Nusantara Bonds

Ukhuwah Nusantara
(english translation below)

Di airport Heathrow ni, saya rasa saya seorang saja yang bawa bekal nasi impit, sambal bali & ikan bilis. Dengan tak malunya saya pun buka dan makan depan kedai marks & spencer. Orang sebelah saya yang mukanya kemelayuan pun tanya

'where are you from?'
'malaysia'
'oh, no wonder you're eating rendang'

Itulah permulaan perkenalan saya dengan sahabat dari Brunei ini. Rupa-rupanya beliau pun penerima biasiswa Chevening + bekerja dengan kerajaan (Pejabat PM) + berkahwin dan ada anak berumur 8 bulan. Allahuakbar, banyak yang serupa. Takdir yang menakjubkan.

Dalam borak-borak kami yang singkat, saya tanya apa perancangan selepas belajar nanti, nak masuk politik ke. Dia kata 'Di Brunei tiada politik'. Menteri-menteri dipilih dari golongan yang berkelayakan, disaring oleh sebuah jawatankuasa dan diluluskan oleh Sultan.

Dalam bidang yang saya akan belajar nanti (political economy) ini satu kes yang menarik. Brunei bukan negara demokrasi, tapi HDInya (human development index) mencapai 0.856, lebih tinggi dari Malaysia (0.779). Betulkah demokrasi itu prasyarat untuk pembangunan negara? Kenapa Brunei secara umumnya maju menggunakan sistem monarki manakala Malaysia pula agak-agak maju dengan monarki berperlembagaan, dan Singapura pula tak ada raja langsung dan sangat maju.

Ini soalan-soalan yang menarik dan insyaallah akan saya gali dalam setahun datang. Buat masa ini, saya gembira kerana terjalinnya hubungan bilateral (dua hala) dalam masa 10 minit disaksikan nasi impit.

***

Nusantara Bonds

I might be the only one in Heathrow Airport eating a packed breakfast of nasi impit (compressed rice) and sambal (which, being a flammable object, thankfully escaped confiscation by the airport authorities). But it was due to this delectable dish that the guy sitting next to me asked

'where are you from?'
'malaysia'
'oh, no wonder you're eating rendang'

You see? No one can rightfully call themselves a citizen of the nusantara if they could not identify rendang from a mile away. As it turned out, he was also a Chevening scholar, worked in the Bruneian PM's office (which surprised me as I didn't know that Brunei had a PM, until he said that the PM was the Sultan. Teehee) AND he was married with a 8-month old boy. Masyaallah, the wonders of destiny.

In our short chit chat I asked him his plans for the future. I asked if he was planning to go into politics. His response: 'In Brunei there are no politics'. Ministers are chosen based on merit, assessed by a nominating committee and approved by the sultan (If Trump heard this he'd be applying to become the Sultan of Brunei tomorrow). But things are working well so no one's making a big fuss out of it.

In the field that I am going to study (political economy) this is a really interesting case. Brunei is not a democracy but its HDI is 0.856, higher than Malaysia's (0.779). Is democracy really a prerequisite for development? Why is Brunei much well-off with a monarchic system, Malaysia reasonably so with a constitutional monarchy and Singapore very much well-off with no king at all?

These are interesting questions which I hope to understand (understanding is hard enough, let alone answering) in the next one year. For now, I'm just ecstatic in this bilateral relationship forged over food. How very nusantaran.