Titah Ulang Tahun Keputeraan Ke-80: Perpaduan Sebagai Ukuran, Delivery Sebagai Bukti

Titah telah menetapkan ukurannya: perpaduan, integriti dan disiplin delivery. Apabila MMN kembali bersidang pada 3 Ogos, persoalannya bukan lagi apa yang telah dijanjikan — tetapi apakah hasil yang dapat dibuktikan? NDP mengemukakan enam soalan penting bagi memastikan titah diterjemahkan kepada tindakan.

Titah sempena Ulang Tahun Hari Keputeraan Ke-80 meletakkan perpaduan, integriti dan disiplin delivery sebagai ukuran sebenar kekuatan bangsa. Mesyuarat Kedua Dari Musim Permesyuaratan Ke-22 Majlis Mesyuarat Negara, yang bermula pada 3 Ogos, menyediakan ruang rasmi pertama untuk menguji sejauh mana ukuran itu diterjemahkan kepada tindakan.

Oleh Malai Hassan Othman

Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah Ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ’Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan dan Yang Di-Pertuan Negara Brunei Darussalam, menyambut Ulang Tahun Hari Keputeraan Ke-80 dengan satu titah yang menetapkan ukuran kekuatan sesebuah bangsa dengan cukup jelas.

Kekuatan bangsa tidak diukur daripada kemewahan yang dinikmati, tetapi daripada keikhlasan rakyat untuk bersatu padu menghadapi cabaran.

Setelah hampir enam dekad menaiki takhta, Baginda Sultan menyatakan bahawa hanya satu perkara kekal tidak berubah sepanjang peredaran zaman itu — kepercayaan, kesetiaan dan perpaduan — bukan pembangunan mahupun kekayaan hasil bumi.

Titah turut menegaskan bahawa Baginda Sultan tidak akan berkompromi dengan mana-mana pihak yang cuba memecahbelahkan perpaduan rakyat. Tiada tempat juga bagi gejala rasuah dan ketidakjujuran yang boleh mengancam kesejahteraan serta kemajuan negara.

Penegasan itu, walaupun disampaikan secara ringkas, membawa makna yang besar dan tidak sepatutnya dibiarkan berlalu begitu sahaja.

Parti Pembangunan Bangsa (NDP) berpendirian bahawa ini bukan sekadar titah sempena perayaan. Titah tersebut menetapkan satu ukuran yang digariskan sendiri oleh Baginda Sultan — dan ukuran itu perlu disandarkan kepada bukti serta hasil yang dapat dinilai.

Baginda Sultan turut menyeru generasi muda supaya tidak lagi menjadi penonton kepada perubahan atau sekadar pengguna teknologi ciptaan orang lain. Mereka digalakkan untuk bangkit sebagai pencipta, pemikir dan pemimpin berwawasan.

Usaha ini akan mendapat sokongan kerajaan menerusi kemudahan pinjaman mikro daripada Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam, Perbadanan TAIB dan Bank Usahawan.

Seruan ini perlu dibaca bersama realiti pasaran pekerjaan. Hampir 60 peratus majikan dilaporkan menghadapi kesukaran mencari dan mengekalkan pekerja tempatan yang sesuai — satu petunjuk adanya jurang struktur antara apa yang dihasilkan oleh sistem pendidikan dengan apa yang diperlukan oleh ekonomi.

Jurang itu turut tercermin dalam kadar pengangguran keseluruhan yang mencecah 5.2 peratus pada 2025. Pengangguran dalam kalangan wanita jauh lebih tinggi berbanding lelaki, iaitu 6.7 peratus berbanding 4.2 peratus. Kadar pengangguran wanita itu meningkat daripada 5.6 peratus pada tahun sebelumnya.

Seruan supaya belia menjadi pencipta tidak akan mencapai potensi sebenarnya sekiranya jurang kemahiran dan peluang ini terus dibiarkan tanpa sasaran masa, tanggungjawab institusi dan ukuran kejayaan yang jelas.

Titah turut mengakui secara terus terang bahawa cabaran fiskal negara masih memerlukan perhatian berterusan. Kerajaan akan terus memperluas sumber pendapatan bukan minyak dan gas, mengurus perbelanjaan negara dengan berhemat serta memperkukuh kemudahcaraan perniagaan.

Penegasan ini datang ketika defisit belanjawan bagi tahun kewangan 2026/2027 dijangka mencecah BND2.72 bilion berbanding unjuran hasil BND3.53 bilion. Hasil minyak dan gas pula menyusut daripada BND1.93 bilion kepada kira-kira BND1.50 bilion.

Dalam keadaan sedemikian, usaha memperluas hasil bukan minyak dan gas bukan lagi pilihan dasar biasa. Ia telah menjadi satu keperluan mendesak yang memerlukan disiplin delivery — iaitu keupayaan menterjemahkan dasar, arahan dan komitmen kepada hasil yang nyata serta boleh diukur.

Baginda Sultan turut menyatakan keyakinan terhadap peranan setiap Menteri Penyelaras — Menteri yang diberikan mandat untuk menyelaraskan kementerian dan agensi merentasi sektor tertentu — dalam memastikan jurang serta halangan pelaksanaan dapat ditangani dengan berkesan.

Data pemantauan yang tersedia memberikan konteks nyata kepada keyakinan tersebut.

Indeks Sentimen Perniagaan Bank Negara Brunei Darussalam bagi April 2026 mencatatkan subindeks guna tenaga pada 43.6, manakala jangkaan sebulan ke hadapan berada pada 44.6. Kedua-duanya jauh di bawah paras neutral 50, menunjukkan penguncupan guna tenaga dan sikap majikan yang masih berhati-hati dalam pengambilan pekerja.

Perniagaan bersaiz sederhana pula mencatatkan bacaan 22.3, yang terendah antara semua kategori saiz perniagaan. Sektor Perdagangan Borong dan Runcit jatuh mendadak daripada 66.9 kepada 20.7 selepas berakhirnya kemuncak perbelanjaan musim perayaan.

Data ini diterbitkan secara rasmi setiap bulan, namun kesedaran awam terhadapnya masih minimum. Sekiranya petunjuk awal yang jelas seperti ini tidak diterjemahkan kepada tindakan atau makluman berguna kepada perusahaan kecil dan sederhana yang paling memerlukannya, keberkesanan saluran penyelarasan dan tindak balas dasar wajar dinilai semula.

Titah telah pun disampaikan. Seluruh negara telah mendengar mesej Baginda Sultan kepada rakyat serta seluruh jentera pentadbiran negara.

