1. Introduction: the absolute monarchy of Brunei Darussalam
Brunei Darussalam (“Brunei”) is a small Sultanate of 423,000 inhabitants (324,000 citizens) and the only Asian country presently governed by an absolute monarchy. Within Maritime Southeast Asia,Footnote 1 Brunei has the most uncontested government. There is no organized opposition or social movement challenging the ruling government, no attempt, cautiously or publicly, at questioning Brunei’s character as an absolute monarchy, and no bids to reduce the Sultan’s powers. Even at the smallest scale of collective activism,Footnote 2 royal power remains uncontested. This stands in contrast to Brunei’s neighbouring countries that have, in the past years, seen vibrant contestation. These countries are home to manifold politically oriented civil society groups and social movements that criticize government policies, debate amongst themselves, and seek to change existing power structures. Against this backdrop of multivocal political debates, declared opposition, or organized dissidents abroad, the political stability of “Brunei, the Abode of Peace”Footnote 3 appears to remain unshaken. Instead, even individual cases of low-level public subversion have apparently decreased, in comparison to earlier decades, when there were regular reports of arrests or “warnings” (amaran) for political transgressions.Footnote 4 It is noteworthy that, even in these earlier decades, no event had ever came close to the short-lived rebellion in 1962, led by the long-extinct People’s Party of Brunei (Parti Rakyat Brunei (“PRB”)).Footnote 5
Brunei’s stabilization of an absolute monarchy in the twenty-first century is also remarkable considering the continued growth of a well-educated, media-savvy, and internationally experienced young generation, and the rise of globally inspired groups of local artists and subcultures over the past two decades.Footnote 6 Some young Bruneians do participate politically in the form of raising public awareness on social issues or envision social changes;Footnote 7 however, they carefully avoid openly criticizing the government, state system, or royal family, let alone collectively advocating for alternatives.
The government and the official media-scape it controls present Brunei as both passionately tech-savvy and deeply traditionalist—a blend of international openness and a cautiously guarded national ideology of cultural protectionism that aims to seal the Abode of Peace behind a “firewall”Footnote 8 (in the Sultan’s words) from undesirable foreign influences.Footnote 9 Further complicating Brunei’s image, since full independence from British indirect rule in 1984, the government has increasingly framed Brunei as a staunchly Islamic polity governed by far-reaching sharia legislation. Yet, Brunei’s appearance heavily differs from common imaginations of what a “sharia state” looks like. Unpacking some of these paradoxes characteristic of contemporary Brunei, this article offers a contextual understanding of interrelated socio-legal, political, and historical factors that help to explain the endurance of Brunei’s absolute monarchy in the twenty-first century and its success in preventing open criticism. This article also addresses the role and limitation of formal laws with its study of the monarchy’s nation-making while also proposing to study the constitution of state power and its sociocultural meanings in supposedly “non-legal” spheres that are rarely considered by scholars of law and politics.
As a first step, this article introduces the Sultan’s exceptional power position, as he constitutionally stands above the law while the law simultaneously stipulates his unrestrained privileges, with royal authority serving as Brunei’s overarching normative precondition and guarantor of state power (Grundnorm). This section will also sketch relevant aspects of Brunei’s Constitution and explain the absence of constitutional politics today. This article, then, undertakes a historical contextualization how Brunei’s largely depoliticized society and lack of multivocal public politics came into being, with particular focus on the aftermath of the PRB’s Rebellion and the royal reaction to it, which had deeply structuring effects. The third part of this article discusses post-colonial Brunei’s formulation of a state ideology (“MIB”) and its political and legal Islamization, which recently culminated in an internationally much-debated introduction of an Islamic penal code. As neither this code nor the Constitution was subject to public debate and they do not currently have an immediate presence in most Bruneians’ lives, the fourth section shifts the attention to moments in which many Bruneians indeed experience and often actively participate in the constitution of state power, namely the Sultanate’s grand annual public rituals such as the Royal Birthday (Hari Keputeraan), the National Day (Hari Kebangsaan), and the Prophet’s Birthday (Maulidur Rasul) celebrations. The point will also be made that royal speeches (titah), which are delivered on key occasions such as those mentioned, offer a valuable resource to uncover the workings and impact of the Bruneian monarchy, with comparative implications. Concluding, this article argues that these and other “non-legal” spheres deserve cross-disciplinary scholarly attention as they contain powerful normative dimensions—and more subtle aspects of normalization—which reflect and impact important transformations of Brunei’s “MIB state.” In other words, such normalizations may be more impactful than actually enforcing any of the harsh rules and punishments contained in Brunei’s Islamic penal code. Part of this normalization process is the monarch’s “caring” and “merciful” directive for not enforcing the Islamic penal code’s harshest parts. This has advantageous effects for the ruling system, which is characterized by an ambivalent interplay of care and control,Footnote 10 and by an ability to integrate and hybridize multidirectional cultural components beyond stereotypes of what a “sharia state” or “authoritarian regime” might conventionally look like.
2. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah: above the law and its transcendental precondition
The current ruler, Sultan Hassanal BolkiahFootnote 11 —born in 1946, ruling since 1967, crowned in 1968—enjoys wide popularity, credibility, and trust. His personality, and the way it is staged, has played and continues to play an important role in the endurance of royal power. Five decades of policy decisions taken by this “caring monarch,” as state media call him, have thoroughly shaped Brunei’s political, legal, and state-religious systems.
In a royal speech (titah) declaring Brunei’s independence in 1984, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah announced that his country “shall be forever a … democratic, sovereign and independent Malay, Muslim Monarchy upon the teachings of (Sunni) Islam.”Footnote 12 Despite this statement, Brunei has never, be it before or after this statement was made, held general elections or established a parliament and in the post-colonial era. Additionally, Brunei has never seen noteworthy initiatives for political changes towards democracy.Footnote 13 More definingly, indeed programmatic for post-colonial nation-building, has been the Sultan’s expression of Brunei being Melayu Islam Beraja, officially translated as “Malay Islamic monarchy.”
Following independence, the programmatic notion of a Malay Islamic monarchy became formalized as a state ideology (ideologi negara), philosophy of the state (falsafah negara), and concept of the nation (konsep negara), frequently referred to by its acronym “MIB.”Footnote 14 Before introducing the “MIB state” (Negara MIB Footnote 15 ), the Sultan’s position on it requires explanation.
