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.