NDP turut mendengar dan menerima tanggungjawab moral untuk membantu memastikan hasrat yang dititahkan diterjemahkan kepada tindakan. Ini selaras dengan peranan NDP sebagai rakan strategik kerajaan dalam merealisasikan aspirasi negara — bukan sekadar menyambut titah dengan penuh penghormatan, tetapi turut menyumbang melalui pandangan, penelitian dan cadangan yang membina.

Di sinilah pentingnya Mesyuarat Kedua Dari Musim Permesyuaratan Ke-22 Majlis Mesyuarat Negara, yang bermula pada Isnin, 3 Ogos 2026 bersamaan 19 Safar 1448 Hijrah.

Ia merupakan ruang rasmi pertama MMN selepas titah tersebut untuk menilai sejauh mana ukuran yang digariskan oleh Baginda Sultan benar-benar diterjemahkan dalam dasar, tadbir urus dan pelaksanaan.

Pengumuman rasmi menyatakan bahawa persidangan ini akan memberikan tumpuan kepada soalan, kenyataan menteri dan usul mengenai pelbagai perkara berkepentingan negara. Ia turut dijangka meneliti isu dasar, tadbir urus dan pembangunan negara selaras dengan keutamaan semasa.

Justeru, NDP menggesa Ahli-Ahli Majlis Mesyuarat Negara memanfaatkan ruang tersebut dengan mengemukakan soalan yang khusus, terukur dan berorientasikan hasil.

Pertama, kepada Kementerian Kewangan dan Ekonomi: Apakah garis masa, sasaran dan mekanisme sebenar untuk memperluas hasil bukan minyak dan gas, memandangkan defisit BND2.72 bilion dijangka berlaku serentak dengan penyusutan hasil daripada sektor minyak dan gas?

Kedua, kepada kementerian yang bertanggungjawab terhadap guna tenaga dan pembangunan kemahiran: Apakah pelan khusus untuk merapatkan jurang antara sistem pendidikan dengan keperluan sebenar majikan, memandangkan hampir 60 peratus majikan dilaporkan menghadapi kesukaran mendapatkan dan mengekalkan pekerja tempatan yang sesuai?

Jurang ini akan menentukan sama ada seruan titah kepada generasi muda untuk menjadi pencipta, pemikir dan pemimpin berwawasan benar-benar dapat direalisasikan.

Ketiga, kepada setiap Menteri Penyelaras: Apakah petunjuk prestasi utama yang khusus, terukur dan boleh disemak oleh orang ramai untuk membuktikan keberkesanan penyelarasan merentasi kementerian, jabatan, daerah dan agensi sejak struktur tersebut diperkenalkan?

Keempat, kepada agensi yang bertanggungjawab terhadap pemantauan ekonomi: Apakah langkah konkrit untuk memastikan data seperti Indeks Sentimen Perniagaan diterjemahkan kepada makluman awal dan tindakan bersasar untuk membantu perusahaan kecil dan sederhana, bukan sekadar kekal sebagai data teknikal?

Kelima, kepada Kementerian Pendidikan serta Kementerian Kebudayaan, Belia dan Sukan: Apakah dasar semasa dan tindakan konkrit yang telah dilaksanakan untuk mewujudkan persekitaran yang benar-benar kondusif bagi belia berkembang sebagai pencipta, pemikir dan pereka inovasi?

Apakah ukuran kejayaan yang akan digunakan untuk menentukan bahawa seruan titah supaya generasi muda tidak lagi sekadar menjadi penonton perubahan atau pengguna teknologi ciptaan orang lain telah mula menghasilkan perubahan?

Keenam, kepada Biro Mencegah Rasuah dan agensi berkaitan: Apakah inisiatif baharu yang telah atau akan diperkenalkan bagi memperkukuh usaha membanteras rasuah dan ketidakjujuran, susulan penegasan titah bahawa tiada tempat bagi gejala ini dalam masyarakat kerana ia mengancam kesejahteraan dan kemajuan negara?

Soalan-soalan ini bukan bertujuan mencari kesalahan. Bagi NDP, ia adalah cara paling jujur dan konstruktif untuk memastikan perpaduan, integriti serta disiplin delivery menjadi asas kepada perbahasan dan penelitian MMN.

Tahun 2027 akan menyaksikan Jubli Intan Pemerintahan Baginda Sultan dan Tahun Melawat Brunei — dua peristiwa penting yang sememangnya akan diraikan dengan penuh penghormatan.

Namun, sebagai rakan strategik kerajaan, NDP memandang lebih jauh daripada keraian itu.

Ukuran sebenar bukan hanya terletak pada kemeriahan majlis yang bakal diadakan pada 2027, tetapi pada sejauh mana perpaduan, integriti dan disiplin delivery yang dititahkan pada usia 80 tahun ini telah berakar dalam pentadbiran negara sebelum tarikh bersejarah itu tiba.

Titah telah menetapkan ukurannya. Kini, setiap institusi negara memikul tanggungjawab untuk membuktikan hasilnya.

— • —

Sumber: Titah Kebawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia sempena Ulang Tahun Hari Keputeraan Ke-80, 1448H/2026M; pengumuman Jabatan Majlis-Majlis Mesyuarat mengenai Mesyuarat Kedua Dari Musim Permesyuaratan Ke-22 Majlis Mesyuarat Negara; data BDKI 2025, Jabatan Perancangan Ekonomi dan Statistik; Indeks Sentimen Perniagaan April 2026, Bank Negara Brunei Darussalam; serta laporan dan analisis penulis dalam KopiTalk with MHO.

From Users to Creators: Is Brunei Ready to Answer the Sultan's Challenge?

Brunei has built the broadband, launched 5G and drawn up an ambitious digital future. But infrastructure cannot create innovators by itself. His Majesty has challenged young Bruneians to move from users to creators. The harder question is whether our schools, banks, businesses and government contracts are ready to let them build.

Brunei has spent a decade wiring itself for the future. The Sultan's call for young people to become creators now poses the harder question: what will Brunei build upon it?

By Malai Hassan Othman

His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Negara Brunei Darussalam, has set Brunei's young people a challenge that is easy to applaud and considerably harder to fulfil.

In his 80th birthday Titah, His Majesty expressed the hope that they would no longer remain spectators of change or merely use technology created by others. They must rise, in his words, as “pencipta, pemikir dan pemimpin berwawasan”—creators, thinkers and visionary leaders.

It is a stirring aspiration. It is also, on the Government's own evidence, a challenge Brunei is not yet fully equipped to meet.

The infrastructure is not in question. Internet penetration is approaching 99 per cent. A baseline fixed-broadband speed of 100 megabits per second is available nationwide, 5G is live, and the restructuring around Unified National Networks has centralised the wholesale telecommunications grid to accelerate upgrades.