The Sultan constitutionally stands above the law and de jure “can do no wrong,” neither in “his personal or any official capacity.”Footnote 16 He is Brunei’s constitutional “head of the official religion” (i.e. Sunni Shafi’ite Islam); consequently, the state-religion can similarly do no wrong, and royal power is backed up by divine legitimation. The Sultan is conceptualized as Allah’s “caliph” or “vice-regent on Earth” (khalifah) and “leader of believers” (ulil amri), while sovereignty is not grounded in the people’s will but “in Allah alone”Footnote 17 —with the Sultan, state mufti, and the Islamic bureaucracy’s elites being the sole authorized interpreters of Allah’s will. The Sultan holds vast responsibilities before God and, by extension, before the population. His responsibility encompasses not only the physical and spiritual wellbeing of his citizenry, their religious right-guidedness, and the implementation of God’s legislative and socially normative will, but also responsibilities for matters pertaining to invisible worlds (dunia ghaib) and spirit beings on Bruneian soil. Controlling even such invisible worlds, and related transgressions such as sorcery, is a matter of legal and political relevance.Footnote 18
The Sultan’s multiplicity of roles manifests the principle of “l’état c’est moi” (“the state, that’s me”)—he is prime minister, Minister of Defence, Minister of Finance (previously Prince Jefri Bolkiah, 1986–97), Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade (previously Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, 1984–2015), commander-in-chief of the army and police, and chancellor of universities/colleges, among other roles.Footnote 19 This makes him the all-encompassing chief policy-maker. For institutions not led by him, such as the Ministry of Religious Affairs, he remains the primary authority by other means, such as for matters relating to Islam, as the caliph and head of the Ministry’s Islamic Religious Council. Without the Sultan’s consent, neither the Minister of Religious Affairs nor the state mufti can make major decisions, let alone Islam-related legislative measures. This sacralizes all legislative and policy decisions, also beyond explicitly “Islamic”-framed realms. As Brunei’s religious authorities declare obedience to a legitimate ruler’s governance a Muslim duty, questioning any decision could constitute questioning the Sultan and Islam. Reportedly, the Sultan handles even small-scale decisions “that could easily be delegated,”Footnote 20 which underlines his omnipotent authority. In practice, behind the scenes, his approach is often that “a consensual, risk averse-manager”Footnote 21 whose final word tends to consider the perspectives of multiple interest groups in the state apparatus and in wider society.
Even in unofficial settings, where Bruneians deviate from the “public transcript” of laudatory conformity,Footnote 22 Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah is typically exempted from criticism. Instead, such criticism commonly focuses on lower-ranking levels where people supposedly act mistakenly, beyond the Sultan’s guidance, or without his knowledge (“if only he knew …,” “they try to manipulate him,” “apparatchiks …”). The Sultan is able to exempt and/or limit himself from direct responsibility and blame by only giving “consent” to regulations that specific institutions formulate and implement.Footnote 23
Considering his overarching authority, the Sultan’s unquestionable will serves as the transcendental normative precondition and guarantor of state power (resembling a Grundnorm).Footnote 24 Attempts to contest this power, such as by demanding an electoral parliamentary monarchy or aiming to create political parties,Footnote 25 have entirely disappeared. The Constitution plays a comparably minor role for Bruneians, as it is mostly concerned with defining the Sultan’s privileges rather than outlining and protecting any of their civil rights.Footnote 26 A more important legal foundation with immediate daily life implications is the state of emergency that was declared following the PRB Rebellion of 1962 (“the Rebellion”). It is still in effect today. The Sultan enjoys the absolute discretion to issue Orders “desirable in the public interest,”Footnote 27 with no limits his emergency powers.Footnote 28
Established in 1959, the Constitution provides that five councils advise the Sultan: the Council of Cabinet Ministers, Privy Council, Legislative Council, Islamic Religious Council (MUIB), and Council of Regency.Footnote 29 The executive branch is constituted by the Council of Cabinet Ministers, comprising ministers independently appointed by the Sultan.Footnote 30 The Council of Cabinet Ministers’ advisory functions was further limited by the 2004 constitutional reform,Footnote 31 such that the Sultan can ignore and withhold his consent to the Council’s decisions.Footnote 32 Constitutional lèse majesté stipulations limit Council members’ freedom of speech and forbid them from expressions “derogatory of the rights, status, position, powers, privileges, sovereignty or prerogatives of His Majesty …, his Successors, His Consort or other members of the Royal Family or the National Philosophy (MIB).”Footnote 33
The constitutional reform of 2004 re-established a long suspended Legislative Council (“LegCo”). It convenes annually with much symbolic grandeur, media coverage, and an effective staging of all involved persons’ support for the Sultan’s sublime wisdom. The LegCo’s members are directly or indirectly appointed by the Sultan. Some approved members are indirectly elected through village councils.Footnote 34 The LegCo furthermore reviews and approves government budgets, and discusses selected matters of public interest, sometimes brought up informally by citizens to delegates. No political parties are represented. The Sultan has regularly reshuffled the LegCo’s membership, sometimes in toto and for no declared reasons, and repeatedly changed its size.Footnote 35 Strictly speaking, the LegCo is not a law-making body; but it has various functions, such as consultative and advisory capacities. Politically, its most important is possibly its symbolic functions, as its ceremony intensely stages the state’s Malay, Islamic, and monarchical components. Despite the LegCo’s shortcomings, it is remarkable that a public discussion on matters of public concern is taking place at all, particularly so as this had not been the case for preceding decades.
In Brunei, the most common form of law-making is by passing Orders. The LegCo can discuss and theoretically reject (unimaginable in practice!) any Bill or Order proposed by the Sultan. Notwithstanding, the Sultan may choose to ignore their decisions and objections and pass the relevant Bill and/or Order.Footnote 36 Generally, the Sultan makes laws by passing these Orders—following a legislative drafting process by relevant ministries/departments—as he considers them desirable in public interest.Footnote 37 Ministers, statutory bodies, and public officers may be conferred powers to make subsidiary legislation.
The Sultan’s law-making and policy decisions are final—there is no possibility of judicial review.Footnote 38 Notwithstanding, one innovation of the constitutional reform of 2004 was the possibility of judicial review of the Constitution itself through an interpretation tribunal, whose members are, again, appointed by the Sultan.Footnote 39 The Sultan also appoints key members of the judiciary and has the power to dismiss them without providing his reasons for so doing or avenues for objection. This includes judges at the Supreme Court, intermediate court, higher Syariah courts, and subordinate courts.Footnote 40 Despite this, the judiciary executes its daily functions independently.Footnote 41
The Constitution is generally unconcerned with citizens’ rights—the only exception being religious “practice … in peace and harmony.”Footnote 42 Instead, the Constitution deals extensively with the monarch’s privileges. Notably, the 1959 Constitution, and all amended versions, have “granted internal self-government to the Sultan, not to the people” (emphasis added).Footnote 43 In sum, this approach to the Sultan’s power has led to the Constitution’s continued relative irrelevance as a point of reference in public discourses, and for citizens in their everyday lives. On the contrary, the Constitution is rarely, if ever, a topic of conversation or an explicit part of popular legal consciousness. The Constitution does have a real-life impact insofar as it enshrines the Sultan’s unrestricted power and expresses the state’s lack of interest in formally protecting citizens’ rights. However, writing about Brunei’s Constitution in terms of legal dogmatism remains a theoretical scholarly pleasure with relatively little relevance in contemporary real life among the population.
The Sultan’s powers as sketched out above justifies calling Brunei’s ruling system an absolute monarchy. The next section contextualizes how this centralization of democratically unrestricted powers came into being and details what type of absolute monarchy the Sultan envisages Brunei to be, namely a “Malay Islamic monarchy” or “MIB state.”
