George Clooney is right about Brunei's barbaric anti-LGBT law | By Rafia Zakaria for CNNOpinion
Rafia Zakaria is the author of"The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan" and"Veil" . She is a columnist for Dawn newspaper in Pakistan and The Baffler. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.
"It is because of our need that Allah the Almighty, in all his generosity, has created laws for us, so that we can utilise them to obtain justice," declared Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah in October 2013, when he first announced a three-part plan for the implementation of Sharia law in his tiny, wealthy and once oil-rich Kingdom of Brunei.
Rafia ZakariaIn 2013 and again now, this move has immersed the country's small LGBTQ community in dread and ignited outrage in the West. Actor George Clooney, long a critic of the laws as human rights violations, argued for a complete boycott of the Dorchester Hotels, a luxury chain owned by the Sultan of Brunei.
Clooney calls for hotel boycott over Brunei LGBTQ law 02:34The heinousness of these laws is a given, but the Sultan's hard line stems perhaps not from ideology as much as from desperation over his Kingdom's position in the world. The real problems facing Brunei are economic. According to an analysis of 2015 data from the International Monetary Fund, oil production has fallen 40% since 2006 and the Sultan is aware of the possibility that reserves could run out by 2025.
George Clooney and UN protest Brunei's anti-gay law 02:56The content of Ramadan's call is particularly pertinent in the case of Brunei and it points to the additional tactics that must be utilized to campaign against this law. The Sultan is betting that the implementation of Sharia, particularly in this draconian form, will rouse popular sentiment in a majority-Muslim country.
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