Three flagship platforms have also moved into operation. The National Information Hub enables secure data-sharing between government agencies. BruneiID, launched in January 2026, provides single-credential access to government services. TARUS has processed interoperable digital payments since going live in March 2025.

BruHealth proved that a nationally deployed digital service could be adopted rapidly when it answered a real public need. The Cybersecurity Order 2023 and Personal Data Protection Order 2025 have meanwhile strengthened the foundations for security, privacy and digital trust.

Brunei, in short, has built the rails.

What is running on them is another matter—and the Government has said so itself.

The paradox the ministry acknowledged

At the Digital Economy Forum in late 2025, the Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications did something governments rarely do: it publicly named the gap between its digital investment and the results produced.

Officials described a series of “digital paradoxes”, with high connectivity paired with strikingly low economic output chief among them.

Despite the infrastructure, the information and communications technology sector contributed only about 2.3 per cent of gross domestic product—BND484.8 million in 2023, against the Brunei Darussalam Economic Blueprint target of BND1.3 billion by 2035.

Most companies used only basic digital tools. Barely one in 10 had reportedly adopted cloud computing, data analytics or automation.

More than seven in 10 Bruneians had mobile wallets, yet only a minority used them frequently, with cash continuing to dominate day-to-day transactions.

The ministry's diagnosis pointed to resistance to change, insufficient leadership within industries and low workforce readiness.

Strip away the diplomatic phrasing and the message is blunt: Brunei has developed an extraordinary capacity to consume digital services, but comparatively limited capacity to produce economic value from them.

His Majesty's call to become creators is therefore not merely a rhetorical flourish. It speaks directly to a national weakness the Government has already acknowledged.

Where the gap begins

If Brunei is to close that gap, the search should begin in the classroom—not the data centre.

The Ministry of Education's Digital Transformation Plan 2023–2027 is substantial on paper. It encompasses learning-management systems, smart classrooms, digital resources, education data, online services and digital assessment.

An EdTech Centre oversees educational technology and digital content. The Ministry has also introduced guidance to help teachers and school leaders use artificial intelligence responsibly in education.

But there is a crucial difference between digitalising how education is delivered and teaching students to create technology themselves. It is not yet clear how consistently Brunei is doing the latter.

A school can install smart boards, introduce electronic assessments and deploy AI-assisted learning without fundamentally changing the relationship between pupil, teacher and the one approved answer.

That may produce confident software users. It does not, by itself, produce creators.

The results suggest that the gap deserves serious attention.

Brunei's scores in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, were 442 in mathematics, 429 in reading and 446 in science—below the averages of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development across all three subjects.

Yet Brunei improved in all three domains between 2018 and 2022, an achievement the Ministry of Education said placed it among only four participating education systems worldwide to do so. It was a genuine and under-reported success, particularly amid the educational disruption caused by the pandemic.

Less encouragingly, only 3 per cent of Brunei's students reached the top two proficiency levels in mathematics, compared with an OECD average of 9 per cent.

Fewer than a third of students felt confident interpreting mathematical solutions in the context of a real-life challenge, according to OECD survey data.

Those are precisely the intellectual muscles upon which a creator economy depends: interpreting ambiguous problems, applying knowledge beyond familiar exercises and working without a model answer.

Publicly available information does not readily show how many Bruneian students learn coding or computational thinking through the core curriculum rather than after-school clubs; how many teachers are qualified to teach computer science or robotics; or how many student projects survive beyond the exhibition table and develop into viable products.

Nor is it easy to determine whether comparable opportunities exist across government, private, religious and rural schools.

That absence is not proof of failure. It does mean that people outside government cannot properly judge the scale, consistency or results of the effort—which is a problem in itself.

Who gets to build for Brunei?

Even a brilliant graduate needs somewhere to sell what he or she creates.

That is where government procurement enters the story—and where the questions become uncomfortable.

Government is among Brunei's most consequential purchasers of complex digital systems. Yet no readily accessible public breakdown appears to show how much of that spending is retained by Bruneian companies rather than passing through to overseas contractors.

It is similarly unclear how often local developers participate in core design and engineering, rather than installation, maintenance and technical support.

Do contracts with foreign technology companies contain measurable requirements for knowledge and skills transfer?

When a government system is completed, who owns its intellectual property?

Does Brunei retain the expertise to examine, modify and repair the system—or must it return to the original vendor whenever something fundamental needs to change?

None of this is an indictment of foreign partnership. A market Brunei's size cannot go it alone, nor should it try.

The issue is the quality of the partnerships and how much productive capacity they leave behind.

Buy sophisticated systems without insisting on meaningful local design participation, and the country risks becoming more digital without becoming more capable—modernisation without mastery.

The sovereignty test

The release of Digital Brunei 2030 on 2 June has brought these questions into sharper focus.

The five-year national plan combines four strategies: Digital Government, Digital Society, Digital Business, and Data and Artificial Intelligence.

Its proposed projects include the Gov.BN SuperApp and Citizen Portal, National Business Services Portal, further expansion of BruneiID and digital payments, an AI-capable data centre, a National Sovereign Cloud with artificial-intelligence computing capacity, and a national large language model grounded in the Brunei context.

These are not peripheral technology projects. They could become part of the country's strategic digital infrastructure.

Their announcement sharpens rather than settles the question arising from His Majesty's Titah.

Will young Bruneians help design, engineer and eventually own these systems—or will they principally be trained to operate technologies built for them by others?

Digital sovereignty does not require Brunei to manufacture every component domestically or shut out foreign technology. No small country can—or should—attempt complete technological self-sufficiency.

It means retaining enough command over critical data, digital identity, cybersecurity, essential infrastructure and strategic decision-making to protect the national interest.

It also means possessing sufficient local expertise to understand the systems upon which the country increasingly depends.

Data centres can operate on Brunei soil while their technology, expertise, ownership and profits reside elsewhere.

A sovereign cloud can carry the word “sovereign” in its title while its underlying architecture remains beyond meaningful local control.

A national large language model can reflect Brunei's language and culture, but the deeper test will be who trains it, who governs its data, who audits its behaviour and who owns the resulting intellectual property.

The Government's plans are ambitious. The challenge is ensuring that their delivery creates Bruneian engineers, cybersecurity specialists, data scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs—not merely another generation of technically competent users.

What Digital Brunei 2030 must prove

Digital Brunei 2030 correctly moves the national conversation beyond infrastructure. Its stated emphasis is on tangible and sustainable outcomes for government, business and society.

That is the right direction. But outcomes must be measured publicly if they are to remain distinguishable from activity.

Broadband speed and internet penetration are yesterday's scoreboard. They show that the foundations exist, not what the economy is producing from them.

