Ethnic minorities in late twentieth century Brunei a survey of errors and imbalances in foreign analysis.

Ethnic minorities in late twentieth century Brunei a survey of errors and imbalances in foreign analysis. The idea of drafting a survey of errors in writings on the ethnicminorities of Brunei was first prompted by a discussion of errors in theethnography of Sabah which appeared in the journal a few years ago(Appell 1991, 1992). No apology should be necessary for dealingsimilarly with a territory like Brunei Darussalam, however modestlyproportioned it may be (total population, including transients, in 1981,192,832; by 1991,260,863). But in identifying mainly factual errors ofhistory and politics I will be hard put to it to emulate thesophistication of George Appell's commentaries. It is to be hopedthat any insights which may arise, regarding especially the politicalcontext of academic and media errors on Brunei, will in some degreecompensate. Even to divert errors from becoming established as"certified knowledge" through authoritative repetition (Appell1991: 85) would be no small gain. (1) By way of introduction to the scene in question, let us proposethat a provision of the 1959 Constitution of Brunei (State of Brunei1959) and the 1961 Citizenship Enactment (State of Brunei 1961b), whichseem almost quaint in retrospect, was their recognition of no less thanseven distinct indigenous ethnic groups of Brunei with a legal statusabove the also-Bornean Iban, let alone the non-native Chinese. Even therural subgroup of Muslim Malays, the Kedayan, were enumeratedseparately--albeit in their case possibly in order to preempt anypretension to equality of corporate ranking with the Bruneis of theriverine capital. At any rate, the perception of "quaintness"relates to the fact that at the time of Independence in 1984, theSultanate began to define and prescribe the national identity in termsof an ideology called "the Malay, Islamic and monarchicalstate," which left no room for pluralism, whether political(democratic organization), religious (multiple faiths), or racial(ethnic identification other than "Malay"). Yet it is notruled out that a vision of long-term absorption had existed earlier,separate enumeration in 1961 being not so significant, ultimately, asthe classification of all seven groups as "groups of the Malayrace." Already by 1971 the presentation of Census statistics wasstarting to lump all the "authentic indigenous" into a singlecategory of "Malay." On the other hand, the potential ofIslamic proselytization to accelerate the augmentation of the"Malay" population far beyond historic trends may well nothave been clearly foreseen--as also the coming of Islamic revival wasnot foreseen, with its capacity to both demand and sanction moreenergetic forms of dakwah towards the "tribes." At any rate, acondition of rapid social transition, combined with change in stategoals and definitions, was undoubtedly prone to engender ambiguities andconfusion in relation to both fact and moral judgment. (2) In this varied light, and assuming authoritarian restraints on freeexpression and dispassionate research by Bruneians, there would be apremium on conscientious research and publication on ethnic matters byany foreigners whose physical location and intellectual equipment provedsuitably enabling. The foundation of a Brunei university in 1985 seemedparticularly propitious, since the progress of education in theterritory had previously lagged behind regional levels, and one couldanticipate the bulk of academic staff in the early years being recruitedfrom outside, among them some historians and social scientists. At thesame time, the "rise of independent Brunei" qualified thestate for coverage in annual academic surveys of the region, while theemergent image of the Sultan as "the richest man in the world"might stimulate foreign writers to try their hand at least atpot-boiling biography. The very paucity of published sources, primary or secondary, onBrunei would surely be spotted, among certain academic or journalisticcircles, as a lacuna worth filling. The more open questions would bewhether that lacuna might in itself pose discouragement or raise abarrier to excellence for a first-time investigator, and whether theBrunei state would contrive to extend its restrictions and control ofinformation beyond the ranks of its own citizens, thus raising a seriousobstacle to the building of a foundation de novo. (3) As the topicsselected for this study were nearly all chosen because of discoveredcases of error in their treatment, it should not be expected that thestudy will be characterized by a tangible logical progression from onetopic to another, or salient coherence among them. At best, it may bepossible to hypothesize common (and instructive) causes of the errors inthe work reviewed, although imprecise use of the concept of "Malayidentity" in both internal and extemal context--an area fraughtwith inherent ambiguity and the potential for ideologicalmanipulation--may offer temptations for slightly more confidentexplanation. Suppression of Ethnic Entities "Suppression" is a strong word, which might not come tomind at all without an awareness of an implicit imperative to thateffect in the national ideology. Very conceivably, foreign writers echoofficial presentations of national population and culture withoutrealizing that they are serving an agenda of the state with regard tonative minorities earmarked for absorption as Malays. The most strikingexample which I have noticed of an ethnic group being "written outof the record," or at least being redesignated, concerns first thevirtual, then the explicit, equation of the Bisaya-Dusuns of modernBrunei with the Kadazan-Dusuns of Sabah (Ave and King 1986: 13, 81), orwith the Muslim Kedayans of Brunei itself(Av6 and King 1986: 6, map).(4) Then, six articles in the "authoritative" annual SoutheastAsian Affairs from Singapore (5) prompt a query about the authors'reasons for either playing down or completely omitting minority affairs,likewise two in Asian Survey (Brown 1984a; Burton 1990), although of theformer six, only two actually seem to be acting as mouthpieces forofficial insinuation that indigenous society is 100% Muslim and theintensified promotion of Islamic commitment especially justified by thattoken (Abu Bakar 1989: 92; Zainal 1990). (6) Lastly, in uncannyconfirmation of George Appell's prediction of the rise of"certified knowledge," two British academics whose window onBorneo was none other than, respectively, the Departments of Geographyand Social Administration of Universiti Brunei Darussalam, virtuallyreplicated the positions of Av6 and King (1986) on the ethnic groups ofBrunei in excluding "Dusuns" of any type while renaming theKedayans (somewhat more justifiably) as simply "Malay" (Clearyand Eaton 1992: 95, incl. map). This work of human geography cannotclaim exemption from the requirement of precision on the grounds thatethnic minority phenomena are outside the scope of such a book, for theauthors make a point of describing Bomeo's ethnic diversity. Whileit may indeed be "very difficult to give precise estimates fordifferent groups" (Cleary and Eaton 1992: 94), some intelligentcalculation is possible, for instance of Bisaya-Dusun percentages. (7)And surely the inclusion of the Bisaya-Dusuns is important in anyaccount of modern Brunei, not only on account of their history as theerstwhile definitive population of Brunei (more widely than TutongDistrict, as today), (8) but also given the repressive thrust of thestate ideology vis-a-vis non-Muslim native minorities, which mightbecome a factor for alienation, at the least, among these relativelynumerous-and-concentrated, involuntary candidates for Islamization andexchange of ethnicity. (9) Definition of "Malay" Even when an observer consciously addresses the impact ofIslamization on nonMuslim indigenes, there is still a potential forconfusion in the definition of "Malay," etc. ISEAS-basedSharon Siddique explored the implications of Islamization mostintensively in her annual surveys of the years 1985 and 1991 (Siddique1986, 1992). Basically, the 1985 survey makes up for any lack ofexpressed "empathy" in the report for 1984 (Siddique 1985).The only slight criticism that might be advanced is that in discussingthe State Information Director's scenario for"non-Muslims," the writer first uses this term in a way thatseems to exclude Chinese (who are referred to as"non-Malays"--thus by elimination the "non-Muslims"are the indigenous non-Muslims); but a few lines later refers to"non-Malay Muslims" in a context which indicates that it isthe Chinese that are here meant (logically, since the Chinese areneither Malay nor Muslim--i.e. not "Muslims who are not Malay"[non-Malay Muslims], such as the Indian Muslims, but not "Malayswho are not Muslim" [non-Muslim "Malays"] either--againthere is an implied category of indigenous non-Muslims against whom theChinese are here in part offset, yet unforttmately, in this context theresidual label for such non-Muslims is "Malay", and this usagemay seem to play into the hands of those who justify Islamic revival forthe whole of society by pretending that assimilation is virtuallycomplete anyhow! Siddique 1986: 46.). The first three pages of SharonSiddique's survey of Brunei in 1991 (Siddique 1992: 91) focus onIslamization/MIB, and she highlights immediately the issue of the impact(said to be "unclear") of MIB on non-Muslims, but again seemsto regard all census "Malays" as Malay Muslims, citing Neville(1990). She does, however, then almost immediately acknowledge thatthere are several non-Malay ethnic groups among the census"Malays," which she lists loosely (Siddique 1992: 92). (10)From the other series of surveys, Brown, in the article already cited,at one point uses the term "Brunei" interchangeably with"Malay" (Brown 1984a: 204), (11) while in turn"Muslim" seems to indicate all indigenous (contrasted with,and divided by Islam from, the Chinese) (Brown 1984a: 206). (12) AndRanjit Singh (1986: 172), on what appears to be the same wavelength asBrown, uses the term "Brunei Malay" (privileged, majorityethnic group) contrastively with "Chinese" (underprivilegedminority), as if referring to all indigenous, with the apparentimplication that there is no heterogeneity in the native population. In the light of these examples, it would surely pre-empt allconfusion if the term "Malay" (or "Malay Muslim")were reserved for indigenous Muslims, and never applied to non-converts.