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Off the northwest coast of Malaysia, on the island of Penang, in the town of Georgetown, lies a small Christian cemetery. Behind the low stone wall on Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah are several hundred graves - just a few blocks from where I sit now.

The first burial was in 1789. The cemetery was consecrated in 1818.

I walked through the grounds, quietly amazed. There's a misconception that the high mark of European imperial 'adventurism' was a time of luxury and privilege for the colonizing states. Well, in that cemetery of a hundred or so inscriptions I read on grave stones, the vast majority - about 85% - died in their 20's, 30's, or early 40's. There were a few exceptions, those who made it into their mid-50's. Just imagine. Dying in what we consider early middle age was then the norm.

The longest-lived occupant was a Captain John Cross, of the illustrious Bengal Artillery, who died in 1849 at the age of 83.

I imagine good Captain Cross making his way through the tropical terrain of the Malay peninsula, carrying a letter of passage, with words to this effect ...

"In the name of Her Britannic Majesty, Ruler of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith - to the representatives of all foreign governments or to whosoever it may concern.

"We do, by this document and on behalf of its bearer, request and require that our beloved Captain John Cross, of Her Majesty's Bengal Artillery, be allowed to pass freely without let or hindrance and that he be afforded that assistance of which he may stand in need."

We so glibly dismiss all of this now, don't we? We so easily choose to forget the cultural law-making machinery Britain brought to its former colonies and protectorates. This was a machinery that made possible the ongoing, timely creation of laws (in a democratic legislature), their rational application (in courts observing objective rules of evidence and process), and implemented by a police force, impartially and consistently. This didn't just happen. Creating a society of laws is the most difficult, and rare, of human achievements. It still, even today, remains the exception rather than the rule. Yes, it didn't just happen. It was the result of the dedication of such individuals as today lie in that Christian cemetery here in Georgetown.

We would do well to remember this as the sentinels of a harsh totalitarian creed seek to lead emerging economies into a new Dark Ages.

Learn more about this author, Stephen Carter.
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