Academic correctness under monarchy. Universiti Brunei Darussalam and its research.

Abdul Latif bin Ibrahim (ed.) 1996 Purih: Universiti Brunei Darussalam Dalam Satu Dekad. Kumpulan Esei Mengenai Negara Brunei Darussalam/A Collection of Essays on Brunei Darussalam. Brunei: Akademi Pengajian Brunei/Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Abu Bakar bin Apong (ed.) 1992 Sumbangsih UBD. Esei-Esei Mengenai Negara Brunei Darussalam/Essays on Brunei Darussalam. Brunei: Akademi Pengajian Brunei/Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Gunn, Geoffrey C. 1997 Language, Power and Ideology in Brunei Darussalam. Athens, Ohio, Ohio University (Center for International Studies Monographs in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series 99).

Hussainmiya, B. A. 1995 Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III and Britain. The Making of Brunei Darussalam. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press.

A Retrospective Introduction

The article that follows was written in 1998, four years after I left Brunei Darussalam at the end of a ten-year stint with the Brunei Ministry of Education. That stint had included a short spell at the then embryonic Universiti Brunei Darussalam, as it began to absorb the Institute of Education. The article has not previously been published in English, but appeared in German translation in Periplus (Kershaw 2000). I am grateful for the permissive policy of the Sudasien Institut, Heidelberg, towards reappearances in English--not to mention the original, ready acceptance of the article in 1998 and generous departmental mobilization for its translation. (1) Needless to say, the opportunity to publish now with the BRB, with no changes from the original text, but two new notes, is also greatly appreciated.

Part 1: The "Correct" University

The oppressive atmosphere of "political correctness" of which conservative opinion in the United Kingdom and United States is wont to complain may be a tribute to the effectiveness of liberal and left-wing thought, in recent decades, in discrediting certain political and social norms of the upper and middle classes, at least to the extent of making their adherents perceive that the norms might reflect "self-interest" in some degree, not exclusively a broader "public good." There was even a period when some basically conservative individuals in Western universities felt beleaguered on a range of issues, both internal and external to university life--and behaved as if discreetness was the better part of valor. In Britain, so it seemed, "academic freedom" was less often invoked as a bulwark of self-expression, indeed became subject to self-doubt in its own right. The doctrine which depicts that freedom as a subtle instrument of the hegemony of "capital" or the State was not without its own subtle effect on the intellectual climate--notwithstanding the relative unconditionality of state funding of British universities in those days; the almost total freedom of revolutionary expression; and the striking reluctance of governments of any hue to tender support to university authorities in conflict with radical students.

This homily, even if it be accepted as a reflection of typical late 1960s/early 1970s academic reality in one country of the West, may seem a rather off-beat way of introducing Universiti Brunei Darussalam and its works. But connections can be established, both causal (in real life) and heuristic (i.e., at a comparative-analytical level). In causal terms, the image of "student revolution" in the West made it not only possible but politically prudent for the Minister of Education-cum-Vice Chancellor to declare, at the launch of the University in 1985, that "academic freedom" would not be tolerated. It was left to expatriate staff to work out, in due course, how far this was applicable to teaching and research as well as to student discipline. And for comparative purposes, it is in fact interesting to notice how "political correctness" in any area of Brunei life (not only the academic) becomes "immanent" without being formally spelt out, at least in any law or regulation. There is a lacuna even of any posterior enactment of laws to enforce a requirement of "correctness" after it has begun to gain limited acceptance in society, as often happens in the West. This facet may perhaps serve to illuminate another, more fundamental divergence from the West, and thus cast doubt on any would-be "structural affinity" across boundaries: namely that in Brunei "correctness" serves political stabilization or the status quo of a permanently dominant State (a dominance which operates through a bureaucracy but often proves willing and able to forgo written regulation), whereas in the democratic West the functions of "correctness" are "subversive" and initiate change (change which needs the backing of law in order to institutionalize it, in a society which respects law but does not bow to the State on principle).

There is, however, one ironical, partial affinity between the university scene in Britain and Brunei which should be mentioned for the sake of completeness. In the event, "the student revolution" had very little long-term impact, apart from lowering the prestige of universities and their freedoms in the eyes of Conservative leader and monetarist-to-be, Margaret Thatcher. The State has now intervened to abolish security of academic tenure, for all intents and purposes--though in the name of economic accountability, not, of course, for the weakening of "reactionary attitudes in the intellectual agencies of capitalism." Arguably, British universities approximate far more closely to a model of "agencies of capitalism" today than ever they did before 1968. If Marxist analysis of academic structures had scant applicability in the 1960s, there is certainly room for postmodernist critiques in the 1990s. Such critiques might also include in their scope the impact of "Islamic" beneficence in the funding of new university buildings and programs. The analytical skills thus developed could in due course be applied to the interaction of State power and academic expression in the "oil-rich" societies of the Muslim world itself.

With reference to Brunei, this essay has already proposed, in effect, as one possible starting point or angle of approach, the non-salient role of written law. In fact the Brunei State, as paymaster, does indicate its displeasure, and thus its expectations, obliquely and retrospectively, when refusing to renew the contract of any expatriate who did not toe the invisible line of "correct" criteria. But before the first three years of a contract are up, an expatriate at UBD could well have been misled by the more audible honoring, at the level of official declaration, of the principles of innovative research and stimulating teaching. The fact is that the Brunei authorities are not unaware of the tradition of academic freedom which accounts for so much of the achievement and prestige of universities in the West--to emulate which, at least in superficial or nominal respects, is one potent way of symbolizing independent statehood and modernity. In other words--and ironically--the Brunei authorities are themselves subject to the pressures of a progressive kind of "political correctness," emanating from the West. The unique challenge for the bureaucracy of this Malay absolute monarchy, in the development of a university, was to achieve a workable compromise between international credibility, based on the presumed international norms of academic life, and control of the free flow of ideas which could subvert the monarchy. One expression of the search for a compromise has been the accent on research that is "relevant to the needs of the nation."

The fact that even a number of Western staff employed at UBD have seen their way to making personal accommodations along lines acceptable to the territorial authority might seem to be to the credit of Bruneian acumen in political management. Such a compliment might appear to be less valid, however, in the light of cases of political accommodation back home when academics were assailed by a diametrically different consensus from "the left," which the State power never actively backed but may have viewed permissively; or latterly by pressures from a more "right-wing" State which was interventionist in reducing academic autonomy, yet distanced in terms of reducing State funding and forcing universities to seek subsidies from the private sector or abroad. The compliment (to Bruneian political management) might prove even less tenable with regard to Asian expatriates whose professional socialization took place in polities typified by "soft authoritarianism" and universities subject to the interventionist tutelage of nationalist elites.