3. Historical trajectories of depoliticization: the PRB Rebellion’s afterlife
Since the two-week-long PRB Rebellion of 1962, Brunei has not had an organized opposition or critical intellectuals publicly opposing or aiming to replace government policies or personnel. This emphasizes the significance of the Rebellion and warrants the provision of the backdrop against which it took place. The only elections ever held, beyond village councils, were district council elections in 1962. Only 16 of 33 seats would have been given to elected members. Despite these limitations, the outcome had dramatic consequences, with the PRB securing a landslide victory by winning all 16 contestable seats. The PRB’s leadership was originally on good terms with the then monarch, Sultan Omar Saifuddien III (1916–86, reign 1950–67). However, with its growing success, tensions grew over various matters, including considerations for joining Malaya.Footnote 44 After the election, the Sultan appeared to ignore its results by postponing a Legislative Council meeting. Subsequently, the PRB’s military wing, the North Kalimantan National Army, initiated an uprising. The election was among the several factors that fuelled the PRB’s Rebellion. However, the Rebellion was immediately defeated with British aid and Ghurka troops. Three thousand rebels were detained,Footnote 45 but the Sultan soon pardoned most lower-ranking members.Footnote 46 PRB leaders were imprisoned or left the country. By the 1990s, ex-PRB leaders in exile had mostly ended remaining activities.Footnote 47 Some created short-lived political parties that called for moderate changes with utmost caution while stressing unconditional support for the Sultan. Needless to say, none of these attempts had any impact. By the early 2020s, the PRB had left no active traces or successors—in today’s Bruneian historiography, the PRB’s own historical voice remains silent.
The monarchy’s reaction to the Rebellion had deep structural effects, leading to five decades of measures aiming at establishing a depolitized society and at silencing multivocal political discourse. Further, the experience of the Rebellion led the government to, for decades, prioritize policies that subdued any potentially dissenting, public political expressions. One such policy involves banning civil servants, who comprise a large majority of the working population in Brunei’s heavily oil- and gas-dependent rentier state,Footnote 48 from participating in political parties. Combined with social pressures, bureaucratic burdens, and the lack of perspectives required for impactful political engagement, this ban led to the quick disappearance of the few short-lived, small political parties that occasionally appeared between the 1980s and 2000s. In other words, any publicized political expressions were limited to the making, rephrasing, or otherwise promoting of government announcements.
In addition to the political restrictions in post-PRB Brunei during the second half of the twentieth century, another set of factors that have shaped contemporary Brunei’s political landscape and its discursive arena pertains to changing mediascapes since the early twenty-first century. The culture of participatory communication facilitated by the Internet opened new spaces. In the 2000s, there were several instances of online criticism of the government, mainly on two discussion fora: BruneiTalk/BruTalk (“A Kingdom of Unexpected Treasures,” mimetically mocking a tourism slogan) and BruClass (not to be confused with a later forum using the same name).Footnote 49 BruneiTalk was notorious for criticism and even “joke competitions” about the government and royal family members. After a member of the Bruneian army leaked classified documents at BruTalk, both fora were dissolved,Footnote 50 without comparable successors.
In the 2010s, new spaces emerged, such as Brunei Subreddit and the short-lived app, “Chrends.”Footnote 51 However, these spaces have been used by relatively few people and no online discussions have ever translated into collective political action offline. These online fora are observed by Brunei’s intelligence service.Footnote 52 Even Chrends, an app that promotes “freedom of speech” by allowing anonymous use,Footnote 53 had, according to an involved actor, been established only after consultation with the authorities. Reportedly, the forum and the anonymity therein were even partly welcomed by authorities because they presented them with the opportunity to learn popular sentiments and opinions, which were usually not openly expressed in Brunei’s politically restrictive climate, at a very specific, historical moment related to an Islamic legal reform (see below).
4. Political and legal Islamization in the MIB state
The Rebellion’s defeat marked a sustained end for democratic experiments. Additionally, the issues raised by the PRB that appeared, at that time, pressing by many Brunei Malays, such as increased political participation, fear of losing Malay dominance (ketuanan Melayu) vis-à-vis ethnic minorities (e.g. the Chinese),Footnote 54 potential mergers with neighbouring polities in Borneo and/or Malaya, and working towards a parliamentary democracy, have lost their relevance over time. Notwithstanding, another factor, and one that played little political role in the PRB’s days, has entered the centrefold and become increasingly defining for the post-colonial nation-state—Islam.
The growing (re)politicization of Islam across the Muslim World since the 1980s, sometimes labelled “Islamic revivalism,” has been transformative. In relation to the neighbouring Malaysia, Peletz describes this “Islamization” as “involving the heightened salience of Islamic symbols, norms, discursive traditions, and attendant practices across one or more domains of lived experience.”Footnote 55 In many countries, such political Islamization tended to be spearheaded, initially, by opposition movements that aimed to capture the state apparatus and instrumentalize it for top-down “Islamization” of society. Brunei was different.
Since the 1980s, the Sultan has viewed Islam as integral to maintaining stability, while simultaneously considering Islamist extremism “the most dangerous potential threat to his rule.”Footnote 56 Rather than being initiated by Islamist opposition movements (as in Malaysia and Indonesia) or anti-royalist revolutionaries (as in Iran), Bruneian actors within the state apparatus, particularly its Islamic bureaucracy, have sought to use the state as their vehicle for Islamization—across all spheres of societal, political, and economic life. Over time, they gradually succeeded. As an intra-state, strategic group, their powers grew with increasing support from the Sultan, especially following his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1987. Fuelled by transnational trends, Islamic revivalism also expanded within the wider Bruneian society, and has further enhanced the importance of the state’s Islamic bureaucracy for the Sultan. Evidently, top-down and bottom-up trends towards Islamic revival in Brunei have been and continue to be mutually reinforcing of each other.
A political conception of Islam also plays a central role in the Constitution of 1959. It opens with an invocation of Allah and a “Recital” establishing Islam as the state’s “official religion.”Footnote 57 Earlier, in 1948, Brunei, under Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin’s rule (1924–50) while still a British protectorate,Footnote 58 had already formed an “Islamic Advisory Body” (Badan Penasihat Ugama Islam). This body later expanded into the Department of Religious Affairs (Jabatan Hal Ehwal Ugama) (“the Department”) under Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III (1950–67) in 1954. In the post-colonial state, the Department became the Ministry of Religious Affairs (Kementerian Hal Ehwal Ugama) (“MoRA”).Footnote 59 Another key institution, the Brunei Islamic Religious Council (Majlis Ugama Islam Brunei) (“MUIB”), formed in 1955, also acquired enormous influence in post-colonial Brunei as the “chief authority” in “all matters relating to religion” under the MoRA’s umbrella.Footnote 60 In addition, the State Mufti Department—an innovation following the second state mufti’s installation in 1994—is particularly powerful. Kept under control through separation from the Islamic bureaucracy’s other bodies, the State Mufti Department works under the Prime Minister’s Office, the prime minister being the Sultan.
In contrast to developments elsewhere, the Sultan appears to enjoy undivided support from Islamic scholars (ulama), which are necessarily state-employed.Footnote 61 This state of affairs bears little resemblance to the contentious and often conflictive relationships between ulama (scholars) and umara (rulers), in places like Saudi-Arabia.Footnote 62 The Sultan has even challenged the ulama/umara dissension and emphasized his claim to religious leadership by famously leading a Friday prayer sermon in a mosque 1992, pictures of which are regularly circulated until today.Footnote 63 That said, it is undeniable that the Islamic bureaucracy has a power base and its own interests.
