explicitly broadened the meaning of national security.

It is no longer confined to military and defence. His Majesty named four pillars that must all be kept robust and assured: political stability, economic security, energy security and food security.

This is significant for reasons beyond semantics.

It means a weakening food supply chain is a national security issue.

It means energy resilience, production, transition and supply assurance are national security issues.

It means economic fragility — especially in a country still structurally reliant on hydrocarbons — is also a national security issue.

For those writing about Brunei's food security gap, fiscal exposure and overdependence on oil and gas revenue, this framing is not new territory.

But it is official acknowledgement from the highest authority that these are not secondary concerns to be managed on the margins.

They are pillars of national survival.

UNEMPLOYMENT, GLCS AND THE JOBS QUESTION

His Majesty gave special attention to unemployment, calling for stronger efforts to create more quality jobs for locals while gradually reducing dependence on foreign labour.

The Government, he said, must work closely with the economic and industrial sectors to ensure better opportunities for Bruneians.

The interesting development is what sits alongside that directive.

GLCs — Government-Linked Companies — are now being positioned as a major engine of employment after oil and gas. His Majesty expressed hope that GLCs would grow into significant contributors to jobs and human capital, supporting more sustainable economic growth.

That is a heavy expectation.

Some GLCs have performed well. Others still need to demonstrate that they can deliver jobs, efficiency and public value at the level now expected.

They cannot be seen merely as corporate extensions of government comfort.

Words of hope are a starting point.

Structure and accountability are what turn hope into outcomes.

FDI: COORDINATION AS ECONOMIC NECESSITY

His Majesty also pointed to the need to strengthen the financial sector and attract foreign direct investment continuously, with closer cooperation with the Ministry of Development on land, infrastructure and support facilities needed to make Brunei easier for investors to enter and grow.

This is a practical point that should not be missed.

FDI does not arrive because a country says it wants investment.

Investors look at speed, clarity, land availability, infrastructure, approvals, utilities and confidence that government agencies can move together.

If one ministry promotes Brunei, but another cannot prepare the land, another delays the infrastructure, and another complicates the approvals, then the investor sees not potential, but friction.

Coordination is not an administrative luxury.

It is an economic necessity.

WHAT THE CABINET IS REALLY BEING TOLD

Strip away the protocol and formality, and the message from both titahs to the 2026–2030 Cabinet is this:

You have been given roles, not ornaments.

You have been given trust, not comfort.

The Coordinating Ministers must close the gaps that silos created. The KPIs must become action plans. The blueprints must stay relevant. The national security lens must include food, energy, economy and stability.

Unemployment must be tackled with more urgency. GLCs must become real contributors. FDI must be backed not just by ambition but by land, infrastructure and administrative readiness.

His Majesty ended by saying that success will not be measured by planning alone, but by results felt by the rakyat and visible impact on national development.

That sentence belongs in every ministry.

The 92nd Cabinet Council was not merely a ceremony. It was a briefing — direct, structured and unusually candid.

His Majesty did not soften the urgency of Wawasan 2035. He did not treat the silo problem as a minor technical matter. He did not dress cronyism and nepotism in diplomatic language.

The question now is not whether the ministers heard the titah.

They were in the room.

The question is what happens after they leave it.

That answer will not come in speeches.

It will come in jobs created, delays cut, food supply strengthened, investment made easier, GLCs made productive, KPIs tracked honestly, and ordinary Bruneians feeling that government plans are finally touching real life.

The kopi is poured.

The clock has started.

Malai Hassan Othman (MHO) is a veteran Brunei-based journalist, columnist and policy analyst with over 40 years of experience. KopiTalk with MHO is published on Substack.