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.