Buggery in Brunei
When is a dictatorship not a dictatorship? Brunei is an intriguing example of this conundrum. Technically the Sultan, Hassanal Bolkiah, with six hundred years of hereditary privilege behind him cannot be a dictator, but like kings everywhere before him he holds powers all dictators aspire to. Even violent psychopaths like Saddam Hussein or the divinely ordained, like Ayatollah Khomeini had to juggle competing powers to maintain their position but the Sultan has virtually no concrete bounds to his powers and…