(As for "Brunei", this should only be used in its original andnarrow ethnic sense--where, of course, it still has utility, as indiscussions of traditional and neo-traditional ranks: cf. Brown 1995).(13) The freer and all-embracing use of the term "Malay,"derived from the constitutional category but imitating census usagesince 1970, goes beyond the amorphous concept of a common archipelagicrace to imply an advanced state of cultural assimilation to a Bruneiannorm. Such an implication was not yet justified around 1990 by empiricalevidence, but certainly served the objective of those State agencieswhich were working to achieve it. Five or six years into Brunei's Independence, my observationwas that the term orang Brunei had begun to do service as the term forwhat English calls "Bruneian," that is, any citizen orpermanent resident of the state. Unfortunately, the Malay language lacksan equivalent of the convenient English suffix "-an" toindicate country of membership as distinct from one's race. Inconsequence, orang Brunei, in this sense of "Brunei citizen"and equivalent to the English usage (among locals and expatriates)"Bruneian," was not too easy to differentiate from, indeed wasapparently acquiring overtones and unspoken connotations of, membershipof a "Malay people of Brunei" (orang Melayu Brunei), as theorang Brunei sub-group or puak of the 1961 indigenous saw their culture,religion and language (at least a semi-standard bahasa Melayu Brunei)spread out among the population synchronically with government promotionof an inclusive, puak Brunei-convergent national identity. (14) Hereinlies a paradox if it be assumed, on the one hand, that"Bruneian" originally lacked any other connotation thancitizenship and place of residence but had become politically functionalin terms of the state's nation-building assimilationist agendapost-1984, whereas, on the other hand, in the period around 1961, evenalongside the tabulation of groups eligible for automatic Bruneicitizenship, the way was being prepared for closer association with amuch larger "Malay family," by robust promotion of use of thestandard Malay language in the Peninsular mold and negotiations for someform of political merger. At that time the Brunei concept of"Malay" (or at least one such concept) was distinctly reachingout beyond Brunei's borders to embrace a much wider community.However, after the late Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin, with strong popularsupport, rejected membership of Malaysia, but the leaders of the newFederation for several years harbored irredentist resentments about thatrebuff, the wider Malay identification initially evoked becamedistinctly dysfunctional for official Brunei aspirations. Not, be itnoted, that even before the failure of merger with the mainland, theSultan had been keen on the alternative scheme, the Pan-BorneoFederation promoted by Sheikh Azahari of the Brunei People's Party.At any rate, ambiguity remains inherent or has become more so in a termwhich is again being molded towards an inclusive scope--albeit latterlyin a way which takes the artificial, micro-territory of modern Brunei asits sole zone of application and basis of legitimation, in place ofeither northern Borneo or the wider Archipelago. (15) The most surprising, and almost egregious, example of analyticalassimilation of non-Muslims to the category of "Malay", evenfor early eras, is in fact seen in a Brunei University study ofdemography, on the very page on which it is admitted that the definitionof "Indigenous" (not, however, the definition of"Malay") has varied between censuses: The Brunei population has been predominantly Malay for many centuries and the population continues to be largely Malay in spite of the influx of immigrants from 1947 to 1960 (Niew 1991: 4). (16) Even the Sultan's public relations consultant, Lord Chalfont,is more open to diversity than this, for despite the Sultan being,purportedly, the father figure of the Islamic "family" whichconstitutes his nation (Chalfont 1989: 14), we are informed, inconnection with welfare services, that several indigenous peoples, such as the Murut and Dusun, still livein the interior. The country has not forgotten them in its hecticprogramme of modernization and development--local hospitals and flyingdoctor services operate in the interior along with libraries and theother amenities of a lavish welfare state (Chalfont 1989: 17). Superseding Native Historical Narrative One way in which the erosion of indigenous identities can bepromoted is by downgrading separate ethnic histories, especially thosewhich point to an erstwhile era of political autonomy. Some of the earlywork of the leading theorist of the social structure of Brunei seems tointroduce an ambivalent note, albeit quite unintentionally, as abyproduct of a research method and a particular methodology. In theinitial search for data on traditional offices, questionnaires weredistributed to the holders of the office of Menteri Darat, "todetermine if the office had a history that would be worth exploring inactual interviews" (Brown 1976: 46). No traditions were reported,and from this the researcher concluded that the offices of rural,non-Brunei notables were "non-enduring," especially withinfamilies, i.e. "mostly created for their holders and not filledwhen they die." This lack of permanency was found to be indichotomous and critical contrast with the hereditary nature of theoffices of the Brunei nobility (as Brown perceived it), and on thisfoundation was apparently constructed the stratification theory forBrunei which posits a crucial, defining link between ethnic power andthe durability of offices. That is, the rural ethnic minorities have no"enduring" offices because it is in the interests of thedominant ethnic group to avoid establishing hereditary centers ofleadership in the subject areas. It is not completely clear whether the questionnaires were simplysent out, or administered in the framework of an initial face-to-facemeeting. If the former, then it is surprising that the answer "Notraditions" could be taken as firm evidence of the nondurability ofthe offices of rural notables. Even if the respondents thought it properto reply in detail to any such form if not emanating from thegovernment, in what way did they conceive the term"tradition"? Even if the question was elaborated to indicatethat it was information about inheritance from father to son that was ofmost interest, it would have diverted attention from the characteristicBrunei practice of appointing from kin-groups whose forbears have heldthe traditional offices. The offices of Menteri Darat might well"skip a generation" in one family, and pass, say, to a nephewof the latest holder, before returning to a son or grandson when onesuch had achieved sufficient maturity and standing to exercise theresponsibilities of the office with conviction. Not the least among theevidence for this institution is the fact that it was the normalpractice (or certainly has been in the twentieth century) with regard toBrunei nobility appointed as Cheteria, and the class of Pehin, also!(What are literally hereditary without break are the status of Pengiran Anak and Pengiran, and it is true that only a member of this class,descendants of royalty, can become a Cheteria.) There were veryparticular reasons for upholding the institution of modified inheritancein the more remote areas. So far from there being a threat to control inthe rise of a local notability, it was only by working through locallyrespected families that the Sultanate could exercise a modicum ofcontrol. It is also very much to the point that an understanding ofadministrative requirements is most typically developed among the sonsof households whose leader is a title-holder or Penghulu. No doubt,local status was partly a function of the fact of office-holding itselfby earlier members of a kin-group; no doubt, also, loyal attitudes wouldbe likely to have been cultivated in these very kin-groups in the courseof time; but it is striking that the Sultanate saw no danger in thisdegree of institutionalization. (17) The moral for the historiography of Bruneian minorities is thatwhile they have certainly been subject to the Sultanate for centuries,Brunei power did not penetrate on anything like the scale of thetwentieth century bureaucratic model. Consistently with the feudalnature of the Brunei realm, power over the more peripheral minoritieswas diluted by distance, or exercised intermittently. But to play downthe degree of ethnic autonomy in relatively recent historical times hasa kind of consistency, indirectly, with another proposition derived fromthe observation of hereditary rank among the dominant group. This is theview that hereditary rank is necessary to the inculcation of a myth ofimmigrant origin and conquest (by the Bruneis, in this case), but bythat very token is likely evidence of the fact that the dominant groupwere not immigrants at all! (Brown 1976: 47-48; 1973) Be the origin of the Bruneis as it may, it shall not escape remarkthat once the notion of conquest is dismissed, it becomes more difficultthan ever to postulate an autonomous Bisaya kingdom which the Bruneisoverwhelmed and displaced, rather than a diffuse and acephalous"indigenous society," which developed its structuralsophistication, including monarchy, from within its own resources andcould sooner or later aptly be called "Malay." (18) For complete avoidance of misunderstanding on the subject ofdowngrading separate ethnic histories, I conclude this section bydrawing attention to one particular presentation of the Brunei originmyth by Donald Brown which in no way plays down the un-Malay (apart fromun-earthly!) origins of the ruling line (Brown 1984c). The founders wereBomean natives (more readily identified as Murut than Bisaya), whocalled themselves "Braneis" once they had established theircapital on the Brunei River, not "Malay." The latternomenclature relates, apparently, only to a later phase: the conversionof the ruler to Islam under the influence of Johor, whence also heobtained Malay-style regalia. And from