“Having grown up on Sarawak, a Malaysian state on Borneo, I had become increasing…” — Clare Rewcastle Brown

The people I spoke to who were worried they would be killed for talking to me are now all ministers in the government. This is a major, major breakthrough. You have democracy actually working, the return of the rule of law, in an area of the world which was really tipping into the night.

I soon realised the state rulers were being protected by the federal government who relied on these rotten boroughs to deliver their vote.

I grew up as this rather lonely European kid living in the east Malaysian jungle.

As a kid, my first friends were the local children and we used to climb trees and run barefoot, dodging the odd scorpion.