When you Google Brunei, I bet the first image that pops up is of the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien mosque, its light exterior and golden domes floating peacefully atop a calm lake. It’s a striking image, one that symbolizes (oil) prosperity, religious conformity, tradition and modernization.
Just behind the mosque, however, lies the sprawling historic water village of Kampong Ayer. If you’ve visited in recent years, you’ll know what a contrast it makes beside the mosque. Ravaged by frequent fires, disrupted by resettlement programs, and insufficient or misaligned support from state agencies have left the village in a sad state of neglect.
Once in awhile you can see both the SOAS mosque and Kampong Ayer captured in one image. Their juxtaposition presents a generative entry point to thinking about the aesthetics of oil within the context of Brunei.
Muslim Burmat’s Puncak Pertama (1988) opens with the newly-built mosque in all its glory. It’s a resonant representation for a nation on the precipice of independence, a fitting icon for a rags-to-riches story. Yet, just on the periphery, we meet the struggling protagonist who decides to move away from a fast-changing village, its inhabitants, borders, and rhythms disrupted by the newly-constructed mosque.
Burmat’s novel changes the way we view Brunei’s oil narrative. It lingers in the years between the emergence of the oil-and-gas industry and the years when oil revenue was finally felt by all in improved infrastructures and economic development. The period in the middle was marked by uncertainty, disruption, and uneven developments. It’s a story not often told in the history of Brunei. This brings to light once more the critical ways in which oil narratives and aesthetics are formed and reinforced or emerge and repressed.
I have brought up in the last post bits and pieces of the Bruneian petro-aesthetics that emerged during the drone show in the National Day celebrations. The image of the nodding donkey that now figures so prominently in the national consciousness is a result of decades of careful curation and reinforcement of the idea that oil is the backbone of Modern Brunei.
This curation, to me, is particularly apparent in the playground at the Seria Energy Recreational Park. Designed to look like an oil rig, it invites children to visualize and immerse themselves within the material infrastructure of oil extraction. To their grown-ups, it paints them a particular picture of their children’s futures: skilled, knowledgeable and thriving in this industry that has already provided them with so much.
Drawing the public further in the petro-aesthetics and petro-narratives of the park is the fact that it was built as a gift to the local communities – as a space to allow them to do some “gentle walking” in the evening. Additionally, the park is solar-powered, thus associating it (and, more importantly, its benefactors) with the green energy transition. Needless to say, the park signifies the manufactured entanglement of oil, health and sustainability within the national imaginary.
Contrast this again with the images of Kampong Ayer – the supposed “historical and cultural heritage” of Brunei. Although we wouldn’t automatically connect Kampong Ayer to Brunei’s oil history, it would be pertinent to remember that a large part of the reason for migration away from the river to land is because of the booming oil economy in the 1960s, not to mention the earlier colonial inland migration policy implemented by the British in the 1800s to encourage modernization and economic growth.
If the grand spectacle of oil in Brunei can be seen in the gleaming gold of the mosques’ domes, then perhaps the gross can be witnessed in the decay of the once vibrant water village. These less-than-favorable aesthetics should also be kept in mind if we are to talk about oil in the national imaginary.
The stories of oil that we tell ourselves and others matter. The images of oil that we curate, whether purposefully or otherwise, also matter – especially in this age of social media. Just the other day I came across a social media post displaying a bird’s-eye view of an offshore oil rig bathed in the warm light of sunset. The accompanying caption relayed how this image inspired a feeling of pride in the photographer of the work that they do in the oil industry.
While oil has certainly allowed massive and previously-unthinkable achievements to occur in a relatively short space of time, it goes without saying that they’ve come at a high price. And feelings of pride tend to obscure such realities, making the work of addressing climate change that much harder.
Working towards decarbonization, what new stories and images must come forth to imagine a post-oil world?
Petro-Ambiguity: Environment, Energy, Culture 
Leave a comment