As things worked out, however, the Brunei State did not have to be concerned wholly with "damage limitation" on the campus. As the early years passed and the bureaucracy and court circles saw that the campus could indeed be controlled, contrary to their worst fears, they began to see it as a potential haven and shrine of "Bruneian" rather than "Western" values, and a pillar of the independent State, not just its symbol--though not without the potential to contribute some useful ritual to the process of political maintenance, at the same time. An Academy of Brunei Studies (Akademi Pengajian Brunei, hereinafter APB) was established, with a brief not only to teach the compulsory State ideology courses to students but to act as research directorate to the National Committee on M.I.B. (Melayu Islam Beraja). The creation of the APB was realistic from a staffing point of view, since from 1989 numbers of History, Malay Language, Malay Literature and Islamic Studies graduates of UBD itself, taught by Indonesians and Malaysians, had been coming on stream. State ideologues have set particular store by the claim that the Malay Muslim Monarchy is not a figment of their own minds but a "living reality" with a long history, the more extensive truth about which can and should be revealed by dedicated research--preferably by members of that same society and polity.

Nevertheless, as far as research on Brunei generally is concerned, the Minister is on record as praising the UBD expatriates for having shown an unexpected capacity for empathy with "Brunei conditions." We may take it that these complimentary words were not particularly intended for the writers who had kept to subjects without any sociocultural dimension or implication--as in the uncontroversially mathematical piece on investment by the first Head of Economics and current Head of Research at APB (Moehammad Nazir 1992). Yet UBD did owe a considerable debt to this versatile Indonesian for his involvement in the establishment of the APB and his dynamic lectures on "Bruneian identity," which had helped to lend credibility, on its own terms, to the early M.I.B. course. (Those who attended the lectures had been much struck by Dr. Nazir's own identification with the "Bruneian identity," as passionate as his denunciations of Western culture.) But uppermost in the Minister's mind, in launching UBD's contribution to the Sultan's Silver Jubilee celebrations, must have been the Sri Lankan Muslim scholar who had written a laudatory essay on a national icon, the late Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III (Hussainmiya 1992), and was on the point of completing a monumental work on the same subject (Hussainmiya 1995).

There is a kind of symmetry in the fact that foreign academic clients of the Brunei absolute monarchy may become involved in elaborating a State ideology which rationalizes the legacy of the architect of that form of rule, or in weaving legend around the memory of the late Sultan as an historical figure. Interestingly, as far as "legend" is concerned, its principal thread would seem to consist in the denial that the late Sultan was the architect of anything other than the welfare of his people. It is the essence of any expression of "correctness" in Brunei, as has been suggested, that it helps to stabilize and consolidate the status quo. Because of the pervasive and penetrating (not to say "correct"!) example of democracy in so many countries of the world, the Brunei State prefers to project a "caring monarch" rather than an "absolute ruler" to its subjects. Such revelation about the present Sultan and his father must be the most "correct" of all tenets of Brunei doctrine. And where better to create academic underpinnings for it than in the local university? It would not be solely the Bruneian staff who would be aware of the "correct" doctrinal parameters for writing about the monarchy, for this is one area where propagation is far from informal or tacit: it occupies many an official speech and, by the time of the Silver Jubilee, was seen in a significant work by the leading Bruneian historian (Mohd. Jamil 1992).

Before pursuing the analysis of B. A. Hussainmiya's powerful opus, a little more institutional context may be helpful, by way of validating the foregoing assertions about UBD and providing an equitable yardstick for judgment on its most productive author. Let us briefly peruse the author-lists in UBD's two major commemorative volumes to date: the royal Silver Jubilee volume (Abu Bakar [ed.] 1992) and the UBD 10th Anniversary volume (Abdul Latif [ed.] 1996). It is noticeable that out of 24 contributors to the 23 papers in the first volume, only four were Westerners, while in the second commemorative volume, of the 38 contributors to 31 papers, only two appear to be Westerners. Of course, non-appearance in their pages could conceivably be evidence of lack of a "research-active" status on someone's part. But it is surely extraordinary that in the first volume only one Westerner features from the Departments with a more salient disciplinary interface with politics: History, Critical Thinking, Economics, Public Policy and Administration (PPA), and Management Studies; and in the second volume, no one. If one knows the several Western expatriates who were on the strength of these Departments during the years in question, one is more likely to suspect that research was going on but that its practitioners felt prudently "constrained," or were officially discouraged, from publishing through UBD; while a number of others may have decided not to add Brunei to their research interests in the first place.

A tangential glance, first of all, at two pieces which were contributed from the notionally less "sensitive" Department of English and Faculty of Education (in 1992 and 1996 respectively) will suggest that constraints are certainly in play when publication does ensue. It seems at least mysterious that an essay on the prospects for successful implementation of the "bilingual" system in Brunei schools tells us that one of the important enabling conditions, as prescribed by theory, that is also provided on the ground is that the native tongue is as dominant and prestigious as English (Mohd. Gary 1992a:101). This perception is seriously at odds with the superior prestige of English among the English-educated secular elite (which is precisely why it was felt politically prudent to extend English-medium education to the masses!). And surely the new Bilingual System itself is eroding the prestige of Malay--while creating a generation of semi-linguals who are not functional in English either. Even less true to sociological reality and possibilities is the paper on an "early childhood education program" for UBD, based on Piaget's constructivism and Dewey's progressivism and thus fundamentally revolutionary in principle for Brunei, unworkable in practice. The scheme is vitiated out of its author's own mouth where she simultaneously advocates "an attitude that enables practitioners to take risks and challenge tradition in order to implement their ideals into sound educational practice" (Noori 1996:103) but proposes to "transmit teachings which are consistent with national aspirations whereby the nation is seen as a Malay Islamic Monarchy" (Noori 1996:104).