this it ought to be possible (Iwould think) to be open to the separate ethnic histories of those partsof the population whose ancestors did not masuk Melayu: unless, that is,local ancestrry ceases for any reason to be highly regarded. (19) At all events, the Sha'er Awang Semaun (and its commentator,Brown) do not regard the Bruneis as immigrants. Rather strikingly,however, their political culture has an exogenous complexion, which formy taste either suggests an immigrant origin for the core population atthe capital, or if not, an eagerness for a distinguishing, externalauthentication which at the same time (again, my instinct) still carriedan imperative of countervailing emphasis on native authenticity in anenvironment dominated by competition for power between several"authentic" groups. The recent international academic debateon the nature of Malay identity, in case it is in need of restimulation,would do well to focus on the dynamics of cases of accommodation, orcontinued attachment, to local cultural norms and identities even aspopulations were being recruited into "Malayness" and callingtheir states Kerajaan. The perpetuation of the ethnic label,"Brunei", right down to the Nationality Enactment of 1961, inapparent connection with a perceived need to maintain an ethnichierarchy even while neighboring groups such as the Kedayan were beinginvited into a semblance of fraternal unity (democratic elections were,after all, looming!), is a scenario which may merit further applicationsof reflection and analysis. (20) Such analysis must proceed independentof assumptions and models derived from the polities of the MalayPeninsula, ancient or modern. (21) Diversions from an inclusive plural nation The plural nation can be discredited by commentary or forestalledby laws. The first approach (denial that the native minority groups, inplural aggregate, are part of the contemporary nation) can neverthelessgo hand-in-hand with awareness that diversity exists. In the quotationin Section 2, above, where Chalfont makes it clear that State welfare isnot bestowed as of right, he and his firm (Shandwick plc. of London)showed themselves to be well aware of diversity, even while alsounderstanding the view of their Brunei elite informants that non-MuslimBruneians cannot be considered as members of"the nation" ofmodern Brunei as it is now being promoted. Here we may possibly speak of"imbalance" but not "error." Another book which shows traces of elite sponsorship--the mostsubstantial opus to emerge from Universiti Brunei Darussalam since itsestablishment--tacitly confirms and approves the same paradigm of thenational identity, if only by its almost complete silence on the lateSultan's vision of the nation-that-should-be as he struggled towrest power from the British Residency (Hussainmiya 1995).While the PRBrally in 1960 in support of the Ibans is noted (Hussainmiya 1995: 285),(22) the editorial sympathy of the local English-language press is not(cf. Borneo Bulletin 1960). Since editorial opinion at the BorneoBulletin typically reflected British Residency/High Commission thinkingat that period, it seems clear enough that the restrictions in theproposed Nationality Enactment reflected Brunei elite thinking, opposedby the British authorities as well as PRB. The late Sultan'spolitical biographer notes the existence of a more liberal British viewin June 1959, but mocks it as a case of the ingrained British proclivityto interfere, improperly, in the "sovereign rights of Brunei"(Hussainmiya 1995: 203). (23) On the other hand, no rationale whatsoeveris offered of the Brunei Government's stand--in spite of a subtitlewhich evokes a nation in process of invention and arouses expectationsof some effort of analysis and definition in this respect, includingexclusions. (24) With reference, now, to legal discrimination, in other words,differential fights among non-Muslim indigenes, it is true that up until1960 (Jones/State of Brunei n.d.) the category of "Otherindigenous" included Dusuns as well as Ibans, but it is crucial torecognize that, with the demarcation of a core of "most authenticcitizens" in 1961, groups such as the Dusuns were placed above theIbans and Penans in a number of ways. Whatever pressures they may besubjected to, subtly or blatantly, to embrace Islam today, the Dusunsare indubitably citizens, contrary to a claim from a lecturer in theDepartment of English, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, (25) and they donot have to convert in order to join the Army, contrary to an opinion of Brown (1984b: 29) (let alone to join thePolice). A discreet check of the identity of Royal Brunei Armed Forcessentries during Ramadan would almost certainly reveal that they aremainly unconverted Dusuns. Conversely, however, no person who is notfrom one of the basic seven groups of core indigenous (as, for instance,an Iban is not) may join the armed forces unless, apart from being bornin Brunei (like recruits from the core indigenous), he is also a non-indigenous Malay who professes the Muslim religion, conforms to Malay custom as practised in Brunei and is a subject of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan by virtue of any written law relating to nationality. (State of Brunei 1983, 2 [1].) (26) One of the best-guarded of many Brunei state secrets is the extentof military dependence on converted Ibans for filling the Other Ranks,especially today, at a time when interest in military careers hasseriously slumped among indigenous male youths in general. So the Ibans have turned out to be more vulnerable, in one way, tostate-inspired cultural pressures, than groups which were admitted toautomatic citizenship in 1961. This follows directly or indirectly froman Enactment which was and is perfectly clear in its allocation ofdifferential status, as between the seven core groups and "Otherindigenous". (27) Another way of diverting attention, consciously or unconsciously,from the question of Iban status in Brunei is to go to the extreme oftreating them as an essentially immigrant community--i.e., essentiallytransient, with a homeland to which they will return in due course.There is another demographic study based on the 1986 census, whichevinces a greater degree of subtlety or sophistication (in fact, agreater degree of interest altogether) with regard to the"age-dependency ratio" among the Iban (Neville 1990: 3341)than the study already cited (cf. Niew 1991: 46-53). At the heart of the"age dependency ratio" concept is the notion that if there isnot only a "bulge" in the age pyramid at the young workingadult level, but, moreover, a predominance of males over females at thatlevel (with a fulfilled presumption that these males are indeedworking), then the non-working children of that community are less"dependent", i.e. are sustained by a larger work force andsource of income (the ratio is said to have "declined"). Now,although Neville acknowledges the presence of a permanent core ofresidents, these are "reflected in the older age groups" (p.35); and while, for women "agriculture is still a significantcategory of activity (which is often closely linked with their normaldomestic routine)" (p. 40), this is not invoked as evidence of asettled population in rural areas. On the contrary, the presence of manyfemales and a flourishing family life are seen as exceptional,historically, for "the more male-dominated migrant communities ...in Southeast Asian countries" (p. 34)--and the rest of theparagraph (pp. 34-35) in combination with Tables 5 and 6 can clearly beseen to be referring to the general Iban community, not merely to animmigrant component abstracted from the general community. Yet inreality the Iban population in 1986 comprised a settled (citizen andpermanent resident) component of just over 50% of the total, at 5,807 asagainst 5,679 transients (Negara Brunei Darussalam 1989: 45). Only ifone works mainly from, say, the table of "Working Population bySex, Community and Major Occupation 1986" (Negara Brunei Darussalam1989: 67) might one assimilate the non-migrants to the migrants, becausethe "Other indigenous" are classified together by race with nofurther subdivision by residential status. The purpose of our exposition on this point, therefore, is tosuggest that an "age dependency ratio" has no meaning whereimmigrant income is not contributed to the 50% of the community who arein fact settled, but is repatriated (if not spent in Brunei within the"bachelor establishments" of shanty towns). The predominanceof immigrant males is surely economically significant within Brunei, ifat all, only among the immigrant (and mainly urban-dwelling) componentof the Ibans. The age structure and employment situation in thelonghouses of Batang Duri (Temburong), Supon (Tutong), and Labi, Sukang,and Melilas (Belait) would be more germane to an understandingof"the condition of the Ibans of Brunei." This is, of course,the reflection of a non-demographer, working with his own premises andinterests. Demographers will have to say whether the point raised hasvalidity for their discipline. (28) "Yellow peril"? If the fear of being swamped by the primaeval Bomean hordes hasentered, as it were, the cultural genes of elite Bruneians, the formatof Brunei Citizenship law betrayed even more the influence of PeninsularMalay fears of being swamped by the immigrant Chinese (though certainlythe divided ethnicity and thus worrying "disunity" of theBruneian indigenous supplied a sufficient local rationale).Paradoxically, as, by 1959, with the rise of multi-racial democracy,Malayan citizenship law had become much more liberal towards the Chinesethan in 1948, Malaya and its successor Malaysia were set to become ananti-model for Brunei ideologues in this regard. Incidentally, thisconstitutes another reason why close identification with the "Malayfamily" outside Brunei's borders has not been an appealingproposition. The vaunted ketuanan Melayu of the Peninsular Malays oftensounds like empty rhetoric. Being a good orang Melayu Brunei entails astrictly nonMalaysian view of political rights, both of the racevis-a-vis immigrant peoples and of Malay subjects vis-a-vis theirtraditional rulers. Turning therefore to this immigrant or immigrant-descended minorityof Brunei, even less privileged than the Iban: the most extraordinary"revelation" in