The more revealing indicators now would include:

● the number and survival rate of Bruneian technology start-ups

● the value of exported digital products and services

● high-value digital jobs held by Bruneians

● locally owned intellectual property

● business adoption of cloud computing, automation and data analytics

● local participation in government technology contracts

● the number of students receiving sustained computer-science education

● the number of school and university innovations successfully commercialised

Workshops, launch events and hackathons generate good photographs. They do not, on their own, reveal whether a country is building an industry.

Nor does the existence of a plan guarantee that its benefits will be distributed widely.

If advanced digital opportunities remain concentrated among selected schools, exceptional students, large companies and well-connected institutions, Brunei may produce isolated success stories without creating a broadly capable digital generation.

That would fall short of the transformation His Majesty's words appear to demand.

The challenge belongs to everyone

His Majesty has placed the challenge before Brunei's young people.

But whether they meet it will depend partly on decisions made by people who are no longer young.

Schools will decide whether curiosity is encouraged or contained.

Universities will determine whether research ends in academic publication or proceeds towards working products.

Banks will decide whether an untested but promising idea deserves patient capital.

Established businesses will determine whether local innovators receive their first serious customers.

Government departments writing the next technology tender will decide whether public spending merely purchases another system—or deliberately builds Bruneian capability in the process.

Young people cannot become creators simply because they have been told to create. They need knowledge, opportunity, financing, institutional trust and a market willing to buy what they build.

Brunei has spent a decade laying fibre, building platforms and writing master plans. Digital Brunei 2030 has now given the country its clearest instructions yet.

What it has not given Brunei is a guarantee. That will be written not in the plan, but in whether a generation of young Bruneians is handed the tools, trust and market access to build something the country can genuinely call its own.

Sultan at 80: Unity, Not Wealth, Is the Measure of a Strong Nation

At 80, His Majesty delivered more than a message of celebration. He reminded Brunei that national strength rests not on wealth alone, but on unity, integrity and shared responsibility. As the economy changes and new challenges emerge, the titah asks every institution and citizen to rise together—so that stability is preserved, progress is sustained, and no one is left behind.

His Majesty couples a warning against division and corruption with a sharper demand for youth initiative, economic resilience and delivery across government

By Malai Hassan Othman

His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Negara Brunei Darussalam, marked his 80th birthday with an unusually direct warning: Brunei’s strength will not be measured by the wealth it enjoys, but by whether its people remain sincerely united when the country is tested.

In a titah delivered on the royal milestone, His Majesty said he would not compromise with any party seeking to divide the people. He added that corruption and dishonesty had no place in Brunei when they threatened national welfare and progress.

The language was restrained, but the message was not. Nearly six decades on the throne, His Majesty identified trust, loyalty and unity — rather than prosperity itself — as the constants that had carried Brunei from basic development into the modern age.

That distinction matters. In a country where oil and gas wealth has long softened economic shocks, the titah placed moral cohesion and institutional integrity above material comfort. It was less a celebration of what Brunei possesses than a reminder of what it could lose.

His Majesty also turned pointedly to the younger generation, saying they should no longer remain spectators of change or merely users of technology created by others. They must rise as creators, thinkers and visionary leaders.

The call came against an economy that is growing, but only narrowly. Official figures show real gross domestic product expanding by 0.3 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, largely because oil and gas activity rose by 4.1 per cent.

The non-oil and gas sector still accounted for 54.9 per cent of gross value added, confirming that diversification has changed the shape of the economy. Yet it contracted by 3.0 per cent during the quarter. Services fell by 3.1 per cent, construction by 8.0 per cent and business services by 7.8 per cent.

The figures expose the harder truth beneath the encouraging headline. Brunei’s economy is becoming more diversified in composition, but its immediate growth remains heavily dependent on hydrocarbons.

That gives greater weight to His Majesty’s pledge that the Government will continue supporting young people who wish to enter and expand in business across all sectors. He highlighted microfinancing available through Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam, Perbadanan TAIB and Bank Usahawan.

But access to finance is only one part of the equation. Young entrepreneurs are being asked to take risks in an economy where finance contracted by 6.6 per cent, construction by 8.0 per cent and several service industries recorded declines. The challenge is no longer simply to produce more entrepreneurs, but to build an environment in which viable firms can survive.

His Majesty reaffirmed his commitment to lead Brunei towards Wawasan Brunei 2035 — a developed, sustainable and resilient nation supported by the combined efforts of all sectors.

On social development, he highlighted Projek Teduh, under which the Government and BIBD have used the bank’s business zakat fund to build homes for vulnerable groups. His Majesty encouraged more public-private partnerships of this kind to raise the living standards of those in need.

The initiative places Islamic social finance alongside public efforts to address housing vulnerability. It is modest in scale, but significant in principle: social protection need not be left to the state alone when institutions with resources can be brought into the national effort.

Energy security also featured prominently. His Majesty said Brunei remained in a comparatively sound position despite global uncertainty, with the Government prioritising strategic reserves of petroleum fuel and LPG cylinders to meet daily needs.

He also placed responsibility beyond government, urging all parties to use energy resources prudently. It was a quiet but important shift in emphasis: national resilience depends not only on what the state stores, but on how society consumes.

His Majesty announced approval of the Disaster Management Strategic Policy Framework, intended to strengthen risk management and coordinated action among agencies during emergencies.

The titah then moved to the issue that may prove most consequential: the country’s fiscal position. His Majesty acknowledged that fiscal challenges still require sustained attention and said the Government would widen non-oil and gas revenue, manage public expenditure prudently, strengthen business facilitation and ensure government processes are investor-friendly.

The pressure is already visible in the latest national accounts. Government final consumption fell by 12.2 per cent in real terms in the first quarter, while household consumption rose by 9.1 per cent and gross capital formation increased by 6.3 per cent.

Those figures do not by themselves prove austerity. But they underline why the call for fiscal responsibility was more than ceremonial language. Brunei is attempting to restrain public demand while expecting households, investors and private enterprise to carry more of the economy’s forward momentum.

His Majesty expressed confidence in each Menteri Penyelaras, or Coordinating Minister, to ensure that gaps and obstacles are addressed effectively. With weakness extending across finance, business services, construction, transport and public administration, that reference carried an unmistakable message about delivery.

Policies may be announced at the centre, but implementation often succeeds or stalls in the spaces between ministries, regulators and agencies. The titah appeared to put those gaps on notice — diplomatically, but firmly.

The year 2027 will bring two major national occasions: the Diamond Jubilee of His Majesty’s reign and Visit Brunei Year. The ceremonies will be substantial. The more enduring test will be whether the commitments outlined now — on youth enterprise, vulnerable households, economic diversification and government delivery — are felt beyond the official programme.