In the Independence Declaration (1984), the Sultan positioned Brunei as a “non-secular” state and established MIB as the state ideology.Footnote 64 Since then, the political and legal emphasis on Islam has grown continuously, while Islam’s superiority in MIB’s “triangle” has been increasingly stressed.Footnote 65 With its centrality in defining Brunei’s character and justifying monarchical powers, Islam is now a thoroughly government affair. Consequently, non-state spaces for Islamic discourse are diminishing: all mosques are government-controlled; imams (Muslim authority figures whose responsibilities include leading prayers in mosques) are civil servants; it is impossible to publicly teach Islam or give speeches about Islam-related matters without a government licence, which normally only members of the state-funded Islamic bureaucracy hold;Footnote 66 non-state actors cannot publish Islam-related writings without government permission;Footnote 67 and transnational Islamic movements cannot establish independent mosques. Unlike in countries, where Islam-related public debates are shaped by multivocality and interpretive discussion, Brunei’s official Islam is monolithic—the state’s standards of Islam are to be propagated and learned, and never questioned. Loyalty to the state’s interpretation of Islam is inextricably interwoven with loyalty to the Sultan and the nation-state.
With three programmatic pillars, MIB’s structural framing appears to be inspired by tools of modern nation-building elsewhere, including Indonesia’s Pancasila, Malaysia’s Rukun Negara (both having five pillars), the French Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and Germany’s Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit.Footnote 68 MIB has been presented as having existed for six centuries under the current ruler’s genealogy.
Since the 1980s, MIB has become increasingly institutionalized and has been conferred doctrinal and social meanings.Footnote 69 MIB demands complete conformity—supporting MIB is an “obligation” for “responsible” Bruneians, as the population is instructed.Footnote 70 Accordingly, expressing support for MIB is essential to the “public transcript” of good social citizenship,Footnote 71 which also applies to non-Muslims and non-Malays. Praise for MIB is prevalent in state media and official spaces. Such constant references to MIB assert, at least symbolically, the state’s presence in many situations of public societal life—as micro-level forms of everyday state-making. In the same vein, MIB-related literature is authored by civil services and produced by the government-sponsored publishing industry. Attempts for an MIB-ization at all levels of public life are interlocked with pressures for an “Islamization of the agencies”Footnote 72 —that is, of all government institutions also beyond the Islamic bureaucracy.
As part of formal education, classes promoting MIB have been compulsory, even up to university levels, since 1991–92.Footnote 73 Various institutions elucidate and propagate MIB, most notably, the MIB Supreme Council (Majlis Tertinggi MIB). Nonetheless, the Sultan’s speeches (titah) remain the most authoritative source for MIB’s meanings and policy directions. These speeches, and MIB, are frequently referenced by government institutions in their own policy framings and justifications. Interestingly, while these titah offer a valuable source of political and legislative power and legitimation for other actors to draw upon, they have never yet been systematically studied in any academic discipline to uncover the Bruneian monarchy’s workings and impact. Although they are not legal documents in a conventional sense, in the MIB state’s sociopolitical arena, the titah’s fundamental normative power implies a de facto legal character deserving of scholarly acknowledgement.
The MIB state prioritizes Islamic education. In pursuance of this, the Compulsory Religious Education Act obliges Muslim children to attend Islamic school classes for seven years, and assigns significant importance to Arabic language education in children’s education, which they are learning in parallel to their first language Malay (Bahasa Melayu) and English.Footnote 74 Together with systematic teaching of MIB, there is an inescapable fortress of attempted social engineering designed to produce conformity—and ideally sincere self-identification—with the absolute monarchy and MIB. This has produced the MIB generationFootnote 75 —Bruneians in their forties or younger who underwent the MIB state’s ideological education broadly since their school days and who have internalized the public transcript of having to perform expressions of loyalty and support in specific situations of public and professional life, irrespective of what they think about it. Nevertheless, the hidden sentiments behind such performances should not be confused with that. Regrettably, little research has been done to uncover how Bruneians think about and individually relate to the MIB state’s tireless attempts at indoctrination beyond spheres of performed obedience. While Bruneians, like anyone else, of course have social agency and critically reflect upon any attempted imposition of “state thinking,”Footnote 76 its concrete manifestations remain unexplored in Brunei Studies.
5. The Sharia Penal Code Order: the latest step on a long road
Since the colonial period, Brunei has maintained a pluralist legal system in which Islamic law with co-existing sharia and so-called “civil” (sivil, i.e. any non-sharia) courts and legislation. Colonial Anglo-Muhammadan sharia law was mainly limited to family and personal status law, but also incorporated some components of Islamic criminal law, which could be traced to the early twentieth century. This included laws governing offences such as prostitution, pre- and extramarital sex, not attending Friday prayers, and female Muslims leaving their guardian’s house to commit “immorality” (or persons persuading them to do so), and also offences involving challenges to the state’s exclusive Islamic authority, such as public Islamic teachings without a permit.Footnote 77 Generally, sharia-based crimes were dealt with by an Islamic judge (qadi/kadi); however, some serious cases were handled by the “civil” magistrates’ court.Footnote 78
Post-colonial Islamization policies have often been legalistic. In 1990, the Sultan ordered the mandatory reconsideration of all laws, including civil law, to ensure they did not contradict Islam. To this end, a “Committee of Harmonising Laws in Accordance with Islam,”Footnote 79 comprising local and international Islamic legal experts, such as Anwarullah Shafiullah from Pakistan, conducted a systematic review.Footnote 80 This review resulted in, inter alia, a ban on the production and sale of pork and alcohol in 1991–92,Footnote 81 the further restriction of public entertainment, amidst an expansion of Islamic and MIB education.Footnote 82 These developments coincided with the growing popularity of Islamic revivalism and its emphasis on practised piety.Footnote 83 Along with growing concerns regarding “un-Islamic” practices that needed theological and bureaucratic examination and increasing demands of the state, many legal and bureaucratic initiatives ensued. The sharia judiciary became more powerful vis-à-vis civil law, while the latter became partly reframed as itself being Islamic law, ta’zir—that is, “man-made” laws that legitimate Islamic rulers can create.Footnote 84 The government aimed to make “the Islamic (legal) system the most effective system in the country.”Footnote 85 New Islamic laws covered areas such as family law, adoption, finance and banking, evidence, and arbitration.Footnote 86 Criminal law mostly remained dealt with by civil law, although, as noted earlier, some Islamic offences are punishable since colonial times.Footnote 87 In post-colonial Brunei, they became transferred into the Religious Council and Kadis Courts Act. Notwithstanding, Islamic law, excluding civil law repackaged as ta’zir, remained applicable to Muslims only.
