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Oil for Freedom in Brunei State Policies and Women`S Strategies in Brunei: a Case Study of the Women`S Business Council

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Oil for Freedom in Brunei State Policies and Women`S Strategies in Brunei: a Case Study of the Women`S Business Council View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarBank@NUS Oil for Freedom in Brunei State Policies and Women`s Strategies in Brunei: A Case Study of the Women`s Business Council CHHAYA SIVAKUMAR B.A. Women/ Gender Studies, Occidental College, USA THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTERS (RESEARCH) SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES PROGRAMME NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2008 Table of contents Acknowledgments-------------------------------------------3 Statement of Original Research----------------------------4 Summary---------------------------------------------------5 1. Introducing “Oil for Freedom in Brunei”--------------7 2. Juxtaposing the WBC with Women’s Organizations -----26 3. First Generation of educated workingwomen-----------40 4. Government Policy and Working Women in the 90s------53 5. Government Policy and Businesswomen-----------------67 6. Conclusion: To tie some loose ends------------------85 Bibliography---------------------------------------------91 Appendix A-----------------------------------------------95 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am enormously grateful for the funding and institutional support I have received since embarking in this project. The Southeast Asia Studies Program at the National University of Singapore has consistently supported my work the generous Research scholarship over the past years and the Graduate Research support Scheme that enabled my fieldwork. When an acknowledgement was not enough… To offer brave assistance To Lives that stand alone — When One has failed to stop them — Is Human — but Divine - Emily Dickinson Writing this thesis was one of the hardest things I had ever done. In many ways I could sum up the experience as that which cannot destroy me did make me stronger. I owe my faith in myself and my thesis to a few people and I wish to take this opportunity to express my infinite gratitude to them. It may be only words but I believe that all those whom I name here, were the ones who convinced me on the power they hold... I thank “Dr. Goh” for all those office-hours, dinners, drinks and emails urging me to reach higher and work harder, when I was all too quick to draw my own limits. This thesis was definitely a product of her undying faith in me. I am also fortunate that Beng Lan became much more than just a professor for me over the past two years. Becoming her friend and getting to know her as a warm and kind person were one of the most worthwhile learning experiences at NUS. I thank “Prof Rey” for being so nonchalantly inspirational in the words he uttered, looks her gave and smirks he made. I hope someday I can challenge someone the way he unknowingly challenged my ‘self.’ 3 I also extend my hand in gratitude to Ms. Tan Lucy, Ms Rohani Sungib and the cleaning ‘Aunty’ for providing me the stability and reassurance that this Masters journey seeks. I must also genuinely acknowledge the magnanimity and hospitability of Teah Abdullah, my wonderful new friend whom I met during the course of my research and fieldwork. She made this fieldwork more personal, warm and more interesting than it would have otherwise been possible. I am glad to have gone on fieldwork and found a second home. I also thank the members of the WBC for trusting a stranger with their precious time and details. Without their honesty and experiences, there would have not been a thesis. I salute their courage and determination to see Brunei unlike any of their contemporaries. Last but not the least I thank my parents, Jonathan, ‘Thiru,’ Elizabeth, the ‘guys in the grad room’ and Adam for being at the right place at the right time whenever I needed them. I wish to also take this opportunity to apologize for all my moods swings and self indulgences during the past two years. The thesis may have been my core, but I am glad they were and are my details. 4 Statement acknowledging Original Research Unless otherwise specified, I declare that this thesis is an original product of research undertaken at the National University of Singapore under the auspices of the Southeast Asian Studies Program. I accept complete responsibility for the views, analysis and representations I have chosen to present in this study. On the date of submission this thesis comprised of exactly 28,864 words. Chhaya Sivakumar MA. Research Scholar (NUS) 5 Summary This study explores the emerging economic position of a selection of educated Malay Muslim women in Brunei: the urban businesswomen. My thesis attempts to unsettle the mainstream perceptions of Brunei that assume all the members of this society depend unconditionally on the government for their economic and social well-being. While this may largely still be the case, such a presumption certainly does not encompass some major developments in the private sector since the late nineties. I focus on the unprecedented rise of independent and educated middle-aged businesswomen who formed