Reverting to the five "sensitive" Departments, it is similarly noticeable that the single Western contributor in 1992 had chosen an anodyne or nationalistically "correct" subject--actually in literature (Gunn 1992)--even though at that very time a quite "explosive" study was on the stocks in Australia (Gunn 1993), which was to play a part, one cannot doubt, in the abrupt foreshortening of the author's second contract in 1994. Of the two papers on International Relations, both by Malaysians in the Department of PPA, the first is notable for devoting only 13 lines to Brunei (Shafruddin 1992:276); the second for not mentioning the Sultan's personal financial diplomacy, especially in the Nicaraguan Contras affair, even after stating that "as head of State and Government, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah takes a personal interest in Brunei's foreign policy" (Thambipillai 1992:281). The third study from a member of the PPA Department (a Sri Lankan) merges Public Administration with History, and overlays a fundamental soundness on the foundation-laying for the absolute monarchy in the 1950s with soothing formulations such as "He [Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin] brought to bear upon matters of administration an assertion of national pride and integrity, amply supported by the growing financial reserves of the state," or "Thus [through the 1959 Constitution], the three pillars of the M.I.B. concept associated with Brunei's past were put in place, as an expression of cultural nationalism" (Wijeweera 1992:184; 189). For every writer on historical, administrative and economic aspects of Brunei the question of how monarchy and government divide up the revenues is apparently off-limits. In fact there is no article on public finance at all (though three articles on economic subjects: one from the Department of Economics, on investment, i.e., Moehammad Nazir 1992, as cited above; and two from the Department of Management Studies, on industrialization, and small businesses, respectively). Significantly, the volume leads off with an article by the Minister on the national ideology, in somewhat pseudo-scientific mold (Abdul Aziz 1992); another on the same, by a local lecturer who had been sent to the University of Malaya to do a Ph.D. on the subject (Hashim 1992); and a piece by one of the local graduates at APB, who makes a none-too-convincing attempt to demonstrate that the magical invocations of court ceremonies, derived from the Hindu era, and the Malay tradition of blind loyalty to the Raja, are in fact fundamentally "Islamic" (Abdul Hamid 1992). A more convincingly pioneering and professional essay on Islam in Brunei, by an Indonesian (Iik Arifin 1992), is the third piece from the Department of History (counting Gunn 1992) and the third piece on History (counting Wijeweera 1992). For the present reviewer's taste, Iik Arifin Mansurnoor's work is in a class of its own. But one may be permitted to observe with a friendly smile that here, part of the writer's talent goes into "making the best of a bad job" as far as the paucity of documents to support any thesis on Brunei is concerned.

In the second commemorative volume, as has been mentioned, neither of the two contributing Westerners is from one of the five "sensitive" Departments, which again produce nine papers (two from Economics, three from History, one from Management and three from PPA). Of three papers on International Relations, the first, by a Pakistan-born specialist (History Department), contains no commentary on Brunei's role as such, although its synopsis portends otherwise: "Negara Brunei Darussalam has played an active role in ensuring continued progress on both these subjects [regional security and trade liberalization]" (Muhammad Kamlin 1996:326). The second (Shafruddin 1996) is by the Malaysian author of the first IR paper in the 1992 collection, but covers much the same ground as the paper by his colleague in 1992 (i.e., Thambipillai 1992). The essay may be judged more versatile than its "forerunner," but seems to be geared to an "agenda," namely to argue that actually Brunei Darussalam is not a real "small state" at all, because it possesses remarkable assets which guarantee its recognition and survival. Then the second International Relations author of 1992 extends the discussion of regional economic cooperation begun by her colleague in 1992--and with rather more reference to Brunei's role (or at least its need for trade-driven diversification) but no reference to the long slump in oil prices which most fundamentally has necessitated economic rethinking, especially in a situation where the royal "take" from oil revenues is inelastic and non-negotiable (see Thambipillai 1996). There is again one paper on an aspect of public administration: by a Malaysian (the third writer from PPA) writing on land policies and planning, who mentions the Sultan's inherent mineral rights and recent power of veto on land transactions but, predictably enough, not the mechanisms whereby the royal family acquires land in private ownership (Lim 1996). Public finance is now represented, from the Department of Economics (Manan 1996). This author discusses in not a little detail how, in a climate of (admitted) oil-price decline and rising population, the government can and should fund higher public expenditure by a more efficient mobilization of non-tax revenue. However, his taciturnity on the fact that such revenue includes royalties suggests that he is aware of certain sensitivities in this area. The contribution from the Department of Management, on the Islamic Bank of Brunei, usefully identifies the fact that it was converted from the previously existing International Bank of Brunei, but attributes this to a "royal command." It is not mentioned, even in a spirit of commendation or flattery, that the Sultan was the owner of the first IBB and thus acted to transform his own property into a religious-cum-political asset (Murshed 1996:193). (The second article from the Economics Department is also on banking, but deals with the overall scene, and from a strictly banking point of view.) In this volume the main ideological exercise comes from the editor and Director of APB (Abdul Latif 1996), while the by now successful candidate for a doctorate in M.I.B. argues against equal rights for Chinese except on the basis of total assimilation (Hashim 1996). The role of the late Sultan in the 1950s is again presented, and from a not very different perspective than was seen in 1992 (Hussainmiya 1996). And last, but very far from least, one is again moved to express admiration for the third contributor from the Department of History--one of only two in the subject of History (Iik Arifin 1996)--for his versatile review of the idea of monarchy in Malay history. But once again one might comment in the friendliest possible spirit that inasmuch as the Brunei case is sui generis, the specifically documentary evidence for it is hardly extensive, and that the authenticity of one source discovered in recent years by the Head of the Brunei History Centre is not unassailable.

The recurring theme of non-participation by Westemers, running through the previous three paragraphs, probably calls for a little justification, short of apology, before we move on. The exercise may appear to involve a crude classification of UBD staff according to "ethnic origin," and some readers may suspect a latent presumption of concealed excellence in the Western quarter. It cannot be too much stressed that several of the Asians at UBD have gained Ph.D.s from world-class universities and share universally authoritative academic values to the full. In particular, a period of membership of a prestigious research program, with an uncorrupted background of Southeast Asian culture, makes an absolutely unbeatable scholarly combination in Southeast Asian Studies, in the present writer's view. Nor should the presence of a sprinkling of able African staff be left out of any account of UBD. The purpose of the "ethnic calculation" has been simply to suggest that natives of "Western" countries are surprisingly underrepresented in the University's publications, even though they were numerically a quite prominent element in the early years, and not professional novices for the most part. In fact their standing may have been equal to the demands of international refereed journals; but then, why not offer at least some preliminary work on Brunei to UBD? Admittedly again, some of the first wave had already moved on by 1992; but it is well-known that in some cases this was not unconnected with pessimism about the way the University was evolving. Meanwhile, the present discussion has inferred that certain Asian expatriate writing has evinced a degree of political accommodation. But in the light of the "Western" examples cited from the English Department and Faculty of Education, and indeed in view of the sheer absence of many of the Western expatriates from the two collections, there can be no question, and has been no intention, of claiming an exclusively Asian "ethnic trait" in this respect.