A key demand of twentieth- and twenty-first-century global Islamist ideology has always been a “comprehensive,” Islamic criminal legislation, besides ta’zir covering so-called hudud (literal translation from Arabic: “boundaries”) and qisas (“retaliation”) laws. For Islamism in Malaysia, the quest for hudud has turned almost into a fetish, as the defining feature of what distinguishes a real Islamic state from “cosmetic” ones. In their most drastic version, hudud und qisas laws impose maximum punishments such as death by stoning, various corporal punishments, and decades-long imprisonment. Many scholars stress that “proper” hudud und qisas laws also include exceptionally high procedural burdens and offer multifold ways of avoiding punishments.Footnote 88 Especially since the mid-1990s, elites in Brunei’s Islamic bureaucracy were inspired by legalistic-Islamist discourses in Malaysia, South Asia, and the Middle East. Key actors, including the State Mufti Abdul Aziz Juned, Mahmud Saedon Othman, Mohd. Zain Serudin, and Anwarullah Shafiullah, had lobbied for more Islamic criminal law and its ideological framing.Footnote 89 In 1996, the Sultan responded by declaring, in a royal speech (titah) on his fiftieth birthday, plans for a “complete Islamic penal code, as stipulated by Allah,” in the original wording mixing Arabic, Malay, and English: “Qanun Jina’-I Islam yakni Islamic Criminal Act selengkapnya, sebagaimana yang dituntut oleh Allah Subhanahu Wataala.”Footnote 90
Initially, there were powerful counter-forces within the fragmented state apparatus, including the Sultan’s brother Jefri, then a minister. Gradually, they lost their influence on the Sultan’s Islam-related politics decisions in battles that mostly took place behind closed doors. Two decades later, the Sultan declared the time was overripe (“Who are we to say wait!?”)Footnote 91 for Brunei’s Syariah Penal Code Order 2013 (Perintah Kanun Hukuman Jenayah Syariah) (“SPCO”). The SPCO further hybridized Islamic and civil laws by establishing the sharia court’s jurisdiction over non-Muslims, allowing the latter to be punished, albeit only under limited SPCO sections. Pursuant to the Syariah Courts Act (Amendment) Order 2014, the Syariah Subordinate Courts’ criminal jurisdiction and appeal jurisdiction to the Syariah High Court was enhanced. The implementation was planned in three phases, beginning with ta’zir, followed by hudud and qisas laws with their harsher punishments, which included death by stoning. A delayed, long-awaited procedural code (Syariah Courts Criminal Procedure Order 2018) (the “CPC”) followed in 2018, peculiarly launching the second and third implementation phases in one package. However, partly in response to international pressures and some remaining intra-state discomfort, or so it appeared, the Sultan soon declared Brunei’s “de facto moratorium” against the death penalty (including the SPCO), such that none of its sections imposing corporal punishments and death penalties would be implemented.Footnote 92
Even from the first phase’s less controversial sections, surprisingly few laws have been enforced. Amongst those enforced, most have been seldomly applied, while the civil penal code remains in force. Even where the SPCO has overlapping sections with the civil penal code (e.g. for theft),Footnote 93 in cases in which the SPCO was used, convictions have mostly resulted in mild punishments, such as monetary fines.Footnote 94 From 2013 until 2021, 652 SPCO cases had been reported, none including hudud or qisas; 43% of these cases consisted of reports of morally suspicious “close proximity” (khalwat) between non-married couples. These are normally punished with fines (though a year of imprisonment is possible) and have been punishable since colonial times. In other words, there has been no substantial change to the treatment of offences when compared with pre-SPCO times, where khalwat cases were also regularly prosecuted. A handful of the remaining cases concerned “indecent behaviour,” cross-dressing, pregnancy out of wedlock, disrespecting Ramadhan, and insulting Islam. Thirteen cases, however, included non-Muslims (e.g. seventeen men accused of impregnating Muslim women). While there were 23 theft cases (sariqah), none fell under hudud, which permits the amputation of limbs for repeat offenders. Compared with the civil penal code’s case-load, numbers appear low, averaging 81 cases per year.Footnote 95 By way of comparison to the “civil” courts, 126 criminal cases were filed before intermediate court and approximately 60 more were filed before the magistrates’ court and high court—that is, more than double the SPCO’s annual cases.Footnote 96
The SPCO, it seems, primarily plays a symbolic role, as it is rarely used to implement the draconian punishments that it theoretically permits. The situation confirms what some state representatives had stressed from the start—the political intention of enacting this law should not be conflated with intentions to enforce it. Symbolically, the SPCO is the manifestation of the Sultan’s (in certain interpretations of Islam) divine role, as God’s vice-regent, to implement “complete” Islamic legislation in the MIB state—something the Islamic bureaucracy’s elites and parts of the population have expected from him, even more so given his 1996 announcement.
The SPCO’s enactment is an instrument of political communication through law—framing the MIB state as authentically Islamic. It is a form of nation-making and religious-political self-legitimation. However, as the law is only mildly applied, this political communication also, crucially, entails the message of the absolute ruler remaining a merciful and “caring monarch,” who firmly opposes extremism and cruelty—a stance also presented as essentially Islamic. It is precisely this combination of a “fully” sharia-implementing yet mercifully moderate ruler that makes the SPCO a successful project for perpetuating royal power. This balancing act also reconciles a diverse spectrum ranging from Islamist expectations to more secular-oriented anxieties in the state apparatus held amongst the population.
In more abstract terms, borrowing Foucault’s phrase, I would argue that “the code”—here, the SPCO—“is not that of law but that of normalization.”Footnote 97 This normalization entails a broader socio-legal, political, and communicative process far transcending juridical practices and institutions. The code’s normative messages, and its meanings that simultaneously reflect and impact the transformative developments in Brunei’s increasingly MIB-ized state and society, are much more powerful than applying the code’s punitive aspects. The MIB state they create is not a draconian “sharia state,” but a much more complicated blend of multidirectional and multidimensional signals and ingredients.
In a pre-SPCO analysis, Lindsey and Steiner demonstrate that Bruneian Islamic laws fell into different categories.Footnote 98 Certain sections obviously function to safeguard the state’s exclusive authority in the Islamic field, and extend the monarchy’s power. Accordingly, these identifiable sections of the SPCO contribute to the MIB state’s nation-making efforts through legal means. For example, section 230 threatens a person who “contempts, neglects, contravenes, opposes or insults” a titah (royal speech) or decree of the Sultan with up to five years’ imprisonment. The SPCO also outlaws any person who “contempts, neglects, contravenes, opposes or insults” the Islamic Religious Council, headed by the Sultan, or any part of the state’s Islamic administration and judiciary.Footnote 99 Other sections shield the sacrosanct state mufti and his fatwas from “contempt” and outlaws criticism against (or making “fun of”) state-defined Islamic laws, practices, and teachings. Disseminating interpretations of Islam that differ from the MIB state’s doctrines, or without a government permit, is also punishable.
Numerous other sections serving similar purposes could be listed, and Brunei’s formal legislation and policy-making are certainly interesting academic topics. Yet, when it comes to Islamic criminal law, it remains puzzling why few laws are applied, and rarely so. Why would some members of the state apparatus order the creation of an enormously detailed 330-page procedural code for the 132-page-long SPCO, when many other state representatives have, in unofficial spaces, passionately reassured from the beginning that most of the SPCO’s laws would never be applied?Footnote 100
From my conversations in Brunei, it appears that the narratives surrounding the SPCO’s (non-)implementation heavily differed depending on which part of the state, and which ideological camp, the respondent was affiliated with. For example, in 2018, I spoke with a high-ranking Islamic official for whom the law’s full and proper application, including corporal punishments, was of deep personal importance. He also showed me his impressive personal library of texts and videos about Islamic punishments across the world.Footnote 101 He had no doubt that the SPCO was originally developed to be fully enforced. In a similar spirit, the state mufti had, ironically, in a book he wrote about the Sultan as a champion of Islamization, sharply opposed a moratorium on the death penalty for the SPCO (which the Sultan later announced, contradicting the mufti’s stance).Footnote 102 In comparison, a person from a part of the state apparatus that was not Islam-marked narrated how a government office had been completely unaware of the SPCO’s long preparations (apparently not following the Islamic bureaucracy’s discourses) and was entirely taken by surprise. Nevertheless, this person was sure from the start that the SPCO served roles other than actual punitive implementation. Clearly, there has never been a monolithic understanding of the SPCO within “the state.” This should come as no surprise, as, anthropologically viewed, “the state” is merely “a collection of individual human beings connected by a complex system of relations,”Footnote 103 although states are often misleadingly spoken about as if they were human-like actors with a unified position.
