0:00:00.835,0:00:04.765
I promise you that I will not sing.[br]I will spare you that, at least.

0:00:04.789,0:00:07.769
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[br]the history of Southeast Asia,

0:00:16.892,0:00:21.054
with a focus on 19th-century[br]colonial Southeast Asia.

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And over the last few years,

0:00:22.440,0:00:29.406
what I've been doing is really[br]tracing the history of certain ideas

0:00:29.430,0:00:31.504
that shape our viewpoint,

0:00:31.528,0:00:33.839
the way we in Asia, in Southeast Asia,

0:00:33.863,0:00:36.787
look at ourselves[br]and understand ourselves.

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Now, there's one thing[br]that I cannot explain

0:00:42.915,0:00:44.071
as a historian,

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and this has been puzzling me[br]for a long time,

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and this is how and why[br]certain ideas, certain viewpoints

0:00:54.711,0:00:57.999
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[br]some people -- not all, by all means --

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but some people[br]in postcolonial Asia

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

0:01:20.488,0:01:23.144
see it through kind of rose-tinted lenses

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as perhaps a time that was[br]benevolent or nice or pleasant,

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even though historians know[br]the realities of the violence

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and the oppression

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and the darker side[br]of that entire colonial experience.

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

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(Makes beeping noises)

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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.

0:01:51.000,0:01:52.824
Oh dear, I've just dated myself.

0:01:52.848,0:01:56.212
OK, I go back a hundred years[br]before I was born.

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

0:02:00.589,0:02:02.054
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,

0:02:11.253,0:02:15.135
there's still some quarters that somehow[br]want to hold on to this idea

0:02:15.159,0:02:18.481
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,

0:02:23.958,0:02:26.604
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[br]of certain clichés, certain stereotypes.

0:02:34.317,0:02:38.161
I can tell you who came up with it,[br]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[br]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,[br]over the last few years,

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I'm increasingly drawn[br]to things like psychology

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and cognitive behavioral therapy;

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

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Why do some people[br]have certain prejudices?

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Why are there certain biases,[br]certain phobias?

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

0:03:15.290,0:03:17.704
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[br]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[br]that don't get challenged.

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Look at how we, particularly us[br]in Southeast Asia,

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represent ourselves to ourselves[br]and to the world.

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Look at how often,

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when we talk about ourselves,[br]my viewpoint, my identity, our identity,

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invariably, we fall back, we fall back,[br]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:

0:04:02.530,0:04:04.015
we live in Southeast Asia,

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

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

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I think it's good[br]that tourists come to Southeast Asia

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because it's part and parcel[br]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,[br]the tourist ads that we produce.

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There will be the obligatory coconut tree,[br]banana tree, orangutan.

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(Laughter)

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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.[br]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[br]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,[br]particularly in Southeast Asia,

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when you watch these sitcoms,

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if there's someone from the countryside,[br]invariably, they're ugly,

0:05:01.836,0:05:03.848
they're funny, they're silly,

0:05:03.872,0:05:05.415
they're without knowledge.

0:05:06.310,0:05:10.486
It's as if the countryside[br]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[br]Asian philosophy, Asian values,

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

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how do we actually treat nature[br]in Southeast Asia today?

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We regard nature as something[br]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[br]in our part of the world,

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postcolonial Southeast Asia,

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in so many ways, for me,

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bears residual traces to ideas, tropes,

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clichés, stereotypes

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that have a history.

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

0:05:58.624,0:06:02.615
the idea of countryfolk[br]as being without knowledge --

0:06:02.639,0:06:05.121
these are ideas that historians[br]like me can go back,

0:06:05.145,0:06:08.423
we can trace how[br]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[br]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[br]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[br]this view of nature?

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How did I come to have[br]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[br]into a kind of cosplay

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where you can literally[br]go to the supermarket, go to the mall

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

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And we parade this identity,

0:07:04.502,0:07:07.477
not asking ourselves how and when

0:07:07.501,0:07:10.480
did this particular image[br]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[br]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,

0:07:26.401,0:07:31.168
because there's absolutely no point[br]in me doing my archival work,

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there's no point in me seeking[br]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[br]three other historians.

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There's absolutely no point.

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The reason why I think this is important[br]is because our region, Southeast Asia,

0:07:48.399,0:07:51.899
will, I believe, in the years to come,

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go through enormous changes,[br]unprecedented changes in our history,

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partly because of globalization,

0:07:57.959,0:08:01.524
world politics,[br]geopolitical contestations,

0:08:01.548,0:08:02.996
the impact of technology,

0:08:03.020,0:08:04.806
the Fourth Industrial Revolution ...