At all events, after everything that has been said or insinuated about an unconducive research environment, the most remarkable feature of the second volume remains to be mentioned: the disarming appeal from the Vice Chancellor to the expatriates who are not "research-active" not to use the alleged "sensitivity" of any research as an excuse for inactivity. (2) Yet the very fact that a high Brunei official should be moved to mention such a sensitive matter publicly at all does suggest the existence of a negative perception that was prevalent and deeply rooted, having impinged on his consciousness and challenged complacency. And precisely in such a critical situation one wonders whether the statement as a whole will have assuaged cynicism, for the Vice Chancellor still admits that anything seriously political (i.e., analytical of politics, not just political in the sense of evincing a committed position at odds with the regime) is off-limits. This principle is hardly belied by anything in B. A. Hussainmiya's book, for which the Minister (now Chairman of the University Council) acted as an indispensable sponsor. Indeed it may be relevant to reflect that Hussainmiya took up research on the life of the late Sultan after the Minister had stopped recruitment to the undergraduate degree in History. The Minister's motive was largely to channel future student cohorts into more practical subjects and make them more employable upon graduation, not any clear bias against history as such. But the effect of the move was that Hussainmiya himself, as the latest recruit to the Department, found that his own employability was cast in doubt. One can have nothing but admiration for Hussainmiya's vigorous fight against redundancy, and it may also have been his achievement to acquaint the Minister with some potential benefits of historical research. But some readers might infer from certain features of the literary sequel that, on occasion, security of tenure at UBD carries a tacit intellectual price-tag.

Part 2: The Correct Kingdom

The first thing that must be said, ungrudgingly, about Sultan Omar All Saifuddin III and Britain, is that it is a pioneering work which also invites admiration or envy for the monumental scope of its analysis and supporting documentation, researched and written in little more than two years, as the author states (p. xi). Even allowing that the author was not bearing an onerous teaching load during the period, and was amply funded for world-wide travel, especially to the Public Records Office (PRO) in London, the product is no mean achievement. To do justice to its strengths while advancing a credible critique may only be possible through a series of discrete chapter pr6cis, such as the present critic has attempted elsewhere (Kershaw 1998). Within the constraints of a Review Article, however, it will be necessary to illustrate perceived weaknesses by way of a few selected examples, after first outlining the fundamental themes of the book. The weaknesses in question may inhere in or derive from these themes, or may relate to methodology and the interpretation of individual documents.

As far as scope is concerned, we are introduced to the rise of the British Residency; the salient contrasts between Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin II (reigned 1924-1950) and his brother Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin III (reigned 1950-1967); the genesis of Brunei nationalism in both their reigns; Sultan Omar's six-year struggle for absolute power, in contest with both the Brunei People's Party (Partai Rakyat Brunei or PRB) and the British (more particularly Sir Anthony Abell, the Governor of Sarawak and High Commissioner for Brunei), spanning roughly the period between the First Five-Year Development Plan (1953) and the Brunei Constitution (1959); the Northern Borneo Federation Proposal; the issue of merger with Malaysia; the Rebellion (1962) and its political aftermath (but with a rather evasive treatment of causes); further royal contention with democrats and "the British" (now a Labour Government), up to and including Sultan Omar's abdication (1964-1967); and the phase of consolidation, comprising the first seventeen years of the formal reign of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, up to and including Independence (1967-1984). This final phase is covered very perfunctorily, though with no lack of adulation for the principal protagonist and his son, while Sultan Omar's six-year struggle prior to 1959 fills nearly four weighty chapters. Sure enough, this is a book focused essentially on the reign of one Sultan and his relations with late-imperial Britain.

If one comes to the volume with a slightly jaundiced preconception of the parameters of allowable research under the Brunei monarchy, one may be surprised at first by the "frankness" of the presentation of the Sultan's struggle to establish absolutism in the face of populist nationalism and British constitutional doctrine of the time. But this is rationalized by rejecting "democratic correctness" in favor of a "Brunei correctness," viz. "the restoration of tradition," which was especially necessary, it is asserted, because the British had done nothing to create a modern society, ready for democracy; but also (in apparent contradiction with the said omission, one may feel) because the British were tied into a special relationship with the Brunei monarchy which, ultimately, it proved difficult or unacceptably immoral (for Britain) to break out of. By eschewing cross-reference to the other Malay States (especially those of the Unfederated variety) the author avoids having to deal with the awkward reality that British intervention under the 1906 Supplementary Agreement was less accommodating to the Sultanate (that is, more in the mold of "direct rule") than for all the Peninsular States, whether "Federated" or "Unfederated," in their Treaties. Surely it was not predictable from the nature of the various Treaties that, when nationalism arose, the British would "abandon" the Peninsular royalty (whose authority over both religion and custom they had always recognized) in favor of democracy, but would "stand by" the Sultan of Brunei (who was autonomous only in religious matters) and allow him to substitute the power of the Resident with a monarchical neo-absolutism under the Constitution of 1959. It is true that the first British Resident had given an undertaking to Sultan Hashim to uphold the succession in the existing line, but that was already more or less standard procedure in the other Malay States too, provided that Sultans were accommodating towards British political priorities; and anyway, does this imply that democracy should be rejected in a time of nationalism, fifty years later? It seems more to the point, with regard to what transpired, that the democratic option in the 1950s was represented by a party (PRB) in a very different mold from the Peninsular UMNO, and that the Sultan of Brunei between 1950-1967 was a political activist without a peer among the royalty of the Malay world in that era. Neither factor was in any way "traditional," by the way, nor caused by previous British omission or commission. At any rate, the two in combination posed a considerable dilemma for British gradualist constitutionalism, which deserves more empathy than it receives from Hussainmiya, ever ready as he is to mock it--rather in the mode of recent "Asian values" discourse--as Eurocentric, cultural imperialism, insensitive to an "ancient Asian way of life" and even in breach of sacred undertakings. The latter slant seems distinctly odd, when we note that Brunei's chief ideologist, on the eve of Independence, had compared Brunei and the other Malay States in exactly the opposite sense, saying that the British had broken faith with the Peninsular Sultans but did not do so with the Brunei dynasty (Kershaw 1984:76).

