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Another Outline diary
Wandering through the world alphabetically, one country at a time, one story at a time:
#29 — Brunei Darussalam
The Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace is located on the North coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia. It’s an absolute Islamic monarchy under Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah.
As far as I can tell, Brunei does not officially have any news. It has lots of positive stories about its lawmakers, its ministries, and the Canadian frigate that’s currently docked there, but no news. Then I asked Google to look for op-eds. ;)
From the NYT Editorial Board (2 years ago):
Brunei’s Royal Barbarity and Hypocrisy
The oil-rich sultanate imposes harsh Shariah law on its subjects, while members of the royal family enjoy lives of conspicuous luxury.
An intriguing aspect of Brunei’s barbarous Shariah laws is that if they were to be really enforced, a few of the sultan’s ridiculously wealthy, jet-setting kin would be leading candidates for death by stoning. Adultery is one of the crimes for which the archaic penalty is prescribed under the stern laws that went into effect on April 3 — along with sex between men, abortion and rape — and tabloids around the world have accumulated plenty of evidence against some Bruneian royals.
Such royal hypocrisy may seem to be the norm among autocratic rulers sitting atop oceans of oil who place no limits on their own dissolute lifestyles and yet impose cruel Islamic law on their subjects. And tiny Brunei, a country roughly the size of Delaware that shares the island of Borneo with Malaysia and Indonesia, might not seem worth getting worked up about.
And then it all made sense. Of course, how much of the NYT piece is hyperbole, there is no way to check from the current news pieces out of Brunei, but whitewashing tends to feel the same, no matter where it’s happening.
Note: the Sultan, as of 2019, had a net worth of approximately $28 billion (CEOWorld).
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