My Take

Why keep a blog? That is a question I have been asked many times. When my colleagues first discovered that I have been keeping a blog for a while – there was a mixed reaction. Some are completely aghast - given that in the media, blogs are sometimes treated like the devil incarnate and for whoever who blogs, they are considered like pariahs in society at the extreme or if not as someone who is immoral or vain writing things about themselves. Some of my colleagues are amused and wonder how long I would last.

As for me, I am completely amazed that the current technology is allowing anyone of us no matter how computer illiterate we are, that as long as we have a computer, we can type albeit an 11-finger typing (your two pointer fingers) or the normal 10-finger typing, and an internet connection – one can instantly transmit one’s thoughts to the world – you become an author with the world your readers.

Originally a web log was more like a diary updated daily or at least constantly – one’s daily thoughts and one’s daily happening. But nowadays, blogs are more than that. The only common feature is that they are updated regularly.

Though you would not want to read all the blogs. There are just too many of them. Even here in our little country, I have lost count of the number of blogs there are. Some are well known and regularly visited whereas some are so obscure and rarely visited that there are virtual cobwebs there.

But today’s topic is not about blogs or blogging per se. It is about why a senior civil servant would want to use this tool to impart knowledge.

It is ironic, I first started not to impart knowledge but merely to use the blog as an updating information board – updating readers about new materials available on my main website www.bruneiresources.com which contained a number of unclassified information which I have gathered through my journey in the civil service to be shared with everyone.

Over time, I found it much easier to put the information on the blog entry itself and eventually it has a life of its own with the number of visitors at first comprising of my wife and I, to the 800 daily visitors and at times exceeded 1,200. How that happened is beyond me, though I have had a couple of helps along the way. But over time too, I found that I seemed to have positioned myself as someone whose role is to impart knowledge about Brunei – hence the catch phrase – “helping to foster a better informed Brunei society”.

I write every day because I think and I know that there are many things in this beloved country of ours that we do not know enough about. When I first started, I write about the Brunei that I know. Now I write about the Brunei I do not know. I read, I talked to people and the more I do that I discovered a wealth of information that are available but not widely or at all disseminated. These knowledge are so precious that once the keeper is no longer with us in this world – those knowledge would die with them. There are just so many things about Brunei that we will never know.

How many people know that Bukit Merikan is where the Americans used to stay in the 19th century when they were first in Brunei? How many people knew that we had relationship with America more than a hundred years ago? How many people knew we had railways in Brunei? How many people knew we had cable cars operating in Brunei? How many people knew that the Secretariat Building is shaped like an E because it stands for Elizabeth II? How many people knew that the Royal Regalia Building was formerly the Churchill Memorial Hall and that it is shaped like a C because it stands for Churchill?

I could go on but then that is what I do everyday. I write about it daily. The little things that make Brunei Brunei. What made Brunei? What shaped Brunei? What determined Brunei? There are many pondering questions that one can ask. We can look at the past and we can envisage the future. But the most important thing is that one has to realize that the future of Brunei is on everyone’s hands. Every single one of us determines what makes Brunei Brunei.

The unique cultural aspects of Brunei influenced by many cultures and societies throughout the eons of Brunei’s history that until today, that part of the ‘chiri’ read out during the award of Pehinships are said in Sanskrit. The Malay wedding ceremonies has many similarities to the Indian wedding ceremonies. Our language is made up of words that come from Arabic and other sources. Our unique Brunei language is not unique. Many of the words are also spoken by others around the region.

Travel through the Borneo region and discover that the whole island used to be Brunei. A number of sultanates sprang up once Brunei ceded control to some of the more outlying areas. But Brunei itself is an ancient state – with records going as far back as more than 15 hundred years ago. That is one hell of a long history, if I may use the word.

Do we care about how powerful we were in the past? Or do we care about whether we can find jobs that will enable our future generation to feed themselves? No doubt the latter is more important. But then I would argue that you need to know about your past before you are able to find the way to the future. The past is like a light, something that can light up the path in front of you so that you can see and find your way to the future.

That is what I will do. We need to know about our past. Our legacy left to us by our forefathers. They worked hard so that they can leave a more secure future for us. We should not squander that. We should utilize that and use the lessons of the past as we chart our way forward. The history lessons that we can learn are not about dates or about who did what but what was done that makes and shapes Brunei as Brunei. We can not change the past, but the future? That is entirely up to us.

Note: An edited version of the above article appeared on The Brunei Times on 18th March 2007 under My Take column. This article introduces my weekly column which started on 24th March 2007 entitled 'The Golden Legacy'.