It is also odd to meet, in Hussainmiya, echoes of an anti-British Asian nationalism of yesteryear, which so far from being an inspiration to the late Sultan himself at the time, constituted a democratic anti-model and even more fundamentally an anti-imperialist anti-model, for a dynasty and micro-state which he preferred to see continue under benevolent British protection--less the democratic preconditions for Independence should Independence eventually become unavoidable. Conceivably the author felt it necessary to conjure up a form of British "absolutism" in order either to distract attention from the Brunei version and its contest with democracy, or to justify the Brunei version because of the odds allegedly faced by this micro-polity in search of rightful autarchy. An alternative intuition suggests that Hussainmiya is trying to make his text "M.I.B.-compatible" by insisting on the viability of monarchy and nationalism as a combination. This intellectual position is the vital corollary, of course, of the Sultanate's denial of the relevance or sincerity of the PRB's nationalist project for the country. But Hussainmiya forgets that the official ideology denies, at the same time, that Brunei was ever colonized. Thus the "struggle" which he attributes to the Sultan, in so far as it is "against" the British, is politically "incorrect" in M.I.B. terms, though "correct" where the Sultan is claimed to have been a more effective fighter for the people's interest (their welfare under benign monarchical rule) than the PRB could ever be. What is true, historically, is that the Sultan was in contest with both the democratically-minded (gradualist) British and the democratically-minded (radical) PRB, but in playing one off against the other generally succeeded in keeping the British "on board" for his goals. The evidence for what was essentially a geo-political "dynastic intrigue" is all present in the text, and Hussainmiya sometimes hints as much. But being unduly concerned to pass "correct" moral judgments and present the material within an acceptable framework, he obfuscates the role of dynastic self-interest in his interpretation; and at the same time exaggerates the "imperial self-interest" of the British (in order, as we have already speculated, to give the Sultan a more virtuous reason for "struggle" than that of staving off democracy); but thereby places himself off-side, ironically, in relation to M.I.B., because pre-Independence Brunei comes to look like a part of the British colonial imperium. In fact, Hussainmiya's solecism is doubly ironical, since the reason for Brunei ideologues' denial of colonization is in order to assert the continuity and legitimacy of a monarchical tradition, and Hussainmiya does uphold this doctrine by way of the myth of a "non-interfering" British Supplementary Agreement in 1906. Hussainmiya's taunts at the "lack of British empathy with the Sultan" in the mid-20th Century may even implant an inkling that the motivating perception of British colonial officials, of a Sultan who was fighting for his dynasty in a self-interested rather than altruistically revivalist way, was not untenable.

The chapter which comes nearest to collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions is Chapter 9, dealing with the barely avoided merger with Malaysia. In an interpretation which is slightly redolent of the "neo-colonialism" thesis of President Sukarno, we find the British trying to foist their "late-imperial design" on the Sultan (as either a development from or alternative to a Northern Borneo Federation), and Kuala Lumpur trying to do the same as part of its "neo-imperial design" (purely as an alternative to a Northern Borneo Federation). But this fits uncomfortably with the evidence revealed in passing that Brunei's "visionary leader" was alternately totally adrift or rushing into Malaysia's embrace in order to save his dynasty from the PRB. If the author had intended to make a "political" statement, he would have done better to write a book less loaded with detail, much of which turns out to be "compromising" in terms of the dominant discourse. He should even have avoided the occasional, self-conscious attempts at "balance" in interpretation, which have the effect of exposing the dominant discourse for what it is, with all its fundamental weaknesses. (Note that the surreptitious plurality of perspectives does not arise from an open-minded "dialogue" with the material, but consists rather of "nods" in the direction of this or that alternative, with the effect, whether or not intended, that no reader will be able to say that a particular--often more natural or conventional--construction is completely missing.) One senses that Hussainmiya is glancing over his shoulder at a potential academic audience as well as the Brunei official intelligentsia. But in attempting to render homage, "correctly," to two "gods" simultaneously, he may have jeopardized his credibility in the sight of each of them. It is not without pathos that since and although the Brunei Ministry of Education had fulfilled its presumed deal with Oxford University Press by buying up the whole stock not long after publication, the book has been virtually unobtainable in Brunei because it was locked away instead of being distributed to school libraries.

More graciously, some of the anomalies might be suspected to be the result of an author coming to the subject with no background in modern Southeast Asian history. For instance, there is one plausible perspective on the Malaysia negotiations which would have exonerated the British from the charge of neo-imperialism while making the Sultan's willing orientation towards Malaysia less "unmentionable" for a pro-monarchy writer: the onward march of communism in the region. This process had already drawn the USA into Vietnam, through the intermediary of the NLF; in the guise of the left wing of PAP (subsequently Barisan Sosialis) it was probably the overriding factor making both Tunku Abdul Rahman and Lee Kuan Yew desire to see Singapore in the Federation; and in the shape of PKI, one of the pillars of Sukarno's Guided Democracy, it was a key part of the crystallizing strategic menace to Brunei's south, translated ideologically into Brunei's midst (Brunei conservatives would think) through the PRB, which had copied much of its rhetoric and its party flag from Indonesia from the start and would have been supported by Indonesian troops in the Rebellion had the party's military wing not jumped the gun by four months. No matter that the Malaysia Plan itself had galvanized Sukarno and Subandrio to plan military actions to forestall it, quite apart from being the proximate cause of the Rebellion too. It was not least because the British intervened so effectively to snuff it out before international support was forthcoming, and then stationed a battalion of Gurkhas permanently in the oilfield, that the Sultan could contemplate a secure future outside Malaysia when the moment of decision came in July 1963. But this fundamental change in Brunei's strategic situation is ignored by Hussainmiya as much as the glowering menace of communism previously. One understands, of course, that in a text which concludes with a glowing tribute to the man who realized his grand vision of resurrecting the glories of Brunei--"in the manner of the legendary golden age of Brunei during the reign of a fifteenth-century ruler, Sultan Bolkiah" (p. 384)--a reminder of the presence of British mercenaries as a psychological, if not strictly physical, prop to the regime of his son, the present-day Bolkiah, would have a somewhat jarring effect. But arguably, a meaningful incorporation of the strategic scenario before the rebellion would not have been "out of step" with regime priorities.

It would be gratifying if the previous paragraph has begun to provide some concrete underpinning for the sweeping assertions which preceded it--in this case by focusing on a surprising lacuna or two in the book's handling of security (one of them rather unhelpful to the author's case, the other highly functional to it). Another way of alerting the less specialist reader to the possibility of more pervasive imbalance may be to cite a striking case of both omission and anachronism in the treatment of one minor episode during the preparations for a Constitution. The episode in question concerned the status of the Iban minority in the Bruneian nation-to-be. Generally, Hussainmiya seems to lend tacit support to (or prefers, delicately, not to highlight) the Brunei elite's paradigm of the Muslim identity and ethnic-Brunei leadership of this nation, by maintaining an almost complete silence on the late Sultan's vision of it as he worked to transfer the power of the British Residency into his own hands. Specifically, the author's sympathies are tangible where he notes the PRB rally in 1960 in support of citizenship for the Ibans yet not the editorial sympathy of the local English-language press. Since editorial opinion at the Borneo Bulletin typically reflected British Residency/High Commission thinking at that period, it seems clear enough that the restrictions in the proposed Nationality Enactment reflected Brunei elite thinking, opposed by the British authorities as well as PRB. The author himself does note the existence of a more liberal British view in June 1959, but mocks it, in a characteristic way, as illustrating the ingrained British proclivity to interfere, improperly, in the "sovereign rights of Brunei" (p. 203). It is not made clear why the British had no right to attempt to influence the future political structure of Brunei at a moment when the 1906 Supplementary Agreement was still in force, and negotiations in progress, precisely, over what form of semi-independent polity the British government should surrender its authority to. Hussainmiya also omits from his documentary appendices the section on citizenship in the Report of the Advisory Committee on the Brunei Constitution (State of Brunei 1954), which recommended that the Dayaks be recognized as indigenous Bruneians. On the other hand, no rationale whatsoever is offered of the Brunei Government's stand--in spite of the book's sub-title ("The Making of Brunei Darussalam") which evokes a nation in process of invention and arouses expectations of some effort of analysis and definition in this respect.

