I

am a fan of international sporting events, which are always marked with flags, champions of different nationalities, a carnival atmosphere, interesting facts about the host cities, decisive moments and record-breaking achievements.

Unfortunately, for this year’s Southeast Asian (SEA) Games I have chosen to tune out. I wished the experience would be akin to watching the last Summer Olympic Games or the Asian Games. But watching this year’s SEA Games, or even following the news on Indonesian media, is very painful.

The reason is the jingoism expressed by the Indonesian government, media and even members of the public. Jingoism, in its colloquial sense, is a demonstration of excessive nationalism and patriotism. This attitude has gripped Indonesia over the past few years, and has been displayed in various ways, including calling Malaysia “Malingsia”, to the “New7Wonders” debate, where some people say they don’t care if the contest is legitimate or not, as long as Indonesia can expect good news.

When watching the SEA Games’ broadcasts, I tend to keep the volume low, not because of the noisy, chanting crowds, but the commentators who ruin the mood with their repetitive lines of, “We’re hoping that Indonesia can win this match”, every three minutes. Often they are clueless about what else to say, although you could launch a thousand comments during a match about, for instance, the players’ tactics, the history of past meetings, trivia about the venue or about the players or, the most important thing, how the match is unfolding.

The names of non-Indonesian athletes are often omitted, and not only because the commentators cannot bother to check them or are too lazy to learn how to pronounce them. It is also because athletes from other countries are treated as anonymous foreigners whose function is to drop dead before the
Indonesians.

While TVRI has made some effort to show a variety of different sports, including Olympic favorites like swimming and volleyball, it seems that both the private networks and their audiences care only about two sports -- badminton and soccer. Other sports are admittedly broadcast, but only as fillers before the next soccer or badminton match begins. Newspapers and magazines do a better job in covering star athletes from less-popular sports, such as cycling and rowing.

The jingoism, however, stops when the cameras leave the stadiums. There have been plenty of reports of substandard facilities for the press, athletes and visitors. Worse, volunteers and Games’ officials complain that they are maltreated, while local government officials and event organizers retort that if they were nationalistic enough, they would stop complaining. Once more the “N” word is abused.

Indonesians have mixed feelings about the Games. Of course, they all like to see Indonesian athletes and teams winning, and the athletes giving it their all. But they are also shaking their heads seeing how the event is being managed.

The construction of the venues suffered from lateness. The “car-free” policy around the stadiums creates problems for visitors and is abused by visiting politicians; and then there’s the management of accommodation, which is a mess.

With all the festivity of the opening ceremony, we still don’t know anything about co-host city Palembang, beyond its signature Chinese dishes and the Ampera Bridge.

It is quite refreshing to see the foreign press’ earnest yet balanced coverage of the Games. Singapore did a better job than Indonesia in promoting its athletes; Thailand takes the Games as an inspiration for the recovery of Bangkok (despite some Indonesians’ tasteless jokes about the floods); while Malaysia is content to concentrate instead on the Commonwealth Games. They look at their athletes’ progress and results and are happy with the results, without invoking the exhausting verbs -- such as, “failed to”, “crushed”, and “seized” -- that saturate Indonesian reports.

My next major complaint is how Indonesia-centric the Games are. The official theme is Ayo Indonesia Bisa (Indonesia, You Can), which is not something that encompasses the whole region, something that should have represented friendship between nations of Southeast Asia.

Collaboration between Indonesian, Malaysian and Filipino singers was only made for the opening ceremony and not for the whole Games. The Games’ slogan, “United and Rising”, could refer to Southeast Asia, but seems more likely to refer to Indonesia.

Other countries didn’t object to the slogan and the theme song because they are the host’s privileges – but we have taken our privileges too far. The host is also expected to collect the most gold medals, and introduce unpopular sporting events in which it expects to excel.

Another SEA Games, however, offers the sad reality of the lack of regionalism in Southeast Asia; how we still do not see each other as members of the same community. And yet this is the era when Indonesians are interacting with Filipino teachers and Malaysian customers, watching Thai movies, taking trips to Vietnam, and studying or working in Singapore.

Supporters from other Asian countries see no point in visiting Jakarta or Palembang, just as we are not interested in knowing more about Malaysian footballers and Singaporean swimmers. If anything, the Games will serve the government’s aim to increase a sense of nationalism among Indonesians (a key factor to this aim is to win the gold medal in men’s soccer), and it will not help Southeast Asian countries grow closer.

And no, it will not raise the profiles of Jakarta and Palembang among Southeast Asians. The Games will neither improve Indonesian tourism dramatically, nor will they serve as a good case in event management.

The writer is a graduate of La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.