Following the announcement of its development, the SPCO was present in the minds of many Bruneians (including piously practising Muslims) as a somewhat theoretical topic, sometimes related to positive religious sentiments, pride, or patriotism, and other times related to uncertainties and fears. As it became increasingly clear that, in observable practice, the SPCO would only be mildly and seldomly applied, and its existence caused nothing much to change in the people’s lives, it quickly lost its relevance for many Bruneians. By the early 2020s, the SPCO become, largely, a law in the books—only a law in action in very limited situations. Viewing these factors in totality, the SPCO, despite initial uncertainties, is not a topic that many Bruneians find worthwhile discussing anymore.
Beyond Islamic law, Brunei boasts strict authoritarian regulations. Yet, compared with many other authoritarian states, it is rare for Bruneians to be sentenced for political offences. Even in areas where much state surveillance occurs, such as religious “deviance,” cases are almost never brought to courts but handled by other means, like “warnings” and “religious counselling.”Footnote 104 Additionally, beyond the SPCO, many laws appear to serve discursive functions of MIB-infused everyday state-making rather than existing for institutional enforcement.
The next section focuses on normative practices that are, arguably, more societally impactful than the largely unapplied SPCO or the mostly invisible and practically irrelevant Constitution, although they rarely receive any serious attention from (socio-)legal scholars—the MIB state’s large annual public rituals. What they do share with the SPCO, however, is their crucial significance for symbolic nation-making and normalization in the MIB state, among other MIB-related connections.
6. Constituting state power: national celebrations and their normative dimensions
Brunei’s Constitution was for a long time not even available for sale and thus not accessible for most citizens, which indicated the low priority that the government authorities obviously had ascribed to its public presence and popular understanding—and similarly signalling its irrelevance, a Constitution Day became quickly abandoned again.Footnote 105 The monarch did not consider the Constitution a desirable symbol for public celebrations and, thus, for ritually manifesting state power and its MIB-specific meanings in his subjects’ lives. Instead, other occasions appeared more suitable. In post-colonial Brunei, the Royal Birthday (Hari Keputeraan), the National Day (Hari Kebangsaan), and the Prophet’s Birthday (Maulidur Rasul) are amongst the most important annual events for the purpose of imposing everyday state-making and reinforcing MIB.Footnote 106 As post-colonial Brunei is widely acknowledged to possess characteristics resembling a Geertz’ian “neo-traditional theatre state,”Footnote 107 the political importance of its grand celebrations is obvious. I will address the Royal Birthday and National Day in some depth, before briefly describing an anecdote related to the Prophet’s Birthday.
The Royal Birthday’s symbolism merges MIB’s three components. The day itself, 15 July,Footnote 108 is a public holiday; however, public celebrations last for three weeks—longer than any other annual celebration. This demonstrates the Sultan’s (MIB’s “B,” i.e. Beraja, literally “monarchical”) superior importance. Additional events take place even before and after those three weeks. As a press article put it in 2018, “royal birthday festivities will continue … throughout the months to come.”Footnote 109 Citizens in the public service, from the private sector, social organizations, and schools, all participate in fixed performative roles. Many attend preparatory “practice sessions … to familiarise the participants with their routines to be showcased,”Footnote 110 and similarly so for the National Day celebrations.
Across Brunei, countless congratulatory signboards, giant banners, decorative arches, posters, birthday-themed scripted flags, and rags transform the appearance of every single street. Placing them visibly is obligatory for commercial businesses, while a Committee for His Majesty’s Birthday Celebrations, comprising government elites, ensures shared designs and clear regulations. Additionally, “[r]esidents and citizens are … advised to fly the national flag throughout the month.”Footnote 111 By various means, individual and corporate citizens stage their good citizenship, defined by performing loyalty and support for the Sultan and MIB state. This is also performed through standardized well-wishes for the Sultan’s longevity and blessings, often invoking Islamic terminology and always using jawi script, Brunei’s official Malay script, alongside roman letters (rumi). Strengthened since independence, jawi became prescribed to be twice as large as roman script (supposedly secular/Western) and positioned on top—a regulation following a royal titah valid since 1988.Footnote 112 As jawi expresses MIB’s “M,” the Sultan has made this symbolic order compulsory for all “signs on Government buildings and on private businesses, including name signs, letterheads, notice boards, posters, advertisements, banners, names and street signs.”Footnote 113
Corporations, local and multinational, seek advantageous ways to place their brands next to iconic displays of the Sultan, supplemented by their dutiful birthday greetings. Larger and more impressive congratulatory signboards/banners/advertisements may enhance public relations effects, as commercial and political advertising are fusing under the umbrella of an MIB- and event-specific personality cult.
Congratulators visualizing their good citizenship choose from a fixed set of royal images, regulated by the Committee for His Majesty’s Birthday Celebrations. The newspapers’ thick special issues carry hundreds of congratulatory advertisements that follow partly standardized and partly flexible patterns, as do congratulatory television advertisements. Such advertisements are placed by all companies in Brunei and, also, by social organizations and minority groups, such as the Catholic Church and ethnic Chinese associations,Footnote 114 who, despite not fulfilling two of the MIB state’s core components (M, I), show their support for the monarchy (B) as a ritualized form of normatively expected everyday state-making. Part of this ritual is the inclusion of thematically standardized headlines like the following in local publications:
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“Nation Celebrates Beloved Ruler’s … Birthday” (Borneo Bulletin, 15 July 2018)
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“Enthusiastic Students Look forward to More Royal Birthday Celebrations” (Borneo Bulletin, 16 July 2018)
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“Ministers Thank His Majesty for State Decorations, Vow to Realise National Vision” (Borneo Bulletin, 16 July 2018)
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“Imams Praise Benevolent Leadership of His Majesty” (Borneo Bulletin, 14 July 2018)
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“Energy Firms Honour HM’s (=His Majesty’s) Leadership” (Brunei Times, 23 August 2015)
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“Love, Loyalty Overflow as Tutong (District) Greets His Majesty” (Borneo Bulletin Online, 20 July 2018).
These headlines encompass all relevant groups (general people, students, ministers, imams, private sector, districts, etc.) and unfailingly describe the celebrations as “must-go event(s)” for citizens—“a golden opportunity … to be with their much-beloved monarch and show their love and loyalty,”Footnote 115 every annum.
The Royal Birthday begins with evening prayers the night before the birthday. In the morning of each 15 July, a mass gathering transforms the normally quiet heart of the capital Bandar Seri Begawan, on a large field (Taman Haji Sir Muda Omar Ali Saifuddien) where Brunei’s independence was declared. The ceremony officially commences with 21 thundering shots by golden canons (bedil), marking the Sultan’s arrival. The Sultan enters the scene in a classic Rolls-Royce, alongside royal family members in similar-styled vehicles, passing by cheering and flag-waving crowds. These crowds include children and teachers, who know exactly where they must stand, alongside employees of ministries, offices, and educational institutions. As the monarch rolls by, some children play drums that dramatize his arrival.
