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Article: Brunei.(Country Profile)(Country overview)
- Article from:
- New Internationalist
- Article date:
- March 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 New Internationalist Magazine. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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There Is a little hole on the wall of every office, restaurant, reception area, hotel lobby, shop--even in the humblest of the living rooms--which serves as a formidable metaphor for the vicissitudes of power, prestige and privilege in Brunei. The hole used to hold an arabesque picture of Hajjah Mariam. A steward on the Sultan's personal aircraft, Hajjah Mariam had the world at her feet when Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah made her his second queen. As per Brunei's unwritten law and tradition, her officially sanctioned photograph graced every public and private enclosure, along with those of the Sultan and his first wife. But then suddenly she fell from favour ...
The ...