Our Brunei Blog Mystery – Approval Or Indignation?

An idle morning here, just on my third coffee before I move out to the front yard sunshine awaiting today’s visitor, who is coming over from the far side of Jakarta,

So time to ponder a mystery.

More than one of our readers have drawn our attention to the ranking over there on the right – ‘Top Posts,’ etc. – which has, on different days, over recent months, shown various of my anti-‘gaystapo’ posts at the top of the daily list.

No complaints, especially since, when I check my statistics, there are often more than 100 hits, tons of readers looking at words I’ve written as long ago as two or three years!

But when I further check my geographical spread, it transpires they are ALMOST ALL readers in Brunei!

What’s going on?

Brunei is a tiny (albeit very rich) sultanate just next door to Indonesia, the country I live in…

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Brunei is up there, just across the border, on Borneo (aka Kalimantan) Indonesia’s largest island,

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On Saturday, last weekend, about 170 people there read an old post –

• ‘Gay’ Rights and Wrongs – Despite Eire’s Example, Cameron, Salmond Still Diss Democracy

– which looked at the ‘gay’ problem and featured developments in Scotland, England, Eire and Slovenia!

How come?

Are they sitting at their laptops appalled at my pro-normality opinions? Or are they instead delighting in my disapproval of deviancy?

Despite all those folks reading it, I’ve had no comments from any of them!

Speak up, Brunei!

Clean Up The Commonwealth – Kick Benighted Brunei Out!

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I seem to recall that South Africa was forced out of the Commonwealth in 1961 because its apartheid policy was deemed an affront to ‘human rights.’ 

So how come Brunei’s still a member?

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I ask the question after learning that the rich but wretched sultan’s sectarian regime was so aggrieved by some of his subjects’ behaviour during the Festive Season that he has now banned public celebrations of Christmas for fear of Muslims being led astray…   Brunei puts stop to Christmas celebrations to protect Muslims, religious ministry says | World | Malay Mail Online. 

It’s maybe no surprise that this assault on religious liberty occurred, since we did report last year that the tiny state’s ruler had decreed a Dark Age, with the prospect of savage shariah punishments for offences which are not offences in civilised countries. 

Holy Brunei! No Booze, But You CAN Get Stoned! 

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 Already, you can’t be seen having a beer in public!

And as the Malay report to which we’ve linked has to observe, it looks like it’s going ever further backwards, with their strange sultan the driving force. 

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Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah

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Given what we know about the vile intolerance of Indonesia’s Aceh Province, where not only Christmas but also New Year celebrations have incurred the wrath of the primitives in power, the lame-brained reasoning behind the Brunei ban is entirely predictable.

‘Happy New Year? Don’t You Dare!’ – Aceh’s Islamist Bigots 

The diktat was issued as a strike against the act of publicly marking non-Islamic rituals or festivities “can be seen as propagations of religions other than Islam.”

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•  Who’s going to object to this?
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• Citing some NIGHTMARE scenes of Muslim children, teenagers and adults seen wearing hats or clothes that resemble Santa Claus…” –seriously, the bigots really came out with this stuff – a ministerial statement was quite unashamed in its declaration of war on human rights.

“Believers of other religions that live under the rule of an Islamic country — according to Islam — may practice their religion or celebrate their religious festivities among their community, with the condition that the celebrations are not disclosed or displayed publicly to Muslims!”

There you have it.

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Conditional freedom. Which is not freedom at all, but forces minorities to worship on sufferance – second-class citizenship.

In Britain, Canada, America, and all across the Western world, and much of the non-Western world too – we see Muslims free to celebrate Idul Fitri, Jews free to observe their Pass-Over, and Buddhists and Hindus equally entitled to worship and rejoice openly. 

But in Brunei, just as shamelessly as in the Saudi citadel of oppression, religious liberty may only exist behind closed doors. It’s also reported that notice was served on shops and other businesses that displayed Christmas decorations to knuckle down and bend the knee to the inquisition.

The businessmen, as did those menaced by Al Capone in America’s Prohibiton Era, of course gave in – full cooperation!  

Okay, your backward and bigoted regimes may not be subjected to outside interference in their internal affairs, according to rules of engagement between sovereign states (unless, for some reason, you happen to be Myanmar). 

But are there no basic conditions attached to membership of the Commonwealth, of which Her Majesty the Queen is Head?

Well, yes, and there always have been, witness South Africa’ departure over half-a-century ago.

I know many evil tyrants, like Mugabe, hold power in Commonwealth countries, but they usually pretend to believe in democracy and basic civil liberties.

Brunei brazenly derides them!

Kick that shoddy sultanate out of the Commonwealth.