post-Independence reporting, regarding Chinesestatus, was that although Chinese applicants were encountering extremedifficulty in obtaining Brunei citizenship after 1984, (29) the problemwas mitigated for the stateless Chinese (i.e. the group corresponding tothe Permanent Residents), (30) by their enjoyment of British citizenshipstatus, whereby they could fall back on British Passports for purposesof travel, though without right of abode in the United Kingdom (E.I.U.1992: 45, and 1996: 64). Ignoring, for a moment, some problematic figures cited by theE.I.U. on two occasions (diverging not only from the official statisticsbut among themselves), one can only speculate as to why and by whom thedisinformation on citizenship status was put into circulation, and howit was possible after the perfectly open and objective declarations byboth the British and Brunei Governments on the eve of Independence, (31)which clarified a situation in which (a) the stateless Chinese had noclaim whatsoever on British citizenship, not being born in a Britishcolony; (b) even if--as was no doubt true in a few cases--they had beenborn in the then colonies of Sarawak and North Borneo, all such personshad been transferred, in principle, to Malaysian citizenship on MalaysiaDay, 1963; and (c) the Brunei Government had no intention ofliberalizing its Nationality Enactment to effect a similar, wholesaletransfer of any remaining British citizens on its soil, or to admitBritish-protected persons to Brunei citizenship by some transitionalformula of registration. Thus, the many Chinese holding BritishProtected Passports in combination with a Permanent Resident's passretained their permanent residency, but henceforth would depend fortravel on an International Certificate of Identity (ICI), issued by theBrunei Government. For a considerable proportion (a certain category) ofthese there has been the inconvenience of having to return to Bruneionce a year to renew permanent residency, and many holders of ICIs meetdisbelief and suspicion when applying for visas to enter foreigncountries, especially when they are Brunei-born. Meanwhile, the situation would appear to have beenaggravated--according to my observation--by a new rule on acquisition ofcitizenship by naturalization, the only route for Chinese applicants notborn in the country. Whereas the written law on nationality continues tospecify a twenty-year residence record in the previous twenty-five, theSultan delivered an intriguing, not to say sensational, speech to theChinese community eight months after Independence, in which therequirement was stated to be twenty-five out of thirty. This was pickedup and reported as an official change in the law by at least threeforeign commentators, (32) yet the local English weekly, BorneoBulletin, did not report any change, and the government newspaper PelitaBrunei, while certainly addressing the question of Chinese rights,apparently did so in order to insist that no change was being planned.(33) Nor was there ever any gazetted amendment to the law in thefollowing years. However, even if this was originally an error by theSultan's speech-writer, there is no doubt that NationalRegistration officials would have taken note (if they saw the referencein the Brunei press) and might well have begun to apply, or stood readyto apply, this "new rule" because it had the apparent statusof a royal pronouncement (titah), overriding gazetted legislation. Itwould be a supreme irony if they had not picked up the reference in thelocal press, yet saw it in a misled foreign journal and from such asource became aware of "a change in the law" that needed to beacted upon! They could even have been put on guard to aparanoia-provoking distortion of the numbers of Chinese in Brunei (byunderstatement) in their own government's publishedstatistics--compared to a shocking "60,000 by unofficialestimate" (Mulliner 1985: 218). The earliest appearance of this figure that I have noticed is inthe Far Eastern Economic Asian Survey, and found an even higher level of66,000 at the Economist Intelligence Unit seven years later (E.I.U.1992: 45), but fell back again, for the same agency another four yearson, to around 40,000--i.e. in line with the government's count(E.I.U. 1996: 64, 77). (34) Of the sources cited in this paragraph, onlythe Asian Survey article spells out that the official figures must beregarded as mendacious (Mulliner 1985: 218). The Economist IntelligenceUnit remains most notable for attributing British citizenship to 60,000of its discovered Chinese in 1992, while maintaining the more modest,yet still extraordinary, claim of 10,000 in 1996. (35) While perhaps oneshould not expect the highest academic standards from commercialorganizations based abroad, whose customers are similarly unmotivated inthat direction, cases of distortion by foreign staff employed for anumber of years by UBD seem much more surprising. In an elegantlycrafted study of the history of the Chinese in Brunei, Tan Peck Leng ofthe Department of History discerned the origins of citizenship in theImmigration Enactment which came into force on 1 January 1958 (Tan 1992:128). (36) This is a very valuable insight. Right of permanent residencewas granted to Chinese on the basis of a seven-year residence record inthe previous ten. This was not, however, turned into an offer ofcitizenship at that time, she correctly avers. Nor were hopes muchbetter satisfied at the time of Independence in 1984, she continues,when the qualifications for citizenship were "maintained" atthe level of a language test, with a ten-year residence record in theprevious fifteen for locally-born Chinese, and a twenty-year record outof twenty-five for non-locally born. Nevertheless, apart from the slightdivergence of the residence requirement for Registration, as herestated, from the published Nationality Enactment, (37) a query has to beraised as to why the Brunei Government is said to have"maintained" a rule for which no concrete starting point isspecified. It seems bizarre, and difficult to credit, but the studycontains no reference to the Nationality Enactment which first bestowedcitizenship on the Chinese, however sparingly. At the same time, another UBD source, based in the Department ofEnglish (Dunseath 1996: 283), quotes Tan approvingly and equally sees noreason to mention the Nationality Enactment: indeed he fills the gap inTan by stating that the Immigration Enactment itself bestowedcitizenship! Comparable echoes of error are heard from elsewhere in UBD(Gunn 1997: 7-8). Chinese language Obliquely relevant to Chinese status is, of course, also thequestion of the autonomy and integrity of their language. This is notthe only aspect of Brunei's life and times to have "attractedlittle interest outside the country," but a start has been made bythe British lecturer just cited, who used a questionnaire to elicitinformation about language use in Chinese families. He recognizes thepotential impact of political and educational factors, among severalothers, in weakening language maintenance even for a communitysegregated from the Brunei Malays by a complex of cultural attributesand a non-cognate language. But although the survey begins with a wordabout the establishment of a national education policy based on the twinlanguage media of English and Malay at the time of Independence(Dunseath 1996: 280), we are very clearly given to understand that theChinese schools, being privately owned and run, are not subject togovernment regulations in this respect: the further spread of Mandarinas a lingua franca of the Chinese seems plausible, in the writer'sjudgment, not only because of its growing importance in the Chinesediaspora, but because of its central role in Chinese schools. And therole in question is none other than that of medium of instruction(Dunseath 1996: 286, 295,299). As with the case of the imaginary population statistics at TheEconomist, one can only speculate as to the reasons for such a distortedpicture being projected. Even were an expatriate's job security inthe Bruneian education system a point of anxiety (banish the thought!),there should be no squeamishness about mentioning the"mastery" of Chinese private education by the Minister ofEducation at the turn of the decade, for it was a political coup ofwhich, by the Minister's own lights and from a Brunei nationalistperspective, he had every reason to be proud. At any rate, the interestsof accuracy in future historical research may be sufficiently served ifwe sketch the following outline of events and their interconnections,spanning the mid-1980s to early 1990s (based, in the first stages, onthe reporting of Chinese school managers and headmasters in personalcommunications): (a) an apparent, "modernizing faction" in themanagement of the flagship foundation, Chung Hwa Middle School,introduced a system of twin streams--an English stream alongside thetraditional Mandarin stream--and in due course strongly promoted the newone; (b) protagonists of Mandarin in other Chinese schools, or certainfriends of theirs in Sarawak, launched an attack on the "betrayalof Chinese education" in the Chinese press of Sarawak; (c) armedwith such clear proof of "foreign interference" and a"security risk," the Minister moved swiftly to appoint, underhis ill-defined powers, Malay headmasters from the government system,starting with Chung Hwa Middle School; (d) the imposition of thegovernment's bilingual (i.e. Malay/English) system, step by step,starting from Primary I, followed within a couple of years; (e) the factthat a similar policy was being imposed on the English-medium missionschools at the time, along with Malay headmasters seconded from thegovernment system, did facilitate the "assimilation" of theChinese schools to government directives, but the internal politics ofChinese school management undoubtedly provided the proximate cause, andexplains the remarkable speed of events. (38) Whatever the precisebalance of causes, it could scarcely be doubted that there wereconsequences in store for the future use of Mandarin in Brunei--and thatthat "way ahead" would not be quite as adumbrated in theUBD-based survey. (39) Becoming Malay, as prescriptive norm Another British scholar who has felt moved to take his distance, ina mild way, from the pioneering work of