Don't mock rich people for boycotting Brunei's posh hotels – hitting the country's economy is the only way to strike back

Activists worldwide have spent the past few weeks tirelessly protesting new laws in Brunei, which make sodomy and adultery punishable by death.

Not only have they stormed hotels owned by the sultan and called for wealthy guests to boycott the businesses, they’ve also launched two key petitions – one calling for the law to be revoked, another urging British MPs to strip the country of its Commonwealth membership – and created campaigns to help the communities whose lives are particularly at risk.

Still, it seems people aren’t happy with the current wave of protest.

Twitter users have specifically criticised calls to boycott the ten Dorchester Collection hotels owned by the sultan, writing sarcastic jokes highlighting that it’s an option available only to the mega-rich.

Other commentators have argued that innocent staff members risk being caught in the crossfire and punished if business quietens down. These arguments both hold weight, but they also beg the question: what can we do?

It’s easy to make jokes online, but these tweets rarely progress from critique to constructive criticism. Instead, they insinuate that the efforts being invested into global organisation right now are being wasted.

This is far from the truth. The sultan of Brunei first announced a three-stage plan to implement sharia law back in 2013, and he quickly rolled out the first stage without too much of a delay. But then international pressure began to mount.

NGOs lobbied against the torturous, barbaric laws, and they were quickly followed by activists and celebrities. A deadline to roll out the second and third stages of the law slowly fell further and further behind, and for a while it seemed the legislation would be intercepted for good.

But as the years passed, this anti-Brunei activism slowly began to lose its momentum. Fresher, more newsworthy human rights violations began to take priority, as did the imminent threat of a Trump presidency. It was only when the world turned its back that the sultan delivered on his promise to usher in the draconian laws.

We’ve seen this pattern of media outrage followed swiftly by silence in the past. Reports of LGBT+ people being tortured in Chechnya, which were largely filled with tales of graphic violence recounted by anonymous activists, dominated international headlines in 2017.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov became the subject of international scrutiny, although he clearly didn’t care – he spent the weeks following the revelations describing queer people as "devils" in televised interviews and even insinuating that he would turn a blind eye to honour killings.

Despite these glaring red flags, interest in the allegations soon died down.

Initially, the lack of identified victims made the pursuit of justice seem futile. It wasn’t until months later that Maxim Lapunov came forward to recount his torture, and by this point press interest had waned significantly.

Reports indicate that his trial was stalled and then botched, but they were largely ignored. This lack of interest arguably enabled yet another wave of alleged torture, reported earlier this year. A full investigation still hasn’t been ordered.

If anything, we should see Chechnya as a cautionary tale. We can’t let the legalisation of torture in Brunei fall out of the public eye, especially as the current combination of activism and media scrutiny seems to be actually working.

MPs have called for the country to be punished with harsh sanctions including expulsion from the Commonwealth; elsewhere, companies like TfL and Virgin Australia have pulled tourism advertisements in a bid to stall the country’s economy, and there have even been calls for the sultan to be stripped of his honours.

Individually, these small acts of protest might not be able to achieve much. It’s naive to think that boycotting £5000-per-night hotels can make genuine change, but that’s arguably not what activists are thinking – instead, they likely see it as one part of a much wider strategic puzzle.

This strategic thinking is crucial, especially in a digital age which encourages reactionary, knee-jerk activism.

It’s obvious that there is no easy way to convince one of the world’s most powerful leaders – one who has authoritarian rule over a tiny, oil-rich kingdom – to reconsider the law, but what we shouldn’t be doing is criticising the people who are at least trying.

It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of injustice, but if past progress tells us anything it’s that collective activism still has the potential to make genuine change.