His Majesty closed by thanking the people, the Civil Service, the security forces, the private sector and the national and district celebration committees.

Yet the central message had already been delivered. At 80, after nearly six decades of rule, His Majesty was not asking Brunei merely to celebrate continuity. He was asking whether the unity, integrity and institutional discipline that built the country remain strong enough to carry it through the next test.

Sources: Full text of His Majesty’s 80th birthday titah; Department of Economic Planning and Statistics, Gross Domestic Product, First Quarter 2026.

Hijrah Penyelamat Aqidah: Faith in the Age of the Algorithm

His Majesty’s Ilal Hijrah 1448 titah named the algorithm as a threat to akidah. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are being formed online faster than our institutions can respond. And 2035 is not far away. #KopiTalkMHO #IlalHijrah1448 #Brunei

KopiTalk with MHO

Analysis & Commentary

His Majesty’s Ilal Hijrah 1448 address named the threat plainly. The question now is whether Brunei’s institutions — and its families — are listening.

By Malai Hassan Othman  |  KopiTalk with MHO  |  Majlis Sambutan Ilal Hijrah 1448  |  4 Julai 2026

It was sometime in the early years of the new millennium. A friend at the coffee shop — a member of parliament, as it happened — was talking about young Bruneians and the internet, which had just arrived in most homes and was already making itself comfortable in ways nobody had quite anticipated.

He said something I have not forgotten. A Bruneian, he said, is like belacan. No matter what dish you put it in, it gives the dish its character. But if you pound it too fine, if you lose its texture entirely, it becomes something else. You can still smell it. But it has lost its form.

He was talking about identity. About what happens to a generation when the environment shaping it is no longer the home, the surau, or the school — but something borderless and ungoverned that arrives through a telephone line and carries no particular loyalty to Brunei or to Islam.

That was the era of dial-up internet and early chat rooms. There was no smartphone. No TikTok. No algorithm that knew your child better than you did.

Those were the themes I wrote about in the early years of this column, when KopiTalk first appeared in the Borneo Bulletin. The concerns were real then. But they were, in the scheme of things, early warnings — raised in a newspaper column, circulated at the coffee table, and largely absorbed into the general noise of a country moving fast into a new era.

What felt like a coffee shop concern then is now the subject of a royal address.

At the National-Level Majlis Sambutan Ilal Hijrah 1448, held on 4 July 2026 at the International Convention Centre in Berakas, His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Negara Brunei Darussalam, Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, spoke under the theme Hijrah Penyelamat Aqidah — the Hijrah as Saviour of Faith.

The choice of theme was not ceremonial. It was diagnostic.

The titah identified the rapid development of digital technology as one of the defining challenges facing Muslims in this era. The concern was specific: the digital world has created a space without borders for ideas and opinions that contradict akidah. If these are allowed to spread without check, they carry the potential to disturb religious harmony in Brunei.

His Majesty then named something that deserves more attention than it has received in the commentary that followed. He named specific practices he does not want questioned: tahlil, talqin, ziarah kubur, the celebration of Maulidurrasul. These are practices of the Ahli Sunnah Wal Jama’ah tradition. They have, in recent years, come under quiet pressure from stricter interpretations, including Salafi-influenced views, that travel freely through YouTube channels and WhatsApp forwards produced far beyond Brunei’s borders.

This is not a theological dispute. It is a question of sovereignty — over the religious formation of an entire generation.

The titah called for a holistic approach to developing a generation that is not only academically excellent but possesses sound akidah and noble character. It named the symptoms of what is already going wrong: children who do not obey their parents, who reject advice; bullying and breach of discipline in schools. These are not new problems. But they are accelerating, and the titah is pointing at the accelerant.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the first generations for whom the digital environment is not merely an addition to life. It is the environment itself. Their religious formation is happening — whether institutions acknowledge it or not — through content produced by people who have no stake in Brunei’s future and no knowledge of its tradition.

These are the young people who will be in their twenties and thirties when Wawasan Brunei 2035 arrives. They will staff the civil service, run businesses, raise families, and shape the next generation. What they believe, how they reason morally, and whether they feel grounded in who they are as Bruneian Muslims are being shaped now, largely outside the institutions built to do that shaping.

The Hijrah, the titah reminds us, was not simply a change of location. It was the deliberate construction of a new environment in which faith could take root and grow. The Prophet migrated not to escape difficulty but to build something — a community, a moral order, a civilisation — in conditions where it was possible to do so.

That is the instruction embedded in the theme. Brunei cannot and should not wall itself off from the digital world. But it must build within it and alongside it — in families, schools, mosques, and communities — an environment strong enough that its children know who they are before the algorithm decides for them.

The titah directed this responsibility at everyone: government agencies, educational institutions, mosques, scholars, youth, and all levels of society. That breadth is deliberate. The digital threat to akidah does not enter through one door. It enters through every connected device in every home. The response cannot come from one ministry. It must come from the whole fabric of Bruneian life.

His Majesty expressed hope that the spirit of Ilal Hijrah would be genuinely lived — not observed as an occasion but internalised as a commitment to the strengthening of Ahli Sunnah Wal Jama’ah through balanced human development. That is a specific and demanding aspiration. It is not a wish. It is a standard.

My friend at the coffee shop was not wrong about the belacan. But he was describing a slow process.

What we are living through now is not slow.

The algorithm is fast, relentless, and indifferent to everything except engagement. Brunei’s children are growing up inside it. The families, the schools, the mosques, and the institutions that are supposed to give them roots before it gives them everything else — they are running out of time to decide whether they are paying attention.

The Hijrah was an act of urgency.

So is this.

Malai Hassan Othman is a veteran journalist and political analyst. KopiTalk with MHO is published on Substack.

THE UNFINISHED AGENDA

Brunei’s ‘Belacan’ Factor

Brunei’s ‘Belacan’ Factor

By Malai Hassan Othman  |  KopiTalk, Borneo Bulletin  |  First published: early 2000s

Editor’s note: This piece was written to mark Brunei’s National Day anniversary, when the theme that year focused on national identity and the need to strengthen it. It appeared in KopiTalk in the Borneo Bulletin. References to specific internet technologies have been lightly updated; the argument is reproduced as written. — MHO, July 2026

We in Brunei marked our National Day anniversary that year with a theme focusing on national identity and the need to strengthen it. It was fitting indeed, coming at the start of a new millennium — an era supposed to bring along a glut of great challenges and opportunities.

In this new era, the so-called globalisation process — driven by the rapid evolution of information technology — is slowly stripping down geographical boundaries and merging different nations into a borderless global village. Technology is revolutionising the way we do business, the way we trade, invest and interact with each other.