Donald Brown, is Victor T. King,writing in 1994 at the University of Hull. However, at once it must bestressed that whereas I disagree with Brown's perception ofdiscontinuity of Dusun offices in local families, King states with anunequivocal approval that Brown "demonstrates that, although theposition of mentri darat appears to be an office, like all others, itis, in fact, a 'commission': the appointment is usually forlife and specifically created for an individual" (King 1994: 183);"it was not in Brunei's interest to establish a stable andsecure rural leadership" (King 1994: 193). The affirmation of thecredibility of Brown's position on this matter seems just a littlecurious, given that one salient purpose of the paper is apparently tosay that Brown did not pay sufficient attention to the position of thenon-Muslim indigenes within the system of Brunei-bestowed ranks, andthus finished up with a far too narrow conception of Brunei society.What Brown should have realized, according to King (1994: 185), is thatin receiving offices and ranks from the dominant Bruneis, the non-Muslimindigenes were to all intents and purposes members by incorporation of"Brunei society," not simply subjects of a "Bruneiempire." One would like to ignore this as a mere semantic quibble, but, infairness, three points could be made: (a) Brown is talking about localoffice holders who were mainly not Muslim, and by their language andancestral custom in no way identifiable as Bruneis; (b) Brown does notdeny, indeed he emphasizes, that these local title holders were beholdento the Sultan for their local positions and thus in effect part of asystem of Bruneian political hierarchy, though not of Brunei society inthe ethnic-Brunei sense; (c) King's theory of a "multi-ethnicBrunei society" thus depends most of all on Brown's workitself, alongside a few others', though with some judiciousrephrasing of the concepts, including the extension of the scope of"Brunei," not only to outside Kampong Ayer but out beyond thepresent limited borders of Brunei Darussalam to embrace large areas thatwere historically within the Brunei imperium. A more fundamental purpose, or, at any rate, outcome, ofKing's "fresh look" at Brown's material seems to bethat of demonstrating historical continuity in terms of, first, the riseof a Brunei form of Malay culture, upon the establishment of a Sultanateby native Borneans on Brunei River (King 1994: 185); then, itsinexorable expansion by assimilation of more natives to the originalcore (King 1994: 178, 185) to the point where whole ethnic groups andlanguages disappeared and are disappearing (King 1994:187-195)--thishistorical process having been inaugurated in earlier times by themechanism of selected local leaders often becoming Muslim (King 1994:185, 190, 191), but being now speeded up under a concerted thrust forassimilation by the "Malay Muslim Monarchy" of independentBrunei Darussalam (King 1994: 178-179). The difficulties which I havewith this historical aggregation are (a) that if local leaders wereencouraged to convert to Islam they would by definition have lost theircultural identity and leadership role in the framework of tribal custom,which is scarcely consistent with the aim of the Sultanate to controlthe tribe through such local appointees; (b) in instances where thewhole of a tribe eventually assimilates and becomes Malay (a phenomenonof which King finds several examples in the old Brunei imperium,notably, but not only, the Melanau), the theory that these tribes are part of "Brunei society" on termsof retaining their distinct cultural identity becomes redundant, for aqualitatively different phenomenon has intervened, in the form of suchassimilated groups becoming self-identifying members of"Brunei-Malay society" if not quite "Brunei society"in the Kampong Ayer-focused sense; (c) we meet no suggestions as to howsoon and by which modalities the conversion of key leaders was followedby mass conversions--in some cases but not all; and (d), although modem"nation building" could in a sense be said to be aiming forthe same result, the methods and pace are quite revolutionary, andcannot properly be called a continuation or extension of an historicaltendency. The equivalent in Marxist terms is the shift from historicaldialectic to Leninism. (40) That King possibly does not a see a significant difference betweenthe pluralistic "Brunei society" of his initial argument and atotally Malay society (whether produced by slow "historicalprocess" or modem state intervention) is a thought that is ratherprompted by his citation of a study of ideology, where this refers tonon-Muslim Bruneians as a target for total assimilation (Braighlinn1992: 19). Although quoting the 44-word passage word for word, King(1994: 186) at first invokes it as supporting the Brown/King"inclusive" conception (the plural but stratified one) ofBrunei society. I am in a position to say that no such thing was in themind of the author. Moreover, a dispassionate reading will surelyconfirm that the author's reference to "convergence,"past, present or future, was not intended as a reference to a permissivepluralism. (41) Be this as it may, King does not seem to be so much in thrall tohis Brown-derived, if slightly Brown-corrective, conception that hecannot indeed equate, or seamlessly elide, it with something that issurely quite distinct. It would be discourteous to suggest a failure oflogical discrimination. Yet this would be less offensive than to ponderwhether an agenda of the Brunei state has intruded into an exercise inanthropological theory-making, inasmuch as the elision in questionserves the urgent imperative of the state to legitimate itsnation-building by maintaining that Brunei history has always pointedprecisely towards a "national destiny" of total assimilation,on the threshold of full realization by 1984, whereas the structurewhich King derived from Brown did not evince the built-in historicistdynamic which he seems to believe in simultaneously. (42) Ethnic rights and academic integrity As I have suggested elsewhere, (43) the question of minority rightsin Brunet is linked in less obvious ways to the general decline ofdemocratic institutions since the 1960s--or as ideologues of MIB wouldhave it, the restoration of authentic Brunet political forms after theBritish-imposed aberration of a Legislative Council. Where there is no"popular political process," not only is there unlikely to bean ethnic political party to represent the citizen members of aparticular group or groups: minority interests can never even bearticulated through a class or ideologically-based party responsive to adistrict (but possibly ethnic) constituency. In a system ofrepresentative democracy it is difficult to imagine Iban longhousesconverting en masse in return for an electricity generator, supplied bythe government through the Ministry of Religious Affairs, as washappening in Brunet in the early 1990s. The generator would be promisedby politicians in return for the longhouse vote! Certainly the abolition of the Legislative Council in 1984 hadfuture significance far beyond the boundaries of ethnic minorities. Mostpatently, it pre-empted the open articulation and integration of classinterest in a society where economic inequality was more salient, andmore clearly correlated with differential political power, than ethnicdiversity would ever be. But with regard to the persistence of ethnicstratification or the progressive erosion of diversity, the abolition ofthe legislature cast a light of historical irony on the divisiveNationality Enactment, whose original intention was not to divide, assuch, let alone erode, but to lay one of the foundation stones ofdemocracy by defining a reasonably inclusive electorate--an electoratewhich would no doubt have utilized the potential for ethnicself-expression and self-defense among its constituent parts, despitethe partial disenfranchisement of a couple of them. But when leadingannual academic surveys leave even the historic abolition of a nationallegislature unmentioned, a fundamental aspect of the affairs of a"small and far-away country," with wide ramifications, isobscured and the reputation of the media concerned sadly tarnished, evenbefore they compromise themselves with small-scale, though cumulativeand usually regime-serving, error in any other respect. (44) And the most pregnant errors may be those which assist, if only byobscuring or denying, a species of "ethnic cleansing" that isbeing carded out under the aegis of revivalist Islam far more than adated Malay nationalism. Possibly Islam possesses the ideological assetthat it does not in principle recommend the existence of nations; theMalay people are tolerable, being Muslim, but Dusuns are certainly not;and their extinction is more comfortably justified as "God'swill" than as the ambition of a large ethnic group or nation whichhappens to be allied to absolute political power. Any academic friendsof Malay nationalism may care to ponder whether it betrays itsfundamental values by treating vulnerable minorities in its midst withthe same cynical disregard as was once shown for Malay development,allegedly, by the European colonialists and the Chinese around theregion. Why are Brunei Malays entitled to resist their historicsubmergence, whereas Brunei Dusuns must serve the aims of Malayresistance by swelling its ranks, at the cost of their own separatesurvival? Of course there is no imperative for every analyst to adopt amoral stand in such a connection, but one can at least plead foraccuracy, and a rounded exposure, regarding a situation of acceleratedchange at the interface between Malay and ancient Borneancivilization--a perennially moving frontier which has both awell-documented historical existence and is now a conscious subject ofsocial engineering by the Brunei state and its ideological apparatus.