| The revitalised Brunei Legislative Council is a welcome
development that would launch Brunei Darussalam further into
the galaxy of modern progressive nations. In the context of
the chequered history of this political/administrative
council, it would be interesting to focus on the workings of
its predecessor--the Brunei State Council - at its helm.
The Brunei State Council, known as Majlis Mesyuarat
Negeri in Malay, functioned for little more than half a
century from 1907 until the promulgation of the Brunei
Constitution on 29 September 1959. During this period Brunei
underwent a significant makeover from being a traditional
into a neo-traditional Sultanate.
Started off innocuously as a legislative-cum advisory
body to the British Resident's administration, the State
Council became a training ground nay a 'battle' ground for
Brunei leaders who reinforced the sovereignty of the Sultan
vis-à-vis the colonial intentions of the then British
Protectorate administration. The Bruneian elite in
particular came of age by their participation and debates in
the Council, raising its tempo after 1950 when Al Marhum
Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien, Sa'adul Khairi Waddien
ascended the Brunei throne as its 28th Ruler. It is a
fascinating story indeed eternalised in the State Council
Minutes now preserved in the Brunei National Archives.
Unfortunately the Brunei State Council Minutes are not
accessible readily for public reference. In other countries,
especially in the neighbouring Malaysia, similar Council
Minutes have been culled out, edited and published as early
as the beginning of the last century. For example, the
Minutes of the Malayan Perak State Council of the years
1870-80, the mother of all British sponsored State Councils
in the region, appeared in print in 1907. The publication of
such documents have since then become invaluable source for
historians, politicians, administrators, bureaucrats, and
students and others in unravelling the history of political
and administrative development of the Malay Peninsula.
There is a crying need in Brunei similarly for
publicising the contents of the SC Minutes. So many benefits
would accrue if an authoritative edition becomes available
rather sooner than later.
The Brunei public including the ministers, public
servants, administrators, teachers, and students can and
should be able to refer them to understand better the Brunei
psyche as well as the nuances of finding civilised solutions
to the problems of an evolving nation and its development.
Such Council minutes need not be in the realm of mystique
any more, because there is hardly much sensitive material in
the minutes as the events discussed therein belong to a safe
and a somewhat distant past. Moreover, one would realise by
reading the Minutes how sharp, clever and sophisticated the
Brunei elite were who had positively responded to the
pressures of alien interests in a bid to preserve for
posterity the sound monarchic traditions of Brunei.
The extant Brunei State Council Minutes are available in
manuscript form and in several parts. The first part/volume
is a bound copy containing Minutes of meetings held from
1907 until 1949. The bound volume contains copies of folios
-- some hand-written and mostly type-written pages.
The language of the Minutes is English. During the brief
interlude of the Japanese military occupation (1941-45), the
State Council Minutes were written in Malay in Jawi script,
i.e; Arabo-Persian script modified for Malay language
writing. For the first time Jawi typewriters came into use
during this Japanese phase. The Brunei Archives reference
number to consult the bound Minutes Book is BA/FC/RBM/57.
From 1949 until about 1955 the copies of SC Minutes were
available in microfilm, reference for which is BA/Microfilm
No 5/1979, Accession No 1282. I never sighted the originals
or a hard copy of the Minutes for this period. I did make
only some random notes from the available microfilm while
doing research before 1994 at the Brunei National Archives.
Apparently the microfilm has now been misplaced, probably
when the Archives was shifted from its original premises in
the Museum building in Kota Batu to the current Brunei
Office complex in Jalan Menteri Besar. For the period after
1956 the minutes are available in loose cyclostyled copies,
and the reference is the same as given in the beginning of
this paragraph.
As far as I can ascertain very few scholars of Brunei
have had access to these minutes. Originally these, as might
be expected, were preserved in the British Resident's Office
prior to 1959. I have not located any copies in the British
National Archives known until recently as the Public Records
Office situated in Kew near London in the United Kingdom.
Usually copies of all correspondence generated from the
Resident's Office ended up in the then Colonial Office,
Foreign Office, which were later merged into the
Commonwealth Relations Office in the mid-1960s.
In the 1950s the Minutes were available in the British
Resident's Office in Brunei for those who compiled reports
on Brunei's political and economic issues. One such report
of significance was prepared by Reginald H. Hickling, the
then Assistant Attorney General of Sarawak who was
commissioned by the Governor/High Commissioner Sir Anthony
Abell in 1954 on a fact finding mission to provide an
analysis of Brunei's Constitutional history. His "Memorandum
upon Brunei Constitutional History and Practice" was
submitted to the British Government in 1955 to open the way
for the introduction of the genesis of the current Brunei
Constitution. It was Hickling who first made extensive use
of the Minutes to write up his excellent analysis on Brunei,
an annotated edition of which will be published soon by me
and the Historian Nicholas Tarling under the sponsorship of
UBD.
In the coming weeks this series will delve deeply into
the contents of the SC Minutes to unravel the political
story of Brunei. |
