RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h
RAJA JAMES BROOKE AND SARAWAK

31

slavery. One of the Brunei princes, Raja Muda Hasim, had shown a rather more friendly attitude toward European traders out of Singapore than had the pirate chiefs. Brooke was commissioned to make contact with Hasim and see what he could do to make English ships welcome in the rivers of Borneo. Brooke was given a letter from Governor Bonham addressed to the Sultan of Brunei, Omar Ali Saifuddin.

Sarawak in those days was the southernmost part of the Brunei sultanate, little more than the Malay village of Kuching and the Sarawak River. The local Malay chiefs had for some time been in rebellion against the extortionary rule of the Brunei governor, and Raja Muda Hasim had been sent to suppress the rebellion but without much success.

It was in Sarawak that Brooke, on the 15th August 1839, met Hasim and his brother Bedruddin who impressed him with their “overawing and stately demeanour”, and their above average intelligence and political acumen. They were not at all the ordinary dissipated Malay chiefs that proliferated in the environs of the Brunei court. Brooke was made welcome and carried on conversations about Malay politics and trade. He then continued his voyage to Celebes and again returned to Kuching in the summer of 1840.

Without going into the details of Malay intrigue and procrastination that surrounded a most fascinating episode of British colonial history, suffice it to say that within a year Brooke had successively: convinced himself that it was worthwhile attempting to settle the rebellion in a just and fair way; had thrown the considerable weight and prestige of his expedition behind Hasim; had negotiated an end to the rebellion, which characteristically included a fair and humane amnesty for the rebellious chiefs; and had accepted in the bargain the governorship of Sarawak. Brooke wrote a lively account of the proceedings for his journal entry,2

Under the guns of Royalist, and with a small body of men to protect me personally, and the great majority of all classes with me, it is not surprising that the negotiation proceeded rapidly to a favourable issue. The document was quickly drawn up, sealed, signed, and delivered; and on the 24th of

2 R. Munday, Narrative of Events in Borneo and Celebes from the Journals of James Brooke, Esq. (John Murray, London, 1848), Vol. I, p. 271.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
BRUNEI: A HISTORICAL RELIC

27

Malaya a "new nationalism” has not yet emerged. It is in a sense "bought off" by the prosperity and good times made possible by the oil revenues.

A recent account of Brunei in a well-known western journal began this way: 21

There are moments when visitors feel this sleepy state on Borneo island's northern shore is something dreamed-up in a Hollywood script conference.

Our film opens in some place wild like the South China Sea coast. It's a place run by a sultan — you know, a chap with a turban and a name like Sir Omar Ali Saifuddin. He lives in this big box of a palace with a flock of cars and a bunch of hungry relatives.

And get this, the country sits atop a huge pool of oil so nobody wants to work. In fact, most everyone just kinda mooch-es off the government, which sits back and collects millions from the oil company.

Then we need something spectacular like a huge mosque with a gold-plated dome that's lit with coloured floodlights at night.

Except for the presence of the opulent gold-domed Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin mosque which now towers on the skyline Pigafetta of Magellan's crew would still recognize Brunei if he were able to sail up the river to the town today,22

The "Water Village” (Kampong Ayer) has changed little in character. More than half the people in the capital live in houses built on piles above the water of the river, and it is said that some old women in the kampong have never set foot on land, having spent their whole lives in the river village. Today, however, Kampong Ayer is dominated by the mosque, constructed at the water's edge and opened in 1958. This dignified building, the pride of the present and the fulfilment of the hopes of the past, approached from water on one side and land on the other, seems to stand symbolically where tradition and progress meet. For although the water village changes little, on the landward side Brunei Town grows, encouraged by the easy wealth obtained from oil revenues and by the fervent desire, both patriotic and religious, to outdo its neighbours,
================================================================================