But with this rush of the IT era sweeping the world, we are also witnessing a revolutionary change in our way of thinking, our mindset, for better or for worse. Never mind all the good things that can happen to us as a result of this rapid IT development and the globalisation process. What clearly worries us, and our leaders, are the adverse effects these developments can have on our society.

We are not just talking about what damages IT and globalisation can do to our business sector. These can be actually addressed effectively by making some financial adjustments. But what worries our nation is the adverse influence of technology on our society. IT development is not only transcending geographical boundaries — it can also strip down the social fabric, erode cultural and religious values of a community.

This is already happening in many developed and developing countries. Brunei is at the crossroads, and the path we are taking leads us towards the mainstream of the globalisation process. So for us in Brunei, as we continue with our march into the new millennium, we must not allow ourselves to stray from our spiritual, cultural and social values and our national identity.

However, to uphold and strengthen our national identity as Bruneians, we also need to understand what it means to be a Bruneian.

But unfortunately, in today’s modern environment, the younger generation in particular tends to mistakenly identify itself with other alien cultures and values. Even some families have misplaced their family pride. Misplaced in a sense that they were overzealously proud of their adoption of alien values dictated by this materialistic world.

As one of my friends in Parliament observed at the time, Bruneians, it seems, have lost their real identity as Bruneian Malays. He said we were living in an era where life begins with ‘e’ — e-commerce, e-style, e-prayer — and we were slowly witnessing the erosion of self-esteem and identity among our younger generations.

“Susah… susah… udang sudah jadi belacan!” he lamented — referring to how some people have lost their self-esteem and identity in this headlong rush of the IT age. He said an udang — a prawn — will always be a prawn, no matter what one does to it, except when it is pounded and reduced to belacan — paste.

“We can fry it, and yet it will be called a fried prawn. We can make curry out of it, and yet it will be called a prawn curry. So you see my point — the identity of the prawn is only lost when we make a ‘belacan’ of it,” he added. Although everyone laughed at the analogy, his message hit home. Everyone agreed that it is indeed important to do something now to ensure that the Bruneians don’t become ‘belacan’ like the ‘udang’.

The other day I became witness — or to be more precise, an ‘e-witness’ — to our young people or to our community e-chatting over in a virtual chat room on our social media platforms. They were chatting satirically about what it means to be a Bruneian. Their definition, or rather their perception of what it means to be a Bruneian, was provocatively revealing in a sense that their positive views on what it takes to be a Bruneian leave much to be desired.

If their aim is to make sure Bruneians erased all the negative traits that distinguish us from other nationalities, then they deserve all the plaudits. At first I found their list of what defined a true-blooded Bruneian rather ludicrous. But on second thought, I believed we should make use of it as a reflection on ourselves and try to mend our ways.

Here are some of the characteristics of a true Bruneian I found in that virtual chat room:

•  You think other Asian countries are poorer than yours

•  Your local McDonald’s serves rice and sambal

•  You have tried passing Malaysian coins in a vending machine or pay phones

•  You have smuggled electronics, CDs and other items into Brunei

•  You do your shopping in Singapore, United Kingdom and Miri

•  You realised that money is everything before you were six

•  You think the Liga Perdana is equal to a Super Bowl

•  You talk loud thinking everyone is deaf, but actually YOU are

•  Your clothing has brand names printed on it that are visible from 50 feet away

•  You have paid more than BND100 to get your own private car license plate

•  Sago (ambuyat) is your staple food and it is a necessity to have loads of it even when staying overseas

•  You act like a rich tycoon in Miri even if your average income is below BND1,000

•  You furnish your home luxuriously even if it means eating rice and kicap for the last two weeks before the end of the month

•  Hutang — debt — is your best friend

•  You make sure that everything you consume at home is halal but eat everything else when you are overseas

If the way young Bruneians identify their countrymen is anything to go by, we can expect the future that our generation is building to end up in a worse state than belacan.

It is not too late. But it is time — well past time — to ask ourselves honestly what kind of Bruneians we are raising, and what kind of Brunei we are building for them to inherit.

These two columns were first published in KopiTalk in the Borneo Bulletin in the early 2000s. They are reproduced here on Substack as part of an ongoing archive series. A new KopiTalk essay engaging with these themes in the context of His Majesty’s Ilal Hijrah 1448 address — ‘Hijrah Penyelamat Aqidah: Faith in the Age of the Algorithm’ — is available in the current issue. — MHO

Malai Hassan Othman is a veteran journalist, political analyst, and Executive Director of Barakah Bioindustries Company. KopiTalk with MHO is published on Substack at kopitalk.substack.com

Teaching Our Children to Be Good, Virtuous Adults

KopiTalk with MHO

From the Archiv

By Malai Hassan Othman  |  KopiTalk, Borneo Bulletin  |  First published: early 2000s

Editor’s note: This column was first published in KopiTalk in the Borneo Bulletin in the early years of this millennium — at the dawn of the internet age in Brunei. It is reproduced here substantially as written, with light updates where specific technology references have dated. The concerns raised then have, if anything, grown more urgent since. — MHO, July 2026

People lamenting over what they see as a serious deterioration of moral values among our young people as we rapidly move forward into this era of globalisation is becoming a familiar refrain. We now often hear sighing with concern over such moral deterioration among the young. It is indeed worrying. A growing number of youths continue to fall into the cauldron of social evils such as drug abuse, housebreaking, theft and illicit sexual behaviour, despite various nationwide efforts to arrest such problems.

I too share their concern. But not so much on the moral degenerations of our young people, but more on our moral standards as adults — as the elder citizens of this society, and as the people with the power to chart the future of this lovely nation and its young generation.

But this does not mean that the problem of falling moral values among the young is less important or does not deserve serious attention. It is indeed a worrying problem that demands our utmost attention.

Whether we like it or not, we have to admit that as individuals, business people, teachers, shopkeepers, executives, clerks or government officers, Bruneian or not, we are all directly or indirectly responsible for the way our young people grow up. As the saying goes, children are the products of the homes that society and the nation build for them through adults.

Like those before them, they too came to this world pure and innocent. The homes, the environment, and the society where they grew up would put colours to them — the good colours or the bad colours. Whatever it is, it would reflect the true colours of our society.

As adults we are well aware of the moral problems afflicting our young people. But are we that well aware of the prevailing moral problems in the adult world — the world where our children, the future caretakers of this very same world, are also living?

We know well that drug abuse, especially among our Muslim youth, teenagers and schoolchildren, is growing at a worrying rate. But have we already put in enough effort — as individuals, as families, and as a community — to help curb the problem?

