Time to learn to be good loser

Time to learn to be good loser

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): I think hooligans in soccer games and rebel members in political parties share common characteristics.

Both are groups of people who cannot accept defeat. They become furious and capable of destroying everything in their path whenever their side is defeated.

According to newspaper reports, the one significant difference between these two groups is age. Whereas the hooligans among soccer fans are in general young people -- a great deal of them are even adolescents -- the politicians and para-politicians, who would rather wreck their organizations than accept defeat, are generally adults.

These two groups of people take defeat in a very personal manner. Defeat is considered by these two groups as an affront to their collective honor and dignity.

Why is it so difficult for many Indonesians to accept defeat? Why is it so difficult for many of us to be "good losers"?

I think that in soccer games or sports events generally it is hypocrisy. Many of us talk about good sportsmanship and preach to others to live by this spirit. Many of us pretend to believe in the dictum that in sport victory and defeat are just ordinary things; that they do not constitute the most important matter.

Rather, so we are told, it is the way we play the game that should be considered most important. Playing a game fairly and gentlemanly but perhaps losing is better than winning a game in an unfairly and ungentlemanly manner.

In practice, however, we have all learned how to cheat without being detected. Athletes have learned how to use drugs to gain unfair advantage over their rivals.

We are also told that victory can be bought, that opponents can be persuaded to loose a game at a certain price. The ultimate result of this hypocrisy is that good sportsmanship has become a very rare commodity in real sports life.

In real life most of us value victory so highly that the concept of defeat simply has no room in our consciousness. There are many among us who are even willing to rig a game to avoid defeat and "to achieve victory".

And when in spite of all we have done defeat is still unavoidable, we become furious and lose control of ourselves. Sportsmanship them becomes a meaningless word.

In politics the story is a bit different. Here the main reason of our inability to accept defeat is, I think, our entrenched belief that anyone who disagrees with us is an outsider.

We still firmly embrace the myth that our society is a harmonious society and therefore no real discord exists in our society. Thus anyone who keeps disagreeing must be an outsider who does not share our basic values.

We have not learned yet how to deal with an opponent which comes from our own ranks. When facing opponents from outside our slogan has always been Pantang Mundur! (Never Retreat!).

What happens if two opposing sides within one organization cannot settle a disagreement and neither one is willing to retreat? Separatism!

It was for this reason that during the time of "liberal democracy" in the 1950s the Nahdlatul Ulama split from Masyumi as a political party, and the Partai Nasional Indonesia was fragmented into several political parties, including Partai Indonesia Raya and another party of nationalist orientation called Partai Rakyat Nasional if I remember correctly.

I think the time has come for us as a nation to learn to accept defeat gracefully. Both in sports and in politics we have to learn to abandon our old habit of rejecting defeat at all costs. We have to learn to accept defeat and failure as facts of life, and to learn from them.

Unless we do this we will never grow into a real mature nation. We will forever remain an adolescent nation.

In these modern times it is just impossible for a really democratic society to create and maintain all-around winning situations all the time. Certain conflicts within our society are real enough and so deep-rooted that we just have to make a choice between two incompatible alternatives that are available to really solve the problem.

Here we are facing a real win-loose situation that cannot be converted into an all-around winning situation at will. To pretend that within our society all conflicts can be and must be harmoniously reconciled in a brotherly manner is, in my opinion, an illusion.

To force political and social organizations to adopt this attitude in handling their internal matters is I think one effective way to ensure that those organizations will never grow into really mature and autonomous social bodies.

I do not think this is really what this nation wants.

The writer is rector of IKIP-Muhammadiyah Teachers' Training Institute.