(45) In my perception two other prominent ethical issues emerge amongthe examples discussed in this paper. Annual surveys based overseas,within academic institutions or the offices of prestigious newsmagazines, have no right to trade on their reputations for reliability,in commissioning writers who lack the motivation or expertise to bothcollect and soundly interpret a range of data on a country in the yearin question. Such shortcomings will often be connected with sheerabsence from the country, yet the disability of residence abroad can beovercome to some degree, even to surprising degrees, by dedicatedapplication to the task. Conversely, it has been found that residence inBrunei, even employment at the local university, is no guarantee ofveracity. The second ethical issue arising is therefore whetheruniversity appointees are entitled to trade on the reputation of theacademic profession for diligent pursuit of truth, when they were eithernot motivated towards their new subject (or even equipped to practice itcompetently); or were intimidated by the fear that the truth might bepolitically uncongenial to their very own employer, an absolute monarchywith an absolutist agenda for building a monolithic nation. Which ofthese factors were in play in the examples studied (or other factorsentirely) can only be a subject for speculation, unless and until thewriters reviewed deliver their own individual confirmations orrefutations. (46) References Abdul Aziz bin Umar 1992 Melayu Islam Beraja sebagai falsafahNegara Brunei Darussalam, In: Abu Bakar, ed. 1992, pp 1-21. Abu Bakar bin Hamzah 1989 Brunei Darussalam: Continuity andtradition, Southeast Asian Affairs 1989: 91-104. Abu Bakar bin Apong, ed. 1992 Sumbangsih UBD. Esei-esei MengenaiNegara Brunei Darussalam. Essays on Brunei Darussalam. Akademi PengajianBrunei, Universiti Brunei Darussalam. A Correspondent in Bandar Seri Begawan 1984 Bring on the reserves,Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 October: 68-69. Appell, G.N. 1991 Errors in Borneo ethnography: Part I, BorneoResearch Bulletin 23: 85-98. 1992 Errors in Borneo ethnography: Part II, Borneo ResearchBulletin 24: 79-85. Appell, G.N., ed. 1976 Studies in Borneo Societies. Social Processand Anthropological Explanation. De Kalb: Northern Illinois UniversityCenter for Southeast Asian Studies (Special Report 12). Attwood, James and Mark Bray 1989 Wealthy but small and young:Brunei Darussalam and its education system, Education Research andPerspectives 16, 1: 70-82. Ave, Jan B. and Victor T. King 1986 Borneo: The People of theWeeping Forest. Tradition and Change in Borneo. Leiden: Museum ofEthnography. Barnard, Timothy P., ed. 2004 Contesting Malayness. Malay Identityacross Boundaries. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Borneo Bulletin 1960 Worthy of support (Editorial), BorneoBulletin, 5 November. Braighlinn, G. [pseud.] 1992 Ideological Innovation under Monarchy.Aspects of Legitimation Activity in Contemporary Brunei. Amsterdam, V.U.University Press (Centre for Asian Studies Amsterdam, CASA ComparativeAsian Studies 9). Brown, Donald E. 1973 Hereditary rank and ethnic history: ananalysis of Brunei historiography, Journal of Anthropological Research29 (2): 113-122. 1976 Social structure, history and historiography in Brunei andbeyond, In: Appell, ed. 1976: 44-50. 1984a Brunei on the morrow of Independence, Asian Survey 24(2):201-204. 1984b Patterns in Brunei history and culture, Borneo ResearchBulletin 16 (1): 28-33. 1984c Brunei through the Sha'er and the silsilah, SolidarityNo. 99:10-15. 1995 Mechanisms for the maintenance of traditional elites inBrunei, to the eve of Independence, In: King and Horton, eds. 1995:408-419. Burton, Bruce 1990 Brunei Darussalam in 1989; coming of age withinASEAN, Asian Survey 30 (2): 196-200. Chalfont, Alun 1989 By God's Will. A Portrait of the Sultan ofBrunei. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Cleary, Mark and Peter Eaton 1992 Borneo. Change and Development.Oxford: OUP. Collins, James T. 2001 Contesting Straits-Malayness: The fact ofBorneo, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 32 (3): 385-395. Doshi, Tilak 1991 Brunei: The steady state, Southeast Asian Affairs1991: 71-80. Dunseath, Kevin 1996 Aspects of language maintenance and languageshift among the Chinese community in Brunei: some preliminaryobservations, In: Martin, Ozog and Poedjosoedarmo, eds. 1996: 280-301. Economist Intelligence Unit [E.I.U.] 1992 EIU Country Profile1991-92: Malaysia, Brunei. London, EIU. 1996 EIU Country Profile 1995-96: Malaysia, Brunei. London, EIU. Gunn, Geoffrey C. 1997 Language, Power and Ideology in BruneiDarussalam. Athens, Ohio: University Center for International Studies(Monographs in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series 99). Hashim bin Abdul Hamid 1984 Tinjauan singkat mengenai identitiorang Brunei, Beriga, No. 2: 6-10. 1992 Konsep Melayu Islam Beraja: Antara ideologi dan pembinaanbangsa, In: Abu Bakar, ed. 1992, pp 22-31. 2003 Islam di Brunei Darussalam:Satu Analisis Sosio-Budaya. Brunei: Universiti Brunei Darussalam. Horton, A.V.M. 1996 Turun Temurun. A Dissection of Negara BruneiDarussalam. Bordesley, Worcs., pub. by the author. Hussainmiya, B.A. 1995 Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III and Britain.The Making of Brunei Darussalam. Kuala Lumpur: OUR Jones, L.W./State of Brunei n.d. Report on the Census of Populationtaken on 10th August 1960. Brunei Town, State Secretariat. Kershaw, Eva Maria and Roger Kershaw, eds. Forthcoming Writing anIdentity. Content and conceptions of a Brunei-Dusun"Constitution" of 1981. Phillips, Me., Borneo ResearchCouncil. Kershaw, Roger 1984 Illuminating the path to Independence:political themes in Pelita Brunei in 1983, Southeast Asian Affairs 1984:67-85. 1998a Marginality then and now: Shifting patterns of minoritystatus in Brunei Darussalam, Internationales Asienforum 29, 1-2: 83-106. 1998b Constraints of history. The eliciting of modern Brunei,Review Article, Asian Affairs 29 (3): 312-317. 2000a Academic correctness in der Monarchic: Die Universitat BruneiDarussalam und ihre Forschung, Periplus. Jahrbuch fur aussereuropaischeGeschichte 10: 126-153. 2000b Challenges of historiography: interpreting the decolonisationof Brunei, Review Article, Asian Affairs 31 (3): 314-323. 2003 Academic correctness under monarchy: Universiti BruneiDarussalam and its research, Borneo Research Bulletin 34: 129-50. 2008 Contesting convention in Malay-world historiography, ReviewArticle, Borneo Research Bulletin 39: 269-273. King, Victor T. 1993 The Peoples of Borneo. Oxford: Blackwell. 1994 What is Brunei society? Reflections on a conceptual andethnographic issue, Southeast Asia Research 2 (2): 176-198. King, Victor T. and A.V.M. Horton, eds. 1995 From Buckfast toBorneo. Essays presented to Father Robert Nicholl on the 85thAnniversary of his birth, 27 March 1995. Hull, University of Hull Centrefor South-East Asian Studies. Mani, A. 1993 Negara Brunei Darussalam in 1992: Celebrating theSilver Jubilee, Southeast Asian Affairs 1993: 95-109. Martin, Peter W. 1995 Some views on the language ecology of BruneiDarussalam, In: King and Horton, eds. 1995: 236-251. Martin, Peter W., Conrad Ozog, and Gloria Poedjosoedarmo, eds. 1996Language Use and Language Change in Brunei Darussalam. Athens: OhioUniversity Center for International Studies (Monographs in InternationalStudies, Southeast Asia Series 100). Milner, Anthony 2008 The Malays. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Mohd. Jamil al-Sufri bin Umar 1992 Liku-Liku Perjuangan PencapaianKemerdekaan Negara Brunei Darussalam. 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Pelita Brunei 1983 Taraf Kerakyatan: undang-undang yang ada tidak berubah(Editorial), Pelita Brunei, 7 September. 1984a Masyarakat Tiong Hwa diseru: Sesuaikan diri dgn aspirasiNegara, Pelita Brunei, 5 September. 1984b Penghargaan serta harapan kepada masyarakat Tiong Hwa(Editorial), Pelita Brunei, 12 September. Reid, Anthony 2001 Understanding Melayu (Malay) as a source ofdiverse modern identities, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 32(3):295-313. Saunders, Graham 1994 A History of Brunei. Kuala Lumpur: OUP.(Repr. 2002. London: Routledge-Curzon). Shamsul A.B. 2001 A history of an identity, an identity of ahistory: the idea and practice of Malayness in Malaysia reconsidered,Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 32 (3): 355-366. Siddique, Sharon 1985 Negara Brunei Darussalam: A new nation but anancient country, Southeast Asian Affairs 1985: 99-108. 1986 Brunei Darussalam in 1985: A year of nation-building,Southeast Asian Affairs: 45-51. 1992 Brunei Darussalam 1991: The non-secular state, Southeast AsianAffairs 1992: 91-100. Singh, D.S.Ranjit 1986 Brunei in 1985. Domestic factors, politicaland economic externalities, Asian Survey 26 (2): 168-173. Singh, D.S.Ranjit and Jatswan S. Sidhu 1997 Historical Dictionaryof Brunei Darussalam. Lanham, Md. & London: The Scarecrow Press,Inc. State of Brunei 1956 An Enactment to Regulate Immigration into theState, E.23 of 1956. 1959 The Constitution of the State of Brunei, 1959, S.97 of 1959. 1961a The Brunei Malay Regiment Enactment, 1961, E.I of 1961. 1961b The Brunei Nationality Enactment, 1961, E.4 of 1961. 1963 The Constitution (Amendment) Proclamation, 1963, E.2 of 1963. 1970 The Emergency (Council of Ministers and Legislative Council)Order, 1970, S.59 of 1970. 