The Sultan, royal family members, high-ranking nobles in traditional Malay dresses, and foreign dignitaries and ambassadors then spend hours in a seating area at the Taman Haji Sir Muda Omar Ali Saifuddien’s parameters to watch the “colorful show of love,”Footnote 116 as state media have described it. The parade and performances range from military and police exercises, with the Sultan inspecting troops (including a royal guard of honour), to helicopters flying by and children parading, accompanied by heavy loads of old-fashioned, British-style military practices, such as march music and the shouting of military paroles. Groups representing several aspects of Bruneian society are part of the show, while the Sultan is constantly at the centre. At one point, a golden military jeep will drive the Sultan along a line of uniformed officers, himself standing under a yellow traditional Malay royal umbrella held by a servant. Many of these scenes fuse a breath-taking multiplicity of symbolic registers, including British elite and military culture, Malay royal tradition, media technologies and pop culture, and, of course, extensive Islamic invocations.
Everybody, including royal family members, stands at their prescribed place and salutes the Sultan at ritually scripted moments, in a spectacle of controlled bodies (though, at times, soldiers in thick uniforms faint from the burning heat, to be discretely pulled away). At the conclusion of these performances, the Sultan, Crown Prince, and other royal family members walk across the field, shaking hands with countless citizens, who, following royal protocol, respectfully bow and use royal language (bahasa dalam) when addressing the Sultan. For several years now, this part of the celebrations has included taking mobile phone pictures with patiently smiling royals under the watchful eyes of discrete, plainclothes security officers—a royal selfie parade. The monarch also walks by stalls erected by companies and social groups, which are as diverse as an Islamic bank’s stall being located next to that of an ethnic Chinese association (Masyarakat Tiong Hwa). The stalls’ designs incorporate terms resembling the above-mentioned signboards, with the names of brands and/or organizations juxtaposed with an iconic picture of the monarch and congratulatory messages. The Sultan inspects his birthday presents at each stall, some of which he signs in jawi script. The aforementioned events of the Royal Birthday are shown on television throughout the day, with congratulatory advertising clips, Royal Birthday song videos, and documentaries of the Sultan’s life transposed in-between.
Finally, the monarch leaves for events in the Royal Ceremonial Hall (Lapau Diraja) and palace (Istana Nurul Iman). At the palace, the annual Investiture Ceremony takes place, during which the Sultan awards hundreds of honorary medals/titles to government officials and private-sector representatives. These classic tokens of modern nationalism contribute to the Royal Birthday’s function as a symbolic manifestation of generalized reciprocity between the ruler (giving peace/stability, prosperity, and honours) and his people (giving loyalty/support).Footnote 117 Through this ceremony, the Sultan, resembling a “Mauss’ian magician,” accumulates powerful symbolic capital—binding the awardees to the state for mutual advantage, himself serving as the “(central) bank of symbolic capital,” as Bourdieu et al. described in their analysis of honours-awarding “presidents” elsewhere.Footnote 118
Even as 15 July ends, the celebrations have only just began. Over the following three weeks, mass receptions, stage shows, and rehearsals are held nationwide, some of which are attended by the monarch, family members, and/or government officials. These events include “pledges of loyalty,” “meet-and-greet sessions” (junjung ziarah), “cake-cutting ceremonies,” “prayer events,” and more. Where the Sultan’s physical presence is unavailable, events are, on occasion, held under his larger-than-life portraits. This could include sports games, cultural performances, dances, traditional boat races, art shows, and competitions of many kinds (from Qur’an recitals to artwork,Footnote 119 painting, poetry, singing, and house-decorating)—all activities of relative contrast to Brunei’s otherwise quiet public space. Until quite recently, there was a popular Royal Birthday tradition of lantern parades at night, where people would bring self-made lanterns, which range from simple paper lanterns made by children to large and spectacular ones (e.g. a lantern replicating one of the Sultan’s racing cars). According to a narration, before the 1990s, even cock-fight gambling was a popular Royal Birthday-related tradition in small villages. However, with the MIB state’s growing assertiveness, related sociocultural changes, and the Royal Birthday’s growingly regulated character, such traditions vanished.
The Sultan uses his birthdays not only for showcasing his power over Bruneian bodies and the public sphere, but also to disseminate explicit political messages. Annually, he gives an event-specific royal speech (titah) announcing key decisions and/or (re)formulating policy priorities. For example, the plan for a Sharia Penal Code Order was first announced on 15 July 1996 in such a titah.
Royal Birthday songs are played from morning to late night for three weeks. Recently, more Arabic-inspired tunes have been incorporated into the new, decidedly pop-style birthday song, “Rahmat” (by Fakhrul Razi), conveying a different tune from earlier songs. The lyrics call the Sultan an “authoritative caliph” (khalifah yang berwibawa) for whose blessings and long life Bruneians should gratefully pray. This song, like many other event features, underline the MIB state’s Islamic yet globally oriented and culturally hybrid character. The videos accompanying birthday songs are similarly insightful material for analyzing the MIB state’s official staging and meaning-creation, as they summarize the monarch’s various standardized roles. Showcased images commonly include the Sultan as a cosmopolitan statesman in a business suit, traditional Malay ruler wearing traditional attire with royal regalia, friend of international leaders, devoted Muslim, caring monarch, sportsman, uniformed commander-in-chief, champion of information and communication technologies (ICT), university chancellor, and, above all, a ruler close to his people, listening and shaking their hands (irrespective of conservative interpretations of Islam forbidding hand-shaking with women, expressed among parts of his Islamic bureaucracy). Clips of the Sultan portraying these roles are cut together in the video for “Rahmat,” the earlier “15 Julai Kelahiran Putera,” and, also, in the Birthday documentaries. However, the religious components in the video for Rahmat (Arabic term for “mercy,” with Islamic underpinnings) are brought to the fore, more so than in “15 Julai,” which reflects the general trend of an even further expanded emphasis on Islamic symbols during the past decade.Footnote 120
During the three weeks, a stage is erected in the capital centre for daily entertainment, lasting into the nights. This is particularly fascinating as Brunei is a country that typically forbids nightlife entertainment, due to the MIB state’s cultural restrictions. Nearby, a temporary night market is set up. The stage events are diverse—they include “traditional” cultural performances and Islamic events, but also extend to theatre and contemporary music concerts and dances that usually have no legitimate public stage, such as female singers with electric guitars and hip-hop dance performances, to name only two that I have observed. The stage also provides a space for skilled singers who are others relegated to performing only at private wedding parties or in neighbouring Malaysia/Indonesia. For various actors, the Royal Birthday presents an opportunity of everyday state-making for their own purposes, and while they dutifully express congratulations for His Majesty, they also create spaces of agency for themselves. Beyond the stage, but also on the occasion, graffiti sprayers have, for example, organized a competition, where a portrait of the Sultan was sprayed and juxtaposed with other iconic “superstars,” such as Marlon Brando as the Godfather, Al Pacino as Scarface, and American rappers Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., and Snoop Dogg smoking. Likewise, motorbike clubs have organized “Keputeraan (birthday) rides” (72 kilometres long for the Sultan’s seventy-second birthday).
