This article first appeared in Capital, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 28, 2017 - September 3, 2017

A thunderous round of applause for our mighty athletes!

At the time of writing, we have bagged a staggering 55 gold medals, 42 silver medals and 33 bronze medals. In short, Malaysia is dominating the 29th SEA Games in Kuala Lumpur.

We even managed to give Singapore a schooling (no pun intended), winning double their gold medal tally. Malaysia Boleh!

I have to admit, news over the past few years has had me feeling blue.

But no more.

Today, I am feeling Red, White, Yellow and Blue! And of course, I’m feeling dark green as well because we are clearly living in a Milo advertisement.

It is not even that time of the year and I am filled to the BR1M with patriotism. Surely,  nobody would take advantage of me and use all this positivity for political gain, right?

That would just cheapen the experience.

Naturally, there are those who are jealous of our success. Do not listen to those naysayers.

So what if we have home ground advantage and fielded more teams than any other country? A win is a win is a win. It sure feels good to be the best (for the right reasons).

Of course, our politicians are constantly reminding us about what winners we are — our champion education system, first-class public transport and winning economy, to name but a few.

I have to admit, though, it sure feels good when we are good at something and the results speak for themselves.

That said, winning is not everything.

The SEA Games is also an opportunity for Malaysia to put on a show for the whole region. I am not an expert on opening ceremonies, but the one on Aug 19 had to be one of our top three performances ever, not including the wayang we see frequently.

It showcased our beautiful National Stadium in Bukit Jalil. One must concede that it is an architectural and engineering marvel.

I guess what they say is true — when you want something done right, just pay a lot and build it twice.

Again, the naysayers will whine about the price. But we are surely a country that learns from our mistakes. There is no way we will let the National Sports Complex fall into disrepair only to become an expensive pasar malam venue; not twice, at least.

If that happens, we might have to change our mascot from Harimau Malaya to Gajah Putih.

Speaking of animals, there is a video of Malaysian youths chanting “Singapura anjing; dibunuh saja” during the Group A football match between Malaysia and Singapore. Roughly, that translates into, “Singaporean dogs, just be killed”.

We may have won the match (2-1), but we sure look like losers, thanks to a handful of hecklers.

Unfortunately, two Myanmar fans were  also beaten up outside Shah Alam Stadium after Malaysia beat Myanmar 3-1.

Can you imagine what might have happened if we had lost the match?

I hope our guests from abroad do not experience the notorious post-game riots of the Malaysia Premier League.

Fortunately, it is just football, and in the grand scheme of things, the stakes are not that high. FIFA ranks Malaysia 166th in the world. We are so far down the rankings, I had to click “next” three times to find Malaysia because the website only displays 50 rankings at a time.

I can’t imagine if something bigger were at stake. Would these hooligans go down to the street and riot?

The thought of them donning similarly coloured clothes (like football jerseys?), marching around KL shouting hateful slogans and looking for trouble is quite terrifying. Fortunately, our government frowns on such behaviour, right?

Speaking of major events in the horizon, we can look forward to plenty of public holidays over the next one month — Merdeka Day, Hari Raya Haji, the Yang diPertuan Agong’s birthday, Malaysia Day and Maal Hijrah.

With our medal tally expected to climb, patriotism should be at high levels. Surely, DBKL would not have to “encourage” shopowners to proudly display the Jalur Gemilang.

I don’t know how, but I have this feeling that on Malaysia Day, there is going to be an even more spectacular showing of “I love my country”.

But all good things must come to an end.

At some point, we are going to have to wake up with a nationalism hangover, covered in 1Malaysia-branded confetti. And we will have to worry about mundane things like paying our bills, or paying our multibillion-dollar debts to foreign states on time.

So let’s just savour this one shining moment of glory and put aside all our mundane worries.

But just in case, those gold medals are made of actual gold, right?

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