1983 The Constitution of the State of Brunei, 1959--The Emergency(Royal Brunei Armed Forces) Order, 1983, S.35 of 1983. Tan Peck Leng 1992 A history of Chinese settlement in Brunei, In:Tan & others, 1992: 100-136. Tan Peck Leng & others 1992 Essays on Brunei History. BandarSeri Begawan: Universiti Brunei Darussalam Department of History. Thambipillai, Pushpa and Hamzah bin Sulaiman 1995 BruneiDarussalam: after a decade of Independence, Southeast Asian Affairs1995: 111-123. Zainal bin Kling 1990 The changing international image of Brunei,Southeast Asian Affairs 1990: 89-100. Roger Kershaw 295 Clashnessie, Lochinver Scotland IV27 4JF (1) To some extent Kershaw 1998a was already responding to"error and misunderstanding," in setting out to create a solidbasis of understanding of ethnic ranking in the face of the kind ofignorance or distortions which will be dealt with in a more concertedway in the present paper. Some questionable assertions were identified,however, in a review article, Kershaw 1998b, whose focus was Saunders1994; Horton 1995; and Singh and Sidhu 1997. A small number ofcriticisms relating to their presentation of minority affairs arerepeated in note 9, below. (2) A succinct introduction to the role of Islam under M1B, andgenerously funded "outreach" to potential converts (there were420 recorded conversions in 1991 alone), is given by Horton 1996: 56-63.The absence of a place for non-Malays in the new state ideology was alsoidentified and discussed by Braighlinn 1992:86 (n 28, n 29), Kershaw1998a: 95 (n 36), and, in due course, Reid 2001: 312-313. (3) It is rather remarkable, however, that legal detail such as theclassification of ethnic groups is not a state secret, but perfectlyaccessible in Enactments published singly or in law collections by theBrunei government. Yet some writers have reported the scene as if theyhad met obstacles to simple inquiry. For the basic information forreaders of this paper, the seven indigenous groups which havecitizenship rights by operation of law are: Brunei, Kedayan, Tutong,Belait, Dusun, Bisaya, and Murut. I like to call these the"authentic" indigenous. The Ibans and Penan, being regarded asimmigrants in fairly recent times from outside the four districts ofmodern Brunei (i.e. indigenous to Borneo rather than Brunei), areallowed "operation of law" only if they and both their parentswere born within Brunei's borders. For extended discussion seeKershaw 1998a. For comparison with the Chinese, see note 29, below. (4) On the map the whole of the coastal strip from Tutong toBelait, and the middle reaches of the Tutong River, are marked as"Kedayan" only. For a carefully researched, alternativestatement of Bisaya-Dusun strength, see Martin 1995--highlighted in moredetail in note 7, below. In a later, single-author work, King (1993: 57)correctly treats the Dusuns of Brunei as entirely distinct from thepeoples similarly labeled in Sabah, pointing out the lack of anymeaningful distinction between them and the Bisayas of either Brunei oreastern Sarawak, while, however, making the highly curious assertionthat "Tutong" is a Brunei Malay synonym for these Bisaya,alongside "Dusun." This is not what we read in a publicationof the following year (King 1994: 195), where the Tutongs are treated asan entity quite distinct from the Dusuns (albeit already, apparently,themselves "absorbed into Malay culture," like the Belaits),and we are even alerted to the existence of a misapprehension that theDusuns are the same as Tutongs (King 1994: 192). (5) By Siddique (1985); Abu Bakar (1989); Zainal (1990); Doshi(1991); Mani (1993); Thambipillai and Hamzah (1995). (6) However, Abu Bakar does acknowledge the presence of non-Muslimbumiputeras in his reference to the willingness of a political party(BNUP) to admit such persons as members (see p 95). (7) Cf. Martin 1995. with his clearheaded calculation of ethnicnumbers by speakers of" each native tongue. Dusun and (separatelycounted) Bisaya speakers, totaling together 15,600, would constitute 5.35% of all "authentic indigenous," amountingto 291,750 (i.e., not including Ibans and Penans). This may not seem alarge segment, but it must be remembered that in the district of Tutongthe various dialect branches of the language account for almost thewhole of the population of the middle reaches of the Tutong River. (8) For elaboration of this historical dimension, see note 18,below. (9) Some of the weaknesses discussed in this paragraph were also inevidence in the works reviewed in Kershaw 1998b. As it happens, Saunders1994 (and repr. 2002) was very sparse on minority matters except theChinese, so there is little likelihood of error in that general areaanyway. I could just repeat (from Kershaw 1998b), a query as to whyKedayans are classified among the "other indigenous," likelbans. With reference to Horton 1996 I might reiterate the point thatthe Dusuns of Brunei are not Kadazans. On the other hand, University ofMalaya authors Singh and Sidhu (1997) deserve full critical exposure,again, for their assimilation of all native groups to the category of"Malay" (as if the 1981 Census was sociologically correct);silence on the Dusuns in particular, except when making a singlereference to their leader in 1961-62; and the assertion that no Chineseare citizens, indeed that only 10% could even travel abroad! Mycalculation of the proportion of ethnic Chinese residents with Bruneicitizenship in the 1980s was 20.38%. (10) However, while Tutongs and Belaits are omitted from thisitemized list of "the Malay majority" perhaps becauseconsidered as Muslim (and closer to "real Malays"?)--Kedayans,bizarrely, are named, as if not part of the group of "localMalays," also included separately in the list. (11) When "Malay" means "indigenous Muslim," itis not equivalent to "Brunei," for where are the Kedayans andTutongs in the latter category? (12) On pp. 205 and 206, educated opinion is cited as the opinionof "Bruneis," which either inaccurately infers that no LabuanMalays and Eurasians, or Kedayans, or Tutongs, etc., have made their wayto the top of the bureaucratic elite, or represents a usage of"Brunei" which here embraces all the indigenous minoritygroups, perhaps even regardless of religion. (13) And for further analysis see Section 3, below. (14) That being a Malay also means being a Muslim is a matter ofalmost universal definition in the Malay world since the Golden Age ofMalacca. By this standard, to call every native Bruneian a"'Malay" gives him the tacit status of a"Muslim-in-waiting," at least, and delegitimizes any effortsat ethnic cultural preservation in advance. (15) For a complementary presentation of the perspective of thisparagraph, but excluding "the wider Malay family," see Kershaw1998a: 99-101. The most able ideologue of the contemporary Bruneiregime, Pehin Udana Khatib Badaruddin (Deputy Minister of ReligiousAffairs at the time of writing, 2010) traces his "Malay world"credentials back to student days in Singapore and early flowering as aMalay nationalist poet, prior to A1Azhar. He was active in the DuniaMelayu movement around 1990, apparently seeing Brunei as a potentialrole model for the revival of authentic political structures andpan-Malay literature, yet also not unconscious of the degree to whichthe interests of Brunei monarchy and a sustainable Brunei sovereigntyprescribed maintaining a certain distance from Malaysian Malayintellectuals and their political masters, and making a subtle or not sosubtle distinction between Malays of Brunei and other kinds of Malays.Reid (2001:312-313), too, has made a succinct point about thecontradiction between the Malay world identification of 50 years ago anda concept of "Malay" which, as expressed in M.I.B. today,presupposes a set of cultural characteristics which sets Brunei quitedeeply apart from its neighbors. (16) Interestingly, the published census for 1986 on which Niewbases his work (Negara Brunei Darussalam 1989) does resurrect the Dusunsand Muruts ("lost" since 1981) as separate groups in its tableof"Working Population by Sex, Community and Major Occupation1986" (p. 67), and informs us in footnotes to tables on pp. 41, 42,45 and 48 that the "Malay" figures include Dusun and Muruts.Pp. 41, 42 and 67 are even reproduced photographically by Niew (1991,Appendix B). (17) The perspective of this paragraph owes a very great deal tothe research of Eva Maria Kershaw, which we hope to be publishing in afuture study, Kershaw, E.M. and R. Kershaw, eds., Forthcoming. Section7, below, is devoted to the responses to Donald Brown's work byVictor T. King (King 1994), starting with the question ofBrunei-bestowed ranks. (18) On "the other city" at war with the Bruneis in 1521,see Nicholl 1980: 38-39. If the Bruneis did emerge by some process ofasymmetrical schismogensis, it remains curious that subsequently theassimilation of the rest of the root society to the Bruneis'religion has taken so long--indeed seems to have owed its significantstrides more to the technological and bureaucratic advantages bestowedby the British than to innate capacities of earlier times. On thehistoric slowness of the spread of Islam in Brunei territory, see Nepote1985. (19) Once a group such as the Dusuns of Tutong accept, as they hadby the 1980s, that no one can be the ruler of Brunei unless he is aMuslim (and, hence, "Sultan"), the portents are hardly goodfor their ultimate survival, even as a subgroup of "theMalays," however defined. (20) Since 1984, evidently, unity is engendered more coercively,and the Sultan asserts his "Bomean" credentials simply byclaiming, through official historiography, that the structure describedor prescribed by MIB has lasted since time immemorial, and that the"Malay" ethnicity of the people is not (and never was)internally differentiated, let alone challenged, by any rival oralternative native identity outside it. Kedayans now find themselvestacitly cast as a role-model in convergence, instead of being classifiedseparately in a hierarchy--with all the dysfunctional consequences whichthat may have had for the Brunei state when PRB/TNKU was recruitingguerilla fighters in the rural areas! (21) The "debate" to which I have referred has left asmall number of landmarks, such as work by Barnard (ed. 2004); Milner(2008). Kershaw (2008) offers some first thoughts on the latter and onits antecedents. I think it is fair to say that Milner, possiblyinfluenced by the Peninsular "experience," places his wholeemphasis on how new-Malays cling to residues of their ancestral cultureand identity (cf. passages in Chapter 7), without exploring anylegitimizing adjustments on the part of their prestigious Malayrulers-cum-dominant group if the latter are ultimately themselves ofautochthonous ancestry, as is found in Borneo. (22) And see note 3, above, on the legal status afforded to theIban in the event--a victory for Malay conservatism, as we are about tosee. Also commentary in note 27, below. (23) It is not made clear why the British had no fight to attemptto influence the future political structure of Brunei at a moment whenthe 1905-06 Supplementary Agreement was still in force, and negotiationsin progress, precisely, over what form of semi-independent polity theBritish government should surrender its authority to. Hussainmiya alsoomits from his documentary appendices the section on citizenship inState of Brunei 1954, which recommends that the Dayaks be recognized asindigenous Bruneians. (24) But one can readily understand why the subject of the Kedayansmight be given little attention: if they were a key group in theRebellion, this is hardly consonant with their recognition, today, aspart of the Malay mainstream (Hussainmiya 1995: 39-40). For a broaderdiscussion of Hussainmiya's study, see Kershaw 2000. (25) "Non-Malays are constitutionally excluded fromcitizenship, even if they are indigenous to the territory (as in thecase of the Dusun and Iban peoples) ..." (Attwood and Bray 1989:71-72). (Attwood was the lecturer particularly responsible for thisreference.) (26) This wording is unchanged from the original Enactment: seeState of Brunei 1961 a, 6 (I) (b). (27) It is true that the lbans are listed in the First Schedule ofthe Nationality Enactment as "groups which are considered to beindigenous to Brunei," but the same sentence continues:"within the meaning of this Enactment." The whole point of theFirst Schedule, in conjunction with Articles 4 (1) (b) and (c) (ii), isthat this type of "indigenous" has entitlements interior tothe seven core groups. Hence the appearance of the lbans as "Otherindigenous" in census statistics. (28) But a further point, whose validity will not be denied, isthat the condition of the Ibans can only be fully assessed when accountis taken of the fact that the settled population of "Otherindigenous" is itself divided between citizens and PermanentResidents. The figures are, respectively, 2,753 and 3,054 (Negara BruneiDarussalam 1989: 45). Thus, well over half of the settled Ibanpopulation could face obstacles to obtaining a livelihood outside thevillage on account of the employment and travel restrictions which theyface. (29) The position since 1961 being--it would be helpful to pointout--that Chinese can only become citizens by naturalization orregistration, except that the status of citizen, if once achieved by oneof these routes, was heritable by the children of a male citizen, byoperation of law. (30) Who at 14,016 were 35% of the total Chinese population(including foreign citizens) of 39,461 in 1981, or 63% of the 22,059settled Chinese, as I calculate based on Negara Brunei Darussalam 1989and Negara Brunei Darussalam n.d. (31) Cf. a debate in the House of Lords, reported in BorneoBulletin, 24 February 1979; the full details of the IndependenceAgreement, reported from Britain in Borneo Bulletin, 24 March 1979;statement by the Information Director, Pehin Haji Badaruddin binPengarah Haji Othman, in Borneo Bulletin, 26 March 1983. Also, anaccurate, if sparse, account is given by A Correspondent in Bandar SeriBegawan 1984: 69. (32) Starting with A Correspondent in Bandar Seri Begawan 1984, whois quoted by Mulliner 1985: 218, and apparently echoed, at an unknownnumber of removes, by E.I.U. 1992: 45; 1996: 64. (33) Two issues of the government newspaper were involved: PelitaBrunei 1984a, 1984b. The second of these sources--the Editorial--veryspecifically refers to a time requirement laid down by the NationalityEnactment, with no hint of any amendment. It does also stress that theEnactment has its own "essence and philosophy" against whichChinese applicants should measure themselves, but the meaning appears tobe that this is the background to the existing time requirement, notthat the requirement had been found to be in need of tightening becauseof a stricter definition of cultural compatibility. It could also benoted that at the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Sultan's BirthdayBanquet the previous year, the Sultan had given an understanding thatthe conditions would not change: see Pelita Brunei 1983, and commentaryon it in Kershaw 1984: 77. (34) The most precise figure available is the 41,401 given for 1986in Negara Brunei Damssalam 1989: 41. As before, we will note that thisfigure includes the many Chinese expatriates (from Singapore, Malaysia,Hongkong, etc.) working in Brunei. (35) A more legitimate sensation to write about--because true,though affecting very few--would have been the "totallystateless": those who did not even have permanent residency, andwere thus, in effect, fugitives from the law as non-holders of anyidentity card. As for the stipulation "twenty-five years out of thelast thirty," in search of even a very slight gleam of truth inthis regard, one might consult the report of a confidant of the lateSultan that in the Anglo-Brunei constitutional negotiations of March1959 it was initially agreed that aliens should be admitted as citizensif resident for the past twenty-five years or for twenty-five years in apreceding period of not above thirty (Mohd Jamil 1992: 79). (36) As she was using Borneo Bulletin as her source, the authorgives as the date of promulgation what was in fact the date of cominginto force of legislation enacted late in 1956 (see State of Bmnei1956). (37) It should be twelve out of fifteen years. (38) However, I believe that the fact that the chief champion ofthe English-medium for Chinese students enjoyed well-establishedcredibility as a spokesman for the Chinese community generally, and atthe same time (both as cause and effect) was in a confidentialrelationship of mutual benefit with the Minister, gave the Ministeraccess to reliable and reassuring intelligence as to the limits oftolerance on the Chinese side. (39) The above criticism has been made rather emphatically becausethe objection that the researcher was ignoring the impact of the newlyenforced policy was raised by a well-informed temporary resident ofBrunei at the conference in Kota Kinabalu, 1992, at which the originaldraft of his paper was presented. Although future historians will findno reference to the early stages of this drama of Chinese education inany of the Brunei press, it could not be unknown to a researchspecialist on Chinese language at the time. (40) That Malay culture has been able to exert some kind ofmagnetism over "pagan" groups, historically, at least withinthe scope of the prestige or political power of Sultanates, seems to beconfirmed for west Borneo by Collins (2001). Evidently, if it could beshown that a factor in this was the establishment of missionary programsby historical Sultanates, then modem Brunei Darsusalam would not be asseverely out of step with the past as I have just suggested. (41) Where I say that King "at first invokes it as supporting...," I am taking his words "is reinforced" in the senseof "intellectually confirmed." But if he also means"sociologically promoted," the understanding that Braighlinnmeans the same as the Brown/King formulation is still in evidence wherethis is then described as the "more permissive mode" of theMIB ideology. (42) However, to say that King espouses a vision of historicalinevitability might not be quite correct either, for it appears that inorder for history to "complete its course" the ideology isequipped with a "more intolerant mode," which "doestranslate into active strategies to incorporate the non-Malay'sub-groups' into the dominant society and culture" (King1994:186). I also think I detect an inference at one point that a historic symbiosisbetween the groups in the hierarchy has some life in it yet, and in somemysterious way is necessary and functional, not least to the dominantgroup; in other words, the assimilationist ideology could be at variancewith historical dynamics! (King 1994: 185) (43) In the last two paragraphs of Kershaw 1998a: 102. (44) Neither Mulliner 1985 nor Siddique 1985 has any reference tothe demise of the Legislature. The legislation abolishing (or, as itstated, "suspending") it is Negara Brunet Darussalam 1984.This was not, of course, given any publicity in the government press,but Borneo Bulletin, 10 March i 984, slipped a condensed note, headed"Legco dissolved," onto its back page--not without incurring asharp "rap on the knuckles" from the Information Department,as one heard. It must be noted--and admitted--that the Legco heredissolved was not an elective body, but had been appointive since theabolition of elections under State of Brunet 1970. (An earlier, moreshort-lived abolition had occurred under State of Brunet 1963.)Also tobe noted--and regretted--is the fact that Kershaw 1984 has no referenceto what turned out to be the very last gathering of the LegislativeCouncil for two decades, to pass the Budget for 1984, at the end ofDecember 1983 (an omission due to editorial pressure to submit copy before theend of that year). (A photograph of the last Council, assembled on 21December 1983, may be seen on the front page of Pelita Brunei, 28December 1983.) On characterizations of popular legislatures as an alienimport and imposition (an ominous portent for the fate of Legco, it mayseem now), see Kershaw 1984: 76. Eventually, in 2004, the Legco wasreinstated, but at the time of this writing (early 2010) remains anominated body. (45) Further to a comment in note 21, above, on Milner (2008),Chapter 7, relating to assimilation in Borneo, it may seem a littleanachronistic to call for this kind of recognition from a debate whichonly took off in the late 1990s, whereas the present study deals withrealities and their reporting a decade earlier, or two decades beforeMilner's new publication. Still, the latter is more than anythingelse a historical study, whose author did not lack time for informationgathering, reading of academic secondary sources, and analyticalreflection on the "flagship" Sultanate with its pretensions toreinvent Malay nationalism. Not the least of the available fruitfulsources on Brunei elite and state goals for the future of the nativeminorities are publications by a Bruneian sociologist (notably Hashim1984, 2003). Latterly equipped with a Ph.D. from the University ofMalaya (on which Hashim 2003 is based) and a post as Prof. Madya(Reader, in British terms) at UBD, this writer says of the Dusuns:"As for the Dusun ethnic group, the majority live in the interiorof Tutong District. This group are still pagans, but practise Malayculture. A small number of them have embraced Islam. In their dailysocial mixing they use the Dusun language or dialect. The total numbersof this group are estimated at around 8,000" (Hashim 2003: 28.Transl. R.K.). The deficiency of the non-Muslim Dusuns in terms of thenational identity being spelt out by MIB had been argued--in a spirit ofadmonition to the Dusuns themselves--by Hashim 1984: 10. (46) I have previously written of an apparent capacity of UBD tomold the minds of expatriates, or at least censor their public thoughts,in Kershaw 2000a, 2003 (the latter is the original English text of theformer).