We have grown such thick skins that we are no longer shocked to hear news about babies born out of illegitimate relationships being abandoned, and in some cases left in rubbish dumps. Cases of rape, theft, and burglary involving youths and teenagers are no longer shocking stories to many of us. But does our strong demeanour still have the soft spots to sense the root cause of many of these problems?

Remember how our society would normally rationalise the unemployment problem? How our community leaders, educators, policymakers and even employers, with their various explanations, usually addressed this problem?

“Ah… our young people are too choosy. They only want to work in the government and offices. They do not have the right qualifications, or they do not have the right attitude towards work,” and so on and so forth.

It seems that when it comes to explaining problems involving our young people, we seem oblivious to our own failure to address the root causes. But have we ever cared to ask ourselves if we have done enough to address these problems — say, by creating more job opportunities for our young people, by ensuring fair and equitable distribution of wealth through our national economic development programmes, by being honest and impartial in carrying out our duty to serve the nation and the people?

Have we really been caring, not selfish, and not self-centred in doing our part in building the nation? This too is the way some of us look at other social problems. We blame and give one reason after another to justify our prejudiced views on youth problems when looking at many of these social issues.

For many of us, it seems the easy way out is to simply blame someone else — parents, schools, the government, or even the world. There was a time when people who seemed troubled by the current state of social problems afflicting our young people had even gone to the extent of questioning the credibility of our MIB framework for nation-building.

Sadly, with our foolishness and our reservation to appreciate our own virtuous culture, religion and system of governance, we still have the audacity to be critical of what we would often shrug off as ‘irrelevant ancient philosophy’ for building a modern nation.

At our own convenience, and of course to fit our narrow perception of what ‘modern’ progress should be, we would often question whether MIB could really provide a conducive atmosphere for modern progress to effectively take place. Perhaps it is now time for us to be truthful and honest with ourselves. We need to look at ourselves before we pass judgement on the state of affairs of our youths.

We need to accept that it is we the adults who corrupt our children. We are the ones who pollute the beautiful world of our young people’s future. It was our self-interest that ruins the future, and our hypocrisy that destroys what our young people are building for themselves and for the nation. In the process we emptied the hearts of our children of the pure and beautiful spirit that longs for true and eternal happiness.

We have created for them a new way of life devoid of real happiness. We thought we were giving them the world but the truth is we have surrendered them to the world. We have gone against the will of God the Almighty that made us His slaves and sent us to this world as His vicegerents — not as slaves of the world and slaves to our lust and greed for money, position and other worldly matters.

We thought the Arabs of the Jahiliyyah — the age of ignorance — were cruel as they buried their baby girls alive. But actually we are even more ignorant and cruel than the Arabs of that era. We lovingly killed the pure and beautiful spirit of our children that longs for true and eternal love and happiness. We teach them that the minute they came into our world, selfishness, money, high position and power are the ultimate goals for achieving happiness in this world.

And what we are seeing now are the consequences of our work.

THE UNFINISHED AGENDA

This series ends where national renewal must begin: with conscience. Brunei has studied its future, named its habits and written its plans. But Muraqabah asks a harder question of every leader, parent, professional and citizen: what are we actually sending forward for tomorrow — and is it enough?

Part 5 — Final: Muraqabah — The Nation That Watches Itself

The covenant was made. The effort was questioned. The mirror was held. The habits were named. What remains is the choice that only conscience can make.

By Malai Hassan Othman

This series was never really about the past.

It was always about the future.

For the generation now coming of age in Brunei — the young leaders, the emerging professionals, the future civil servants, the entrepreneurs who have not yet built their enterprises, the policy makers who have not yet made their most consequential decisions.

The generation that will govern this nation when 2035 arrives.

Whatever that year delivers will be determined not by the plans written in the past but by the choices made now, by the people who are young enough to believe that the future is still open.

It is.

But it is not waiting.

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَلتَنظُرْ نَفْسٌ مَّا قَدَّمَتْ لِغَدٍ وَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ إَنَّ اللَّهَ خَبيِرٌ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ

“O you who believe, be mindful of Allah, and let every soul consider what it has sent forward for tomorrow. And be mindful of Allah — indeed, Allah is All-Aware of what you do.”

Surah Al-Hashr, verse 18.

That ayat is the foundation on which this series was built — even when it was not named.

Every part has been a question about tomorrow. What was promised for it? Whether we strived sincerely toward it. What we saw when we looked honestly at the distance between that promise and today. What habits have prevented us from closing that distance?

The Prophet, peace be upon him, reminded us that a person is at a loss if tomorrow is no better than today — and in ruin if today is worse than yesterday.

The same is true of nations.

Muraqabah is the fifth principle of the 5M framework — Mu’ahadah as covenant, Mujahadah as striving, Muraqabah as awareness, Muhasabah as self-reckoning, and Mu’aqabah as self-correction.

But it is not the last step in a sequence.

It is the condition that makes all the other steps real.

Mu’ahadah can be invoked at a ceremony. Mujahadah can be launched as a programme. Muhasabah can be scheduled as a workshop. Mu’aqabah can be produced as a report.

Muraqabah cannot be scheduled.

It is a state of constant awareness — quiet, interior and beyond regulation — that what we do is always seen. Not only by institutions, the public or history. But by the values we claim to hold and, for those who believe, by Allah SWT, who is All-Aware of what we do.

That awareness, when genuinely present, makes a particular kind of dishonesty impossible.

The dishonesty of the procurement policy designed to deliver 40 per cent to local companies that delivers 3 per cent — and calls itself a step in the right direction.

Muraqabah is the internal standard that makes this self-deception visible — not to anyone else, but to the person making the choice.

That is both its power and its demand.

To the new generation of leaders — those now being prepared to take the helm of this nation’s ministries, agencies and institutions — this series has been, in part, a briefing.

Not on policy. On inheritance.

You are inheriting not only the institutions but the habits that shaped them. The analysis paralysis. The institutional illusion. The compliance without amanah. The Dengar cerita… tunggu data rhythm that has governed the system’s response to its own diagnoses across six decades.

You did not create these habits.

But you will choose whether to reproduce them or break them.

That choice — made quietly, in the early years of your leadership, before the full weight of institutional culture settles around you — is the most consequential one you will make.

Muraqabah asks you to make it honestly.

Not to perform reform. To enact it.

Not to manage the gap between aspiration and reality. To close it.

To the professionals — the architects, engineers, accountants, lawyers and technical experts whose knowledge this economy needs — Muraqabah asks not whether you are competent but what you are building with your competence.

Are you deploying your expertise in the service of genuine enterprise — building firms, training the next generation, taking the commercial risks that genuine economic participation requires? Or are you choosing comfortable employment, leaving the harder work of enterprise to others?

The pioneers of the 1980s chose to build.