The Royal Birthday creates an “anti-structure”Footnote 121 of ritual-specific liminality in which some dominating norms, such as entertainment restrictions, are temporarily destabilized in the MIB state’s name, yet partly to escape some of its otherwise dominating features. However, other norms of the MIB state become accentuated, such as excessive emphasis on the ruling order’s legitimacy. Taken together, this lends the celebrations a normatively ambivalent character.
The event’s cultural hybridity signals the MIB state’s ability to incorporate a broad spectrum of meanings and symbolic registers. As exemplified, this hybridized mix has something to offer almost everybody, and reflects the cultural complexity of the MIB state in action. This complexity, like the SPCO’s above-described ambivalences, complicates stereotypes of a “sharia state” that increasingly dominate international (mis)perceptions of Brunei.
The Royal Birthday is not without criticism. Some refuse to participate, but the only publicly outspoken critic appears to be—no surprises here—the Sultan himself. In 2016, he “urged the government and private sector to avoid overspending on advertisements and decorations for his upcoming 70th birthday,” adding that “banners and advertisements showing his image should be used in moderation.”Footnote 122 Doubtlessly, giant-sized portraits and hundreds, if not thousands, of the above-described advertisements remained in place, but his “criticism” operated to further strengthen his positive image as a down-to-earth—yet larger-than-life—ruler who opposes excessiveness, again resembling the staging of the image of a all-defining yet wise, reasonable, and moderate ruler, as in relation to the SPCO.
Another celebration of state power is the National Day, 23 February, which commemorates Brunei’s independence. Since 1984, it has been shaped by spectacular mass choreographies, some loosely resembling the choreographies of synchronized bodies and colours in more internationally well-known propaganda events, such as those in China or North Korea. Again, people from wide-ranging segments of the state and society are involved and participate in parades, held at the earlier mentioned “Taman” (same location as 15 July). Participants include obliged and systematically prepared public servants, students, and more. Again, patriotic slogans and large banners with the Sultan’s image are erected, alongside national flags and extensive Malay and Islamic symbolism. Space is also given for a folkloristic display of ethnic minority populations, to demonstrate national unity. The overall symbolism, however, consistently mirrors the state’s growing “MIB-ization,” paralleling the Royal Birthday. A minor yet illustrative example is that, in contrast to the 1980s, all Muslim female participants now cover their hair, and are expected to do so.
A third celebration is the Prophet’s Birthday (Maulidur Rasul). The very existence of this event draws a sharp distinction between Brunei’s official Islam and Salafi strands of Islam, which condemn this celebration.Footnote 123 The event’s history, nevertheless, mirrors the expanding shifts related towards a more restrictive Islam. In a rare instance of publicized intra-government dissent, the Sultan boycotted the celebrations, “[o]bjecting to religious authorities changing arrangements for the … procession in 1985”Footnote 124 to segregate male participants from their female counterparts, without prior royal consent. Although the decision was “reversed,”Footnote 125 no royal family member and only one cabinet member attended. The then Director of Information and a “creator of MIB,” Badaruddin Othman, was “blamed for the decision” and temporarily sent to an “ambassadorial exile”Footnote 126 in Indonesia. Further, he was excluded from the Cabinet. However, he quickly rose back to intra-state power as Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office and sustainably strengthened Islamic elements in state media.Footnote 127 After having been sanctioned for his “religious fundamentalism,”Footnote 128 he quickly became pardoned. Today, he serves as the Minister of Religious Affairs. Back then, the situation was much more contested: in the same year, intra-state contestations over the position and meaning of Islam in the MIB state similarly escalated when, “without prior warning, newscasters … (appeared) without head covering,” due to a short-lived “order … issued by Prince Jefri,” who was then responsible for media affairs as a minister. Three decades later, the “Islamic camp” has largely won, supported by the Sultan. Prince Jefri, who lost his ministerial positions following large-scale scandals in the late 1990s, was left, somewhat tragically, to sit silently on stage when the SPCO was announced in 2013 by the Sultan and the Minister of Religious Affairs.
7. Conclusion: beyond the “sharia state”
The Sultan’s birthday and other national celebrations provide insights into the MIB state’s internal power dynamics and changes, some subtle and some more obvious, which in explicitly debated forms often remain hidden from the public eye. Non-Bruneian scholars regularly examine the Constitution, the SPCO, and Emergency Regulations, or invite other scholars, like myself, to write about these laws. But in which form, and to which extent, if at all, does their analysis really help to understand normativities that matter to Bruneians in their lives? Not a single scholarly publication has ever centred on Brunei’s Royal Birthday, National Day, or Maulidur mass events, and their political and socio-legal implications. To understand the MIB state’s actual normative workings in real life, we should broaden our attention to these and other forms of everyday state-making. Ideally, Bruneian voices should play a leading role in this endeavour, which remains regrettably rare, due to difficult restrictions for politically interested Bruneian academics. Ideally, legal scholars, anthropologists, and sociologists should join forces, as both fields, legal and ethnographic analysis, could decisively benefit from such an unconventional collaboration in their knowledge production. Regrettably, no such socio-legal co-operation exists in Brunei Studies yet, neither locally nor abroad.
Another underexplored source for understanding the societal workings of state power in the MIB state, and the making of its sociocultural meanings, are the Sultan’s royal speeches (titah), whose constitutive character deserves academic scrutiny. From a comparative perspective, beyond Brunei, examining royal speeches and their constitutive workings in politics, society, and law-making appears to be a promising avenue for inquiring into the interplay between monarchs and their societies.
The absolute monarchy’s continued and intensified association with Islam, its embeddedness in a generous oil- and gas-funded welfare state, and the Sultan’s popularity and personality cult are all contributing factors for the endurance and enhancement of royal power, alongside a deep history of preventing criticism and limiting its scale of impact. At the level of meaning-creation, and thus, hermeneutic analysis, which is a key dimension of law that Pirie argues is rarely acknowledged as such,Footnote 129 the MIB state’s symbolic framing provides a sacralizing umbrella and has stabilized the Sultan’s claim to unquestionable power. The Sultan’s positive image as a “caring monarch” bolsters this stability and bridges intra-state and societal fragmentation, though it remains an open question whether his successor will be able to acquire a similar status and pursue a similarly successful governing approach.
Formal laws protect the Sultan’s and MIB state’s unquestionability, but should not be overstated. Other aspects, including the law’s symbolic dimensions for political communication and meaning-making, public rituals, and other forms of everyday state-making, are no less influential as experientially effective manifestations of state power in people’s everyday lives. Supposedly non-legal spheres contain normative dimensions, and more subtle aspects of normalization, which mirror and inform important socio-legal developments in Brunei’s increasingly “MIB-ized” discursive arena. To be sure, such normalization should not be misread as a total phenomenon without contradictions, counter-movements, and multidirectional cracks in the picture.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the guest editors of the Special Issue, Maartje De Visser and Andrew Harding, for the invitation for joining their publication project and for their very helpful guidance. I am grateful also to Mu’izz Abdul Khalid for his thoughtful comments, as well as to all Bruneian friends, colleagues, and research interlocutors whose generosity, patience, and understanding have enabled me to write anything related to their country in the first place, which they know so much better than I ever will. I am furthermore indebted to the Academy of Brunei Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) for its support, and would like to thank Noémi Chaw En-Hui Sarah for her helpful comments and editing. Research for this article was generously supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG)’s Heisenberg and Emmy Noether programmes.