0:08:04.830,0:08:08.200
Our world as we know it[br]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,[br]we can't fall back, we can't fall back

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on the same set of clichéd,[br]tired, staid old stereotypes.

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We need to think out,

0:08:27.831,0:08:30.605
and that's why historians,[br]we can't work alone now.

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I, I need to engage[br]with people in psychology,

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people in behavioral therapy.

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I need to engage with sociologists,[br]anthropologists, political economists.

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I need above all to engage[br]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,

0:08:52.474,0:08:55.903
that these debates[br]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[br]that the way things are today

0:09:05.805,0:09:09.334
are not determined by some fixed,

0:09:10.293,0:09:12.401
iron historical railway track,

0:09:12.425,0:09:14.832
but rather there are many other histories,

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

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

0:09:23.618,0:09:28.497
but we need to engage this,[br]we need to engage with society as a whole.

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

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Let's say this is a 19th-century[br]colonial subject then,

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and a person's wondering,

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"Will empire ever come to an end?

0:09:41.786,0:09:43.398
Will there be an end to all this?

0:09:43.422,0:09:45.165
Will we one day be free?"

0:09:45.864,0:09:47.884
So the person invents a time machine,

0:09:47.908,0:09:49.356
(Makes beeping noises)

0:09:50.106,0:09:51.276
goes into the future

0:09:51.300,0:09:55.760
and arrives here in postcolonial[br]Southeast Asia today.

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And the person looks around,

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and the person will see,

0:10:01.119,0:10:02.318
yes, indeed,

0:10:03.762,0:10:05.671
the imperial flags are gone,

0:10:06.956,0:10:10.000
the imperial gunboats are gone,[br]the colonial armies are gone.

0:10:10.024,0:10:12.580
There are new flags, new nation-states.

0:10:12.604,0:10:14.582
There is independence after all.

0:10:15.285,0:10:16.703
But has there been?

0:10:17.215,0:10:21.848
The person then watches the tourist ads

0:10:22.840,0:10:26.648
and sees again the banana tree,[br]the coconut tree and the orangutan.

0:10:27.469,0:10:29.175
The person watches on TV

0:10:30.722,0:10:34.538
and watches how images[br]of an exotic Southeast Asia

0:10:34.562,0:10:38.234
are being reproduced again and again[br]by Southeast Asians.

0:10:38.258,0:10:41.649
And the person might then[br]come to the conclusion that, well,

0:10:41.673,0:10:45.279
notwithstanding the fact that

0:10:47.001,0:10:48.488
colonialism is over,

0:10:49.440,0:10:53.476
we are still in so, so many ways

0:10:54.462,0:10:57.568
living in the long shadow[br]of the 19th century.

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And this, I think, has become[br]my personal mission.

0:11:04.460,0:11:07.122
The reason why I think[br]history is so important

0:11:07.146,0:11:09.874
and the reason why I think[br]it's so important for history

0:11:09.898,0:11:11.696
to go beyond history,

0:11:11.720,0:11:17.378
because need to reignite this debate[br]about who and what we are,

0:11:17.402,0:11:18.609
all of us.

0:11:18.633,0:11:21.991
We talk about, "No, I have my viewpoint,[br]you have your viewpoint."

0:11:22.015,0:11:23.304
Well, that's partly true.

0:11:23.328,0:11:27.224
Our viewpoints are never[br]entirely our own individually.

0:11:27.248,0:11:29.633
We're all social beings.[br]We're historical beings.

0:11:29.657,0:11:30.828
You, me, all of us,

0:11:30.852,0:11:32.768
we carry history in us.

0:11:32.792,0:11:35.542
It's in the language we use.[br]It's in the fiction we write.

0:11:35.566,0:11:37.437
It's in the movies we choose to watch.

0:11:37.461,0:11:40.902
It's in the images that we conjure[br]when we think of who and what we are.

0:11:40.926,0:11:42.262
We are historical beings.

0:11:42.866,0:11:44.990
We carry history with us,

0:11:45.014,0:11:47.312
and history carries us along.

0:11:47.884,0:11:50.788
But while we are determined by history,

0:11:50.812,0:11:53.296
it is my personal belief

0:11:53.320,0:11:56.548
that we need not be trapped by history,

0:11:56.572,0:11:59.760
and we need not be the victims of history.

0:12:00.744,0:12:01.904
Thank you.

0:12:01.928,0:12:04.052
(Applause)