WORLD NEWS
05.06.14
How the Sultan of Brunei Violated His Sharia Law With Me
As a teenager, I was the
mistress of his brother—who ‘gave’ me as a gift to the sultan. And in just one
night, we committed at least two offenses under his newly implemented penal
code.
On Tuesday, I was greeted by a familiar face when I read
through the morning’s news: the sultan of Brunei. He looks older now than when
I knew him, of course, his face doughier and more careworn.
Jillian boards a plane for Brunei in search of a modern day fairy tale.
Jillian as a dancer in New York City.
Jillian at the harem in Brunei.
When I was still a teenager, I was the mistress of the
sultan’s brother, the prince of Brunei. My usual stance is that they weren’t
bad guys, really. Just human and impossibly rich. I have often wondered what I
would have done in their place, given all the power and money in the world. I’ve
never come up with a satisfactory answer.
Now the sultan is making headlines forimplementing Sharia law in Brunei, including anew penal code that includes stoning to death
for adultery, cutting off limbs for theft, and flogging for violations such as
abortion, alcohol consumption, and homosexuality. There’s also capital
punishment for rape and sodomy.
I am no expert in international human rights. My only
qualification in commenting on this issue is that one drunken evening in the
early ’90s, the sultan and I committed at least two of the aforementioned
offenses as we looked down on the lights of Kuala Lumpur from a penthouse
suite.
Let me back up a bit.(click here to hear Jullian tell the story herself!)
I had barely turned 18 when I found myself at a “casting
call” at the Ritz-Carlton in New York for what I was told would be a position
at a nightclub in Singapore. When I got the job, I learned that the job wasn’t
in Singapore at all. Instead, it was an invitation to be the personal guest of
the notorious playboy Prince Jefri Bolkiah, the youngest brother of the
sultan of Brunei. At the time, the sultan was the wealthiest man in the world.
I was a wild child consumed with wanderlust. I was hardly an innocent, but I
was—when I accepted the invitation—very, very young.
When I arrived in Brunei, I found out that the prince
threw lavish parties every night, in a palace with Picassos in the bathrooms
and carpets woven through with real gold. At these parties there was drinking
(which was not legal in public), dancing, some fairly hilarious karaoke, and,
most important, women—about 30 or 40 beauties from all over the world,
comprising a harem of sorts.
The prince was rakish and clever and yes, even charming
at times. I spent the next year and some change as his girlfriend. For a time,
it was an adventure both glamorous and exciting. It was also lonely and
demoralizing, and full of constant low-grade humiliations, including being
given to the prince’s brother as a gift (see: the Kuala Lumpur hotel suite).
Although I was by no means a prisoner, I wasn’t free to come and go as I
pleased. By the end of my time there, I felt 10 years older and still not wise
enough. It took me a long time to regain my footing, though I did find my way
eventually. My struggles were internal and they were my own. In this context,
they were a privilege.
Stoning is practiced or authorized by law in 15
countries now. It is disproportionally applied as a punishment for women, often
as a penalty for adultery. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International
and Human Rights Watch, consider it cruel and unusual punishment and torture.
According to the international rights organization Women Living Under Muslim
Law, stoning “is one of the most brutal forms of violence perpetrated against
women in order to control and punish their sexuality and basic freedoms.”
And yet it is the privilege of the prince and the sultan
to misbehave. The picaresque escapades and legendary extravagances of the
brothers are indulged with a collective wink. For everyone else residing within
Brunei’s borders, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, freedoms are curtailed, and
those limitations now are potentially enforced by brutal violence.
Cast stones at me if you will for my past improprieties—plenty
have. Of course, those stones will be metaphorical. As the citizen of a free
society, it is my right to transgress, as long as I don’t break any laws or
impinge on the freedom of others. It’s my prerogative to sleep with all the
princes I damn well feel like. I live with my choices.
As the citizens of Brunei face the erosion of their
rights, I imagine the man I once knew, holed up in a posh hotel suite
somewhere, maybe with another American teenager in his lap, making laws that
legislate morality.
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