A confidence that was well rewarded

PETALING JAYA: Clare Rewcastle Brown is quick to laugh off the idea that she helped shape an election from a laptop in her living room.

“It was more often from my kitchen actually! It’s amazing the reach that technology has given journalists,” she said.

Asked about financial backing for her work, she replied: “I wasn’t personally being bankrolled but the project was.

“When I started up with this, I was quite closely linked to some of the rainforest campaigns and indigenous rights campaigns in Sarawak and I was only focusing on the state in those first early years.

“And I got some support to set up my website – I mean, hundreds of pounds, that’s all – and then a backer came forward to support the radio station (Radio Free Sarawak).

“I worked on that voluntarily, but it was expensive, the radio station, we were having to pay broadcast fees and of course local staff eventually. So that was quite a heavy project.”

Rewcastle Brown said the radio station had to be closed after the Sarawak state election in 2016, as the backers were not going to continue.

She was thankful for the “wonderful support” of donors to the website, saying they had been absolutely crucial in keeping it going.

“I was never going to quit until we’d at least had this election I think,” she said.

“I had a great deal of confidence actually that things could change.

“And I used to meet a lot of Malaysians who would come over to London. I’d link up with them, and often they would be passionate for reform, but I never met a Malaysian who thought it would actually happen.

“You just have to have confidence after so many disappointments that Malaysia will go forward.

“And thank goodness, that confidence I had turned out to be correct.”