Even where well-known or manifest dimensions of a situation are not omitted or distorted, the reader may experience a nagging curiosity as to the precise content of the vast number of Colonial Office dispatches and minutes cited in the footnotes but rarely excerpted. Do they really all sustain the particular meaning attributed to them individually, let alone the sweep of Hussainmiya's overall thesis? To give a thoroughly fair answer to this question would require an exposure to the same files as Hussainmiya studied at the PRO, in equivalent if not greater depth. Such a project is beyond the present critic's reach, but he has, like a number of students of Brunei history, been the recipient of the unstinting generosity of a certain archivist based in London. Among a handful of documents made available, a dispatch from Abell to the Colonial Office (A. M. MacKintosh), dated 30 April 1956, has excited special interest. This is because it is used by Hussainmiya on p. 164 in support of the argument that at that time, just as at other times before and after (i.e., between 1953-1959), the Sultan was pressing for a Brunei Mentri Besar, against the unyielding British. Indeed it is inferred that the Sultan was partly moved by the feelings of his subjects on the matter--but not against his own will. The following two sentences are quoted from the dispatch: "His Highness feels strongly about this matter. He believes that his more vocal subjects will not regard the new Constitution as any advance towards Merdeka if no provision is made for the replacement of the Resident as Chief Executive Office by a Malay." What Hussainmiya does not quote is the comment which makes it clear that the Sultan himself had no heart for it at all in 1956--not least because of the parlous condition of royal authority in the Peninsular States in face of the rise of Malay Chief Ministers--and was waiting for an opportunity to side-step popular pressure. For his part, Abell thought such a tactic would be unwise, given the rapid growth of political consciousness. Such selective quotation prompts a slight apprehension as to the soundness of the "populist Sultan versus reactionary Abell" thesis more broadly. It even prompts a query as to the soundness of the alternating "wise Sultan versus impetuous, democratizing Abell" thesis, since it is manifest that the High Commissioner's support for a Malay Mentri Besar, here, is pragmatic, not doctrinaire.

Another conspicuous example of selective presentation occurs in Hussainmiya's discussion of the Rebellion, where he quotes High Commissioner White's musings about the possible complicity of the Sultan--in order to dismiss the idea as fantasy (pp. 306-308). If one is going to rule out a "Sultan's-conspiracy theory" one should surely also mention White's own best evidence to the contrary: that it was a popular revolt against the Sultan and aristocracy, fired by their general conduct as well as the specific policy of merger with Malaysia. White goes on to express his moral repugnance at having to stand by such a government. Were these observations deemed too indelicate for royal and aristocratic consumption in 1995? Consistently, there is no reference, either, to the post-Rebellion reporting and scorching analysis by the local weekly newspaper. The analytical emphasis by Hussainmiya is on British failings of internal security, and the weaknesses of Brunei Government communication with the people during the Rebellion itself, as reported and criticized after the event by the Straits Times of Singapore.

We have given examples of (a) significant oversights regarding the relevant context of an episode; (b) omission of germane information, in combination with anachronism, in the delivery of a moral judgment on an episode; (c) gross selectivity in quotation from a Colonial Office document, in order to maintain the consistency of an anti-British interpretation; and (d) a possible case of selectivity in quotation where certain reporting (both diplomatic and journalistic), if it had been included, would have enabled readers to weigh a particular factor in the Rebellion--the erosion of amity between Sultan and people--which as it happens must cause embarrassment to the royal family of today and is also in conflict with the tenets of M.I.B. It is much to be hoped that other reviewers will find a preponderant balance of more edifying examples of the historian's craft. But pending contrary judgment, the present critic remains inclined towards the view that the work is motivated by a certain "agenda" and that the research has been allowed to serve that, at least in part. As the author disarmingly states at the outset, "I trust that readers will be able to appreciate the standpoint I have taken--that is, not presenting the evidence alone to speak for itself but interpreting it imaginatively and with an understanding of the psyche of the principal actors around which the history of Brunei revolved" (p. xi).

Lastly, regarding this theme of possible political motivation, Hussainmiya is perhaps at his most "correct" in the Epilogue on Omar Ali Saifuddin's life, where we read that "he had devoted his career to the restoration of Brunei's monarchic dignity in a manner that promoted the peace, security and well-being of its people, and in a way that harmonized the traditions of the Sultanate with the needs of the modern world" (p. 383). This is "correct," above all, because it highlights bonds of duty binding a "caring" monarchy to its people, and claims that this is an ancient and (for this very reason) highly viable and legitimate tradition. In this respect Hussainmiya is fully in tune with the historical dimension of M.I.B. However, historians of a different proclivity may remain skeptical on two counts.

Firstly, where Hussainmiya invokes the memory of the first Sultan Bolkiah, it is surely conceivable that the more authentic and relevant "ancient tradition" of Brunei monarchy comprised relations between ruler and ruled which were less intimate and less infused with mutual respect than those which characterize the modern nation state. If that were so, one would have at hand an alternative theoretical model for elucidating the values of the late Sultan and the whole drama of the last reign--without of course going so far as to propose that Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin was himself purely "traditional" in an archaic/authoritarian way. Indeed the whole point about the invocation of "tradition" in Brunei ideology is that it should appear to foreshadow and thus legitimize relationships which, while certainly idealized in their own right or sustained partly by coercion, are in fact quite modern, though yet not as modern, on the Western time-scale, as democracy.

