Negara Brunei Darussalam from Protectorate to Statehood: the Ceaseless Quest For Security

Abstract

Negara Brunei Darussalam is an unique specimen of statehood, having acquired its independence, under very unusual circumstances, only in 1984. It is also one of the last of its kind an independent sovereign state ruled by a Sultan who is an absolute monarch. For almost a century, Brunei was content to bask in the warmth of its imperial shadow, the United Kingdom, thereby offending against all the canons of statehood and earning considerable condemnation at international fora. During that period, Brunei metarmorphosed through successive stages of development from a sovereign but decaying Sultanate into a British Protectorate and thence a British Residency, through an interregnum of Japanese conquest and occupation and reversion to British tutelage before finally acquiring its independence, and most unwillingly at that, in 1984. For Negara Brunei Darussalam, its long journey from Protectorate to Statehood has been a never-ending quest for security. The contemporary Bruneian polity is very much a product of its immediate past and in particular of three crises through which the Bruneian political system has passed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each of these crises carried with it the potential of removing the rulers of Brunei who held power and of enforcing substantive changes in the character of the polity. In all three instances however, the challenges were resisted and each challenge and the consequent response had combined to determine the specific way in which an absolute monarchical system came to be constituted in Brunei. During the Residential period, the Sultanate underwent its most fundamental transformation. The climax to that transformation was that a "ceremonial" Sultan came to be vested with all power and authority from the date of the first Constitution promulgated in 1959. The political history of Brunei from that date has been remarkable for the absence of any substantive changes. Indeed, by the time of independence in 1984, a de facto condition was made de jure. Together with states like Saudi Arabia, Oman and Nepal, Brunei has secured some measure of isolation from the modernizing process and achieved stability through the preservation of its uniquely patrimonial character and institutions. Indeed, the contemporary Bruneian polity is testimony to the persistence of and resilience of a traditional political system. The central institution of the state is the monarchy of historical longstanding which is a regional anomaly. From a decaying Sultanate on the fringes of Borneo, Brunei has emerged as an extremely wealthy state in which all power and authority rests in the hands of one man, the Sultan and his immediate family. Legitimation is not derived in form or substance through elections or popular participation and there is no indication of any move towards constitutional reforms which could enable the development of some measure of popular participation. The political process in Brunei is virtually a closed activity. History and geography have combined to make the terms ‘survival’ and ‘security’ the dominant themes in the political evolution of the contemporary Bruneian polity. Indeed Brunei's international outlook and unique political system have been shaped by its unique geopolitical circumstances and also by a salutary experience of the interrelationship between domestic political challenge and external support. The anachronistic institution that governs Brunei has been made possible and upheld by Brunei's continued post-imperial relationship with its protector, the United Kingdom. When that residual relationship comes to an end, then the political identity of Brunei and its peculiarly Bruneian institutions will depend greatly on the loyalty of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces and the ability of the polity to adapt to new social and political groups which will demand a change in the political system and the principles of legitimacy.