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I promise you that I will not sing.
I will spare you that, at least.

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But I am a historian

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with a background in philosophy,

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and my main area of research is basically
the history of Southeast Asia,

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with a focus on 19th century
colonial Southeast Asia,

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and over the last few years,

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what I've been doing is really
tracing the history of certain ideas

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that shape our viewpoint,

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the way we in Asia, in Southeast Asia,

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look at ourselves
and understand ourselves.

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Now, there's one thing
that I cannot explain as a historian,

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and this has been puzzling me
for a long time,

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and this is how, and why,

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certain ideas,

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certain viewpoints

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do not seem to ever go away.

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And I don't know why.

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And in particular,

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I'm interested to understand why
some people, not all by all means,

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but some people

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in postcolonial Asia

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still hold on to a somewhat
romanticized view of the colonial past,

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see it through kind of rose-tinted lenses

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as perhaps a time that was
benevolent or nice pleasant.

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even though historians know
the realities of the violence

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and the oppression and the dark side

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of that entire colonial experience.

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So let's imagine that I build
a time machine for myself.

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I build a time machine.

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I send myself back to the 1860s,

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a hundred years before I was born.

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Oh dear, I've just dated myself.

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OK, I go back a hundred years
before I was born.

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Now, if I were to find myself
in the context of colonial Southeast Asia

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in the 19th century,

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I would not be a professor.

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Historians know this.

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And yet, despite that,

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there's still some quarters that somehow
want to hold on to this idea

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that that past was not as murky,

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that there was a romanticized side to it.

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Now, here is where I as a historian,

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I encounter the limits of history.

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Because, I can trace ideas.

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I can find out the origins
of certain cliches, certain stereotypes.

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I can tell you who came up with it,
where and when and in which book,

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but there's one thing I cannot do.

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I cannot get into the internal
subjective mental universe of someone

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and change their mind.

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And I think this is where, and why,

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over the last few years,
I'm increasingly drawn

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to things like psychology
and cognitive behavioral therapy,

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because in these fields,
scholars look at the persistence of ideas.

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Why do some people
have certain prejudices?

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Why are there certain biases and phobias?

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We live, unfortunately, sadly, in a world
where still misogyny persists,

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racism persists, all kinds of phobias.

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Islamophobia, for instance, is now a term.

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And why do these ideas persist?

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Many scholars agree that it's partly
because, when looking at the world,

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we fall back, we fall back, we fall back

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on a finite pool,

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a small pool of basic ideas
that don't get challenged.

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Look at how we, particularly us
in Southeast Asia,

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represent ourselves to ourselves
and to the world.

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Look at how often,

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when we talk about ourselves,
my viewpoint, my identity, our identity,

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invariably we fall back, we fall back,
we fall back, we fall back

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on the same set of ideas,

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all of which have histories of their own.

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Very simple example:

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we live in Southeast Asia,

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which is very popular with tourists
from all over the world.

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And I don't think that's
a bad thing, by the way.

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I think it's good

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that tourists come to Southeast Asia

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because it's part and parcel
of broadening your worldview

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and meeting cultures, etc. etc.

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But look at how we represent ourselves

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through the tourist campaigns,
the tourist ads that we produce.

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There will be the obligatory coconut tree,
banana tree, orangutan.

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And the orangutan doesn't even get paid.

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(Laughter)

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Look at how we represent ourselves.
Look at how we represent nature.

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Look at how we represent the countryside.

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Look at how we represent
agricultural life.

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Watch our sitcoms.

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Watch our dramas. Watch our movies.

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It's very common,

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particularly in Southeast Asia,

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when you watch these sitcoms,

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if there's someone from the countryside,

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they are invariably, they are ugly,

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they are funny, they are silly,

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they are without knowledge.

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It's as if the countryside

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has nothing to offer.

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Our view of nature,

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despite all our talk,

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despite all our talk about
Asian philosophy, Asian values,

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despite all our talk about how we have
an organic relationship to nature,

102
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how do we actually treat nature
in Southeast Asia today?

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We regard nature as something
to be defeated and exploited.

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And that's the reality.

