Brunei – back in the dark ages ** updated

Brunei has enacted strict new Islamic laws that make male homosexuality, adultery offences and blasphemy punishable by stoning to death. The new measures cover a range of other crimes including punishment for theft by amputation. Unfortunately for the mediaeval and sour-faced Sultan there is now an enthusiastic campaign led by George Clooney to boycott hotels he owns – the Bel Air and Beverley Hill in LA, the Dorchester in London amongst others.

Though Piers Morgan helpfully suggested instead of avoiding the hotels – ‘flood the Sultan of Bigotry’s hotels with as many gay people as can possibly fit inside them. I urge wealthy gay men and women to buy up every room, book every table for breakfast, lunch and dinner; reserve every reception suite for private parties, work receptions, meetings and charity fundraisers; take every appointment at every spa; fill up the gyms, preferably in bright pink lycra; mill around the pools dressed like Perez Hilton; demand Diana Ross’s ‘I’m Coming Out’ is played on a 24-hour loop in every lobby. Oh, and let’s have at least three gay weddings a day, every day, every month, in every hotel.’

Brunei, officially dubbed Abode of Peace, is a tiny mainly Muslim country with a population just over 400,000 made staggeringly rich by oil. It became fully independent on 1 January 1984. The Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the world’s longest reigning monarchs, since 1967, and one of the world’s wealthiest men, was born 15 July 1946.  He has three wives and 12 children.

He’s a Sun Cancer in a conjunction to emotionally cold Saturn and in an expansive square to Jupiter. His Capricorn/Aquarius Moon is almost certainly opposition Saturn.

A dent in the profits of his hotels wouldn’t affect him but he does look unsettled at the moment and under heavy pressure in 2020/21.

Brunei has an inward-looking 4^th house Mercury Sun in Capricorn; with a high-finance Jupiter Neptune; a ruthless Mars Pluto; and a changeable Moon Uranus in Sagittarius.

There are indications of an over-confident push now as well as a major upheaval; with major setbacks in 2020/2021 which will make the country feel trapped and scared – and that feeling will run on for several years thereafter till the mid 2020s.

Evidently Brunei leaders are fearful that with economic integration in the world, social cohesion will be undermined. Eh, yes! You want to be internationally accepted, then act like civilized human beings. Stoning?? Amputation? I can’t find out when England stopped such punishments but certainly several hundred years ago.

Add on: The son and heir Crown Prince Haji Al-Muhtadee Billah was born 17 February 1974 11.45 am Bandar Seri, Brunei. He has a lucky, successful Sun Jupiter in Aquarius in his 10^th in an Air Grand Trine to Saturn in Gemini and Uranus, formed into a Kite by Saturn opposition North Node and Moon in the 8^th. Air Grand Trines are cerebral but can also be ideologues, uncompromising and dogmatic in support of their beliefs. He has an ultra-determined Mars in Taurus on his Ascendant and conjunct the Fixed star Algol square his MC, Jupiter and Sun – so in many ways even tougher than his father.  He’s looking a touch flustered over the next two years; under immense pressure in 2022 with his Solar Arc Pluto opposition his Mars, but it may evoke a reactionary push from him given that his Jupiter is involved.