But the second basis for skepticism arises from this. The reviving monarchical regime has needed legitimation so badly because the people, too, are no longer "traditional." Their world has been exposed intensively to new possibilities and new ideas, especially since the shattering experience of the Japanese occupation and its aftermath. Some historians might even be tempted by parallels between the idealistic hopes of a democracy movement in a time of cataclysmic change, and millennialist movements among oppressed peasantries earlier in colonial history. But in case one would seek some external origin or stimulus for the nationalist and democratic ideas which infused parts of Brunei society in the 1940s and 1950s, then surely it is towards Malaya and Indonesia that one should look, not towards Britain. The British in Brunei were responding to the democratic impulse in the hope of molding it, far more than promoting or provoking it. Perversely, all the evidence for this is present in Hussainmiya's text, but it is subordinated to an ingenious agenda for exalting the monarchy as the only true repository of insight into the popular condition and interest, destined to oppose the "imperialism" of democracy. Ironically, the overwhelming dependence of the author on British records, with only a few acknowledged interviews with Bruneians, adds to the remoteness of the study from the people of Brunei. But in a kingdom in which the democrats were the historical losers, could it be that this, too, is "correct"?

Part 3: A Correct Analysis?

If the alleged "British urge to control" is a thesis out of tune with the Anglophile sentiment of the contemporary elite, one can nevertheless guess that it was urged on Hussainmiya by the knowledge that his sponsors would welcome an account of a Sultan who fought for a popular good, not for a dynastic interest. To draw a contrast with the "selfish motivations of British imperialism" was useful, if not necessary, in this connection. Taking a post-modernist kind of approach to a quite different book that is itself an exemplar of a post-modernist idiom (Gunn 1997), one may surmise that Geoffrey Gunn's framework was likewise influenced by his personal relationship to the regime. However, no doubt his experience, with all its tensions, was itself partly structured, in terms of events as well as perception, by prior ideological proclivity or moral outrage. We have already surmised that his publication of 1993 will have played a part in his premature "termination" as a Senior Lecturer of UBD. But his fearless activism in the cause of East Timor--on campus, face to face with the Secretary General of the United Nations, no less--must have played some part as well.

After a theoretical grand tour d'horizon, in the twenty-seven page Introduction, and despite a political Chapter 1, "The Fundamentals of Power in Brunei Darussalam," the book then proceeds historically, through "The Origins of a Brunei Literate Tradition," "The Rise of Bureaucratic Literacy," "The Wartime Legacy," "The Origins and Development of a Brunei Media," and "Postwar Education and the Rise of Literacy" (Chapters 2-6), before tackling "Language, Power and Ideology in Brunei Darussalam" and "Transitions from Authoritarianism: Changes in Ideology and Culture" (Chapters 7 and 8). (But be it noted that already Chapter 6 evinces a strong political "agenda," with its expressions of chagrin that literacy in Brunei does not seem to foster "scientific literacy.") That Chapter 7 is intended as a high-point may be inferred from the fact that its title replicates the title of the book (yet in the end, a scattering of examples of Bruneian linguistic behavior and State control of the media do not seem to enlighten us coherently about the "definite correlation" that is claimed "between language, language use, status and social empowerment"--pp. 204-205). The "optimistic" title of Chapter 8 seems to foreshadow an even higher aim, that is, either to pick up traces of current movement, or to speculate about future movement, away from the established rigid mold (yet in practice, neither existing traces of transition nor changes in the pipeline are much in evidence in this chapter, so its title may be less than apt).

It is not a little presumptuous on the critic's part to suggest what the author "may have intended to say" or "would have said if the Brunei case could in some way have sustained it." But there is a clue in Gunn 1993, as to the preferred thesis of a dependency theorist--though also the obstacle that the Brunei case erects in his way. A micro-state whose oil is pumped by a powerful multi-national company seems a natural candidate for analysis in terms of exploitation by international capital, and/or the nefarious role of local "compradors" in facilitating this. Yet Brunei, precisely because of its small territorial extent and population, has been able to save such vast reserves that it never needs to borrow abroad. Moreover (if not by definition), the continuing export of oil sustains a permanent balance of trade strongly in its favor. Thus post-modernist contempt has to be directed, one senses, at the "unnatural" (no matter how autonomous) use of the state's reserves to earn "rent" on the international money markets, rather than investing in industrial production--an investment which would engender, in the process, an authentic and historically "correct" local bourgeoisie and development towards a civic society.

The "historical correctness" here mentioned is not an example of the subversively "correct" political attitudes propagated to Western public, especially in universities, through mainly informal mechanisms in recent decades (and with which this article began). Rather, it is a case of the formal Marxist-Leninist doctrine which lurked in the deeper philosophical and organizational background behind that propagation, and was held to be "correct" among its devotees either because based on sound scientific prediction or because expressing the party line laid down for the realization of historical goals. Now the intellectual left has undergone its own historic shift away from rigid Marxism, both in a philosophical sense and in terms of party discipline. Flexibility and new perspectives are precisely what define political post-modernism, and Gunn himself is very far from being a doctrinaire. Nevertheless, one may just detect a nostalgia for the older certainties between the lines of this book on literacy in Brunei. Attention is initially directed towards the overwhelming power of the "rentier state"--as mediated potentially to the population through the manipulation of literacy levels--by the large corpus of analytical literature on other countries that is cited, some of which focuses on the equation between literacy and people's power, or between control of literacy and state power. The cited corpus is so pre-eminent in a book not notably strong on empirical detail, that one may find oneself wondering whether its function is to provide authority for a certain line of analysis, as much as a heuristic reference point.

In fact, it needs no prompting from theory to have the sensation that the more contingent types of circumstance--such as Britain's willingness to deploy massive military force in 1962 or the personality of the Sultan at that time--are oddly inadequate as explanations of the present extraordinary dominance of the State in Brunei. One is reluctant to eschew any approach from political economy and say that as there is no "dependency" which involves "Western subsidies" or "Third World debt," there is absolutely no condition worthy of the name of "underdevelopment" either. It is true that nothing has been "imposed" by the West; but can we say, alternatively, that the present "formation" was "chosen" by an autonomous indigenous elite? The crucial historical role of the British in 1962 is "awkward" in this context: possibly some formulation of that event in terms of world-wide economic forces would indeed be helpful. But strangely, while the author certainly pulls no punches in identifying the British role (c.f., pp. 17, 144, 175), he does not attempt to demonstrate how the British intervention and its long-term consequences may have a causal relationship and clarificatory utility vis-a-vis features of the contemporary State, society, and economy which are (he himself claims) "as much a function of the state in specific historical context, and a country's particular subordination within the world-system as of the legacy of culture per se." In other words, on the terms of the historiographical tendency to which the author himself inclines, the key event in modern Brunei history is actually not addressed. But nor is it addressed at the simple level of acknowledging that once a historical crisis has delivered concentrated power into the hands of a totalitarian-minded regime, empowered by victory to consolidate success by way of doctrinal propagation and other modalities, even a high degree of popular literacy may not generate any significant leverage against it, as 20th century European history has shown. In the Brunei case, on one recent occasion (1985), the revival of political expression through a party system was blocked by the simple expedient of a government ban on government servants (and, according to rumor, Shell employees) joining the newly launched Brunei National Democratic Party. As for culture --if at all it is accorded a role--perhaps the political culture of the courtiers who protect Sultans and project their image is of at least equal import with the culture of the masses. Who was it who blocked the political party after "Democracy" had been included in the Independence Declaration?