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So the way in which we live
in our part of the world,

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postcolonial Southeast Asia,
in so many ways, for me

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bears residual traces to ideas,
tropes, cliches, stereotypes

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that have a history,

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This idea of the countryside
as a place to be exploited,

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the idea of countryfolk
as being without knowledge,

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these are ideas that historians like me

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can go back, we can trace
how these stereotypes emerged,

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and they emerged at a time

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when Southeast Asia

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was being governed according to
the logic of colonial capitalism.

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And in so many ways,

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we've taken these ideas with us.

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They're part of us now,

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but we are not critical

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in interrogating ourselves
and asking ourselves,

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how did I have this view of the world?

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How did I come to have
this view of nature?

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How did I come to have
this view of the countryside?

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How do I have this idea of Asia as exotic?

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And we Southeast Asians in particular

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love to self-exoticize ourselves.

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We've turned Southeast Asian identity
into a kind of cosplay

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where you can literally
go to the supermarket, go to the mall

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and buy your do-it-yourself
exotic Southeast Asian costume kit.

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And we parade this identity,

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not asking ourselves how and when

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did this particular image
of ourselves emerge?

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They all have a history too.

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And that's why, increasingly,

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as a historian, I find that
as I encounter the limits of history

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I see that I can't work alone anymore.

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I can't work alone anymore,

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because there's absolutely no point

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in me doing my archival work,

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there's no point in me seeking
the roots of these ideas,

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tracing the genesis of ideas

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and then putting it in some journal

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to be read by maybe
three other historians.

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There's absolutely no point.

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The reason why I think this is important

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is because our region, Southeast Asia,

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will, I believe, in the years to come,

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go through enormous changes,
unprecedented changes in our history,

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partly because of globalization,

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world politics, geopolitical
contestations,

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the impact of technology,

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the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

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Our world as we know it
is going to change.

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But for us to adapt to this change,

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for us to be ready for that change,

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we need to think out of the box,

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and we can't fall back,
we can't fall back, we can't fall back

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on the same set of cliched,
tired, staid old stereotypes.

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We need to think out,

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and that's why historians,
we can't work alone now.

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I, I need to engage with people
in psychology, people in behavior therapy.

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I need to engage with sociologists,
anthropologists, political economists.

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I need above all to engage
with people in the arts

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and the media,

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because it's there in that forum,

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outside the confines of the university,

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that these debates really
need to take place.

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And they need to take place now,

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because we need to understand

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that the way things are today

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are not determined by some fixed,

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iron historical railway track,

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but rather there are many other histories,

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many other ideas that were forgotten,
marginalized, erased along the line.

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Historians like me, our job
is to uncover all this, discover all this,

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but indeed to engage this
we need to engage with society as a whole.

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So to go back to that time machine
example I gave earlier.

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Let's say this is a 19th century
colonial subject then,

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and persons wondering,

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will empire ever come to an end?

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Will there be an end to all this?

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Will we one day be free?

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So a person invents a time machine,

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goes into the future,

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and arrives here in postcolonial
Southeast Asia today.

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Our person looks around,

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and the person will say,

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yes indeed, the imperial flags are gone,

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the imperial gunboats are gone,
the colonial armies are gone.

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There are new flags, new nation-states.

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There is independence after all.

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But has there been?

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The person then watches the tourist ads

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and sees again the banana tree,
the coconut tree, and the orangutan.

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The person watches on TV

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and watches how images
of an exotic Southeast Asia

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are being reproduced again and again
by Southeast Asians.

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And the person might then
come to the conclusion

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that, well, notwithstanding

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the fact that

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colonialism is over,

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we are still in so, so many ways

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living in the long shadow
of the 19th century,

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and this, I think, has become
my personal mission,

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the reason why I think
history is so important

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and the reason why I think
it's so important for history

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to go beyond history,

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because need to reignite this debate
about who and what they are,

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all of us.

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We talk about, no, I have my viewpoint,
you have your viewpoint.

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Well, that's partly true.

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Our viewpoints are never
entirely our own individually.

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We are all social beings.
We are historical beings.

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You, me, all of us,

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we carry history in us.

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It's in the language we use.
It's in the fiction we write.

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It's in the movies we choose to watch.

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It's in the images that we conjure
when we think of who and what we are.

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We are historical beings.

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We carry history with us,

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and history carries us alone.

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But while we are determined by history,

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it is my personal belief

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that we need not be trapped by history

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and we need not be the victims of history.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)