the Women’s Business Council (WBC) to disclose how the economic relationship between some citizens of Brunei and the government is in fact more inter-dependent than earlier thought. My thesis reveals that the businesswomen of the WBC share an enviable economic position that does not depend on the government. Along the journey of five chapters, I slowly unravel the circumstances that allowed and created such a possibility of economic independence for these women. In the first Chapter Two show how the WBC is unlike any other national women’s organizations in Brunei. In Chapter Three, I link the changing social mores with evolving government policies in the seventies and eighties to show how a whole generation of educated working women became prominent in Brunei. By Chapter Four, I explore the ways in which these educated women negotiated familial obligations and their desire to progress in their career during the nineties. In this chapter, we also see how the government was instrumental in encouraging many of these ambitious career women to become businesswomen. Finally, in Chapter Five, we learn that these businesswomen have many obstacles with running a successful company in Brunei. This way I unwrap the ways in which the members of the WBC have been effective in solving their own problems without relying on the government. Since few critical studies and no ethnographies exist on the lives of women and men in Brunei, I have employed multiple methodologies to substantiate my main argument. I used a combination of personal interviews, journal articles, old books, national newspapers and web blogs to develop a wholesome and contextualized picture of these women’s lives, choices and achievements 6 Oil for Freedom in Brunei State Policies and Women`Strategies in Brunei: A Case Study of the Women`s Business Council Introduction A Country Called Brunei Brunei is a small country tucked away in the Northern part of the island of Borneo with fewer than a third of a million citizens. Unlike many developing countries in Southeast Asia, the government of Brunei sustains its domestic growth and infrastructure overwhelmingly with the export of oil and natural gas that contributed to over 60 percent of its GDP from 1990 onwards.1 Since the beginning of the exploitation of oil in the fifties, the population of this oil rich state has enjoyed an average standard of living enviable by the rest of Southeast Asia. Since the discovery of oil, the socio-political system was fossilized by its immense wealth generated by that resource. From 1962, the year when the Sultan declared the state of emergency suspending democratic processes, the regime has conserved its power without any substantial challenge.2 In order to reach this position, the Sultanate created in the seventies a welfare- based socio-economic system that bestowed a high income, free healthcare and education, subsidized housing and electricity to all its citizens in exchange for their loyalty to the Monarch. However, beneath the surface of this placidity lie deep problems with respect to the citizen’s sense of economic stagnancy that may gather the potential to shatter this otherwise sustainable balance. Brunei at the turn of the twentieth century was one of the least wealthy British protectorates with only 12,000 people and a very poor Sultan who ruled over impoverished kampongs.3 However, with divine grace or plain luck, the Sultanate of Brunei discovered oil in the late thirties and since then Brunei never faced budget deficits 1 Ali Ameer, “From Penury to Plenty: The Development of Oil Rich Brunei, 1906 to Present.” Department of Research Monograph Series 2. Perth: Murdoch University, 1996. 2 Singh, Ranjit. Brunei 1839-1984: The Problems of Political Survival. New York: Oxford UP, 1984. 3 McArthur, M.S.H. “Report on Brunei in 1904.” Monographs in International Studies: Southeast Asia Series, Ohio: Ohio UP: 1987. 7 again. By the late thirties, the country’s revenues ran well over and above any national expenditure unlike the period between 1906 and 1937.4 Now, Brunei is completely dependent on its precious but exhaustive oil supply. There is concern over the eventual dwindling oil resources aggravated by the simultaneous inability to create a strong manufacturing, agriculture or service sector and an overdependence on migrant labour.5 These pressing circumstances compelled the government of Brunei to formulate an alternative plan that would help maintain the high standard of living in Brunei for its citizens. But drafting such a plan was not straightforward. Firstly, the economic returns on the non-oil and gas sector were low because the government’s resources and infrastructure existed solely to support the industrial drilling of oil. Secondly, the citizens of Brunei had comprehensive welfare schemes with free healthcare, housing and education, preferential employment in the public sector with very high remunerations and interest free loans. Hence the citizens’ attitudes had to be addressed before they could be expected to take high risks when a comfortable, effortless life was already guaranteed.6 The government also introduced regulations to reduce the inflow of the immigrant population, which occupied a substantial share of the working population in Brunei.
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