Seen as a first-hand account of modern Brunei, the reviewer can confirm the veracity of the overwhelming majority of facts and minor linkages recorded in the book as a whole, and finds their presentation invariably stimulating--while on a careful second reading some specific assertions turn out to be less dogmatic or daring than at first sight. The overall weakness of the study, the reviewer would suggest, lies not in the facts, by and large, but in the way their analytical treatment fails to live up to the high theoretical pretensions of the study, either because of insufficient local data, or because the framework itself is less than optimally focused. Thus the coming of academe to Brunei has not yet opened any world-dazzling perspectives on the Sultanate--even with this high-minded and thought-provoking second work from (though not sponsored by) the UBD Department of History. On the one hand--thinking around the development and ramifications of literacy in Brunei of which Geoffrey Gunn's book is itself one small part --this is one refreshing case where language, power and ideology in an "oil-rich state" have not suborned intellectual production into slavish compliance. But on the other hand, if we may postulate that the control of intellectual production and its consumption is achieved by quite subtle mechanisms (including the academic!) which indeed invite a post-modernist treatment, the book does not in the end demonstrate how or whether this government controls literacy for political ends. No doubt it becomes clear that it is the regime itself (rather than anonymous "international capital") which controls the people for such purposes of self-perpetuation, having won the contest for political autarchy with the British and against domestic populist nationalism. But there is a need for a more conscious emphasis (whether in a liberal, or more positivist, historiographical mode) on that transfer of power over the bureaucracy, without democratic constraints.

Part 4. Conclusion

The paradoxical conclusion seems to be that Hussainmiya comes closer to the mark on the dynamics of modern history, though glossing the takeover with myth about altruistic royal motives, as required by State ideology. What a pity that both kinds of book cannot be sponsored by UBD (at least their respective biases would provide a reciprocal antidote)! But more seriously ... a government which claims to want modernization surely needs lucid analysis of the baleful effects of bilingual education. In practice, the fact that the government does not encourage such work merely reinforces the suspicion that the negative effects of bilingualism are somehow "functional." (Members of the political elite will only go as far as to admit--in private--that the purpose was to "keep the masses happy," but even that points in the direction of control.) Meanwhile, it is surprising and regrettable that even the independent Gunn, though "getting warm" with his observations on poor Standard Malay, fails to relate the Bilingual Education Policy to a political control scenario.

For the time being, research and publication sponsored by UBD seem firmly wedded to legitimating the status quo. It will be difficult to amend that judgment until--for instance--the linguists advance beyond anodyne and abstractly-phrased observations that the Bilingual Education System will not implant English language competence if either the cultural conditions are unconducive (Mohd. Gary 1992b) or native language competence is not maintained (Mohd. Gary 1996: 130), towards a rigorous theoretical and empirical dialogue with the substantive problematique of the decline of Malay literacy despite a cultural milieu which seems to support this rather than English.

This is a question of acutely political significance, even if the fossilization of the masses' mental development was not quite consciously planned at the time of Independence. As of mid-1998, the very survival of the regime seems to hang on the incapacity of the people of Brunei to conceptualize either the degree or the enormity of the diversion of State assets which they themselves allege against a brother of the Sultan; and to rethink the myth of "living, ancient bonds" between monarchy and people so assiduously propagated by foreign writers as well as Bruneian theorists of M.I.B. In this situation, it may be to the advantage of the regime that Bruneian doctrines have more typically not been spelled out, and that the ideologues have been completely silent on the correctness or otherwise of delegating control of the national reserves within the royal family, let alone on what the Sultan should do in the event of some breach of trust. These gaps may leave room for some pragmatic management of the crisis.

But by the same token there will be a heavy premium on less formal kinds of propagation in rationalization and support of the measures taken. The effectiveness of these mechanisms will depend considerably on the credibility and good standing of their ultimate authority, the Sultan himself, among the political elite. Yet ironically, it is precisely faith in "a correct Sultan" that this propagation will be attempting to defend and consolidate--not only in spite, but because, of what has happened in his name. Moreover, it is in the nature of a hierarchy headed by a monarch that the person at its pinnacle defines doctrinal "correctness" but can never be judged by such a standard. At least the non-formal emphasis of the propagation should largely exempt the academic community from involvement in these dilemmas.

(1) Some problems arose with the translation, and the References were incomplete, but the 36 notes were rendered flawlessly and need not be reproduced here. In the German text, the principal corrigenda are as follows:

p. 129, col. 1, 1. 28: for Gerichtskreise read Hofkreise (i.e., the translators thought my "Court circles" referred not to the Palace but to the Judiciary--yet I myself passed it at checking stage); p. 129, col. 1, 1. 20: read: Staaten, die durch "soft authoritarianism" gekennzeichnet; p. 131, col. 1, 1. 1: for vorbereitete read das Vorwort schrieb (cf. the first part of footnote 8 for the text in question); p. 132, col. 2, 1. 30: for Malaien, read Malaysiern; p. 134, col. 2, 1. 35: for Brunei insofern read insofern Brunei; p. 136, col. 2, 1. 12: for Lohn read Preis; p. 137, col. 2, 11. 10-12: the words from Diese ungefahre Zeitspanne to Verfassung von Brunei (1959) refer only to Sultan Omars sechsjahriger Kampf..., not to chapters before 5 or after 7 of Hussainmiya's book, and would be well placed in brackets, with congruent adjustments to the rest of the sentence; p. 139, col. 1, 1. 4: for und weniger unter substitute doch ohne; p. 141, col. 2, 1. 23: for mit dem britischen Residenten substitute um die Machtubertragung; p. 142, col. 1, 1. 6: delete darstellt; p. 142, col. 1, 1. 38: for PRB, read PRO; p. 145, col. 1, 1. 32: after entgegenzutreten insert untergeordnet; p. 149, col. 1, 1. 25: for ersetzen, read einpflanzen (cf., p. 132, col. 1, sentences 2-3, for the argument about the conditions for the wide establishment of English to which this concluding comment refers. I spotted this error in the first proofs but failed to recorrect it in on a subsequent disk).

(2) The full quotation is printed (in English) in note 17 of the German version; see p. 135.

References

Abdul Aziz bin Umar

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295 Clashnessie Lochinver IV27 4JF Scotland