Muraqabah asks whether you are willing to make the same choice.

To those in governance and to the decision makers and policy makers — those who run the machinery and those with the authority to change what the system measures and rewards — the question is the most specific.

When you sign off on a contract, does the 3 per cent figure trouble you?

When a programme is completed, the report filed, and the outcome unchanged, does something in you register that?

When a new leader arrives, and the initiative that was gaining traction quietly disappears because no handover protocol was ever written — do you feel the weight of what was lost?

Muraqabah says: You already know the answer.

The awareness is already present.

The question is whether it governs action or merely accompanies inaction.

Amanah — alongside Siddiq, Tabligh and Fatanah — is not the performance of responsibility.

It is the genuine ownership of outcomes.

The three corrections named in Part 4 remain the test: measure outcomes, not outputs; build institutions that outlast the people who run them; and change the signal sent to the next generation.

They have been waiting since 1962 for the decision maker who will treat them as a commitment rather than a suggestion.

Muraqabah asks whether you are that person.

To the community — the families, the parents, the teachers, the neighbours who shape what is valued and what is not — the call is the quietest and perhaps the most important.

When a capable child is steered toward government employment because it is safe, the family is making a choice. When the entrepreneur who succeeds is less celebrated than the official who is promoted, the culture is making a choice.

These choices accumulate into the conditions that determine whether a generation steps forward to build or steps back to wait.

Now consider what this generation is inheriting.

When Brunei gained independence in 1984, the nation faced a shortage of qualified people. The ambition to produce more — more graduates, more professionals, more PhDs — was urgent and correct.

Forty years later, we have produced them.

More degree holders than at any point in the nation’s history. More PhDs. More professionally qualified Bruneians across every discipline.

And a significant number of them are delivering food.

Working freelance on digital platforms. Holding titles that do not match their qualifications. Sitting in roles for which they are vastly overqualified because the enterprise ecosystem that should have received them was never fully built.

The education system did its work.

The economy did not do its.

The gig economy has grown quietly but visibly. Food delivery riders, platform-based freelancers, informal traders, short-term contract workers. These are not unambitious people. They are qualified Bruneians doing what rational people do when the formal economy has not built a proper place for them.

They are filling the empty middle — the commercial space that this series has identified as the gap that should have been occupied by local enterprise.

Underemployment is the quiet companion of the economic sovereignty gap. It is what happens when a nation produces educated people faster than it builds the enterprise ecosystem to receive them.

Maqasid Syariah demands the protection of intellect — the cultivation and deployment of human capability in the service of a just and flourishing society.

A nation that invests in producing PhDs and then has no ecosystem to deploy them is not protecting intellect.

It is producing it and wasting it.

The social indicators say the same thing in a different register.

In 2024, Brunei recorded 672 divorces — part of an elevated trend across the past decade. In the same year, 777 people were arrested for drug-related offences, up from 711 in 2023. Over 40,000 grammes of methamphetamine were confiscated — a tenfold increase from the previous year.

Of those arrested, 393 were unemployed — not merely without work, but now pulled into the criminal justice system, many facing the lasting consequences of incarceration.

Three hundred and ninety-three unemployed Bruneians did not simply appear in a statistic. They moved from economic exclusion into arrest records, court processes and prison cells in a single year.

These are not merely statistics about crime.

They are statistics about exclusion.

Young people who could not find a genuine place in their own economy. Who fell through a gap that was not caused by their failure but by the failure of a system that did not build the conditions for their participation.

The protection of lineage — safeguarding the next generation, their wellbeing and their dignity — is one of the five highest obligations in Islamic governance.

Those 393 represent the human cost of the delivery gap.

Muraqabah asks: Who is accountable for that number?

The honest answer is: all of us who have accepted the system’s habits without breaking them.

This is why Anjakan Paradigma is no longer a slogan.

It is a survival condition.

Not for Brunei’s economy alone. For the social fabric that the economy either sustains or, when it fails, unravels.

Wawasan 2035 is not simply an economic vision. It is the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it lies a much larger obligation — to build a society that upholds the principles of ethical governance, spiritual integrity and genuine economic participation.

A Negara Zikir.

A nation that remembers — permanently, consciously, without needing a crisis to remind it — what it is accountable for and to whom.

A nation does not achieve Negara Zikir by declaration.

It achieves it by the daily, institutional, cultural practice of measuring its actions against its values — and correcting the gap, not explaining it.

The framework for that correction already exists. Islamic Social Capitalism — the model gaining traction in current thinking about Brunei’s economic direction — offers an economy aligned with justice, equity and faith. One in which local enterprise is genuinely supported. In which the PhD has somewhere to build. In which the degree holder has an enterprise ecosystem to enter. In which the gig worker has a pathway to genuine participation rather than a holding pattern.

Botswana’s experience reminds us that natural resources alone do not build prosperous nations. Institutions do. Resource wealth becomes lasting prosperity only when it is converted into human capability and productive enterprise.

Brunei has the values, the accumulated wealth and the philosophical framework — in MIB, in Negara Zikir, in Maqasid Syariah — that most nations can only aspire to.

What it has not yet had, consistently, is the sustained will to translate those values into institutional practice.

That translation is what Muraqabah demands.

Every day. In every decision. By every person with responsibility for any part of the national life.

Nine years remain before 2035.

Nine years for the generation now entering leadership to decide what kind of inheritance they will build for the generation that follows.

That generation is watching now. They are in the schools today. Some of them — the most capable, the most qualified, the most earnest in their desire to serve — will inherit either an economy that has finally built a place for them or one that hands them a gig and calls it opportunity.

What we send forward for tomorrow is already being decided.

In the home. In the school. In the boardroom where a contract is awarded. In the family conversation where a young person’s aspiration is either affirmed or redirected toward safety.

Surah Al-Hashr reminds every soul to consider what it is sending forward.

Not the nation.

Every soul.

This series began with a memory — the confidence of the independence years, the pioneers who built with their own hands, the quiet belief that Bruneians could build their own nation with their own knowledge and their own professional pride.

It ends with a question.

Not about the past. Not about the system. Not about the government or the institutions or the plans already written.

About you.

The reader. The leader. The professional. The parent. The civil servant. The decision maker. The young graduate wondering whether the economy has a place for what you have spent years becoming.

Tomorrow is already being built.

Every contract awarded.

Every young person encouraged — or discouraged.

Every institution strengthened — or allowed to drift.

Every choice becomes part of what we send forward.

The question is no longer whether Brunei knows what must be done.

The record shows that we do.

The question is whether what we are sending forward for tomorrow is enough.

KopiTalk with MHO  •  The Unfinished Agenda  •  Part 5 of 5

The series is complete.