Why is colonialism (still) romanticized?

Colonialism remains as an inescapable blight on the present, lingering in the toxic, internalized mythologies and stereotypes that outlive the regimes that created them, says historian Farish Ahmad-Noor. Examining why these prejudices and narratives persist (and sometimes thrive), he suggests a multidisciplinary approach to reject cultural obsessions with romanticized history and prevent this malignant nostalgia from perpetuating past oppressions.

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

But I am a historian

with a background in philosophy,

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

with a focus on 19th-century
colonial Southeast Asia.

And over the last few years,

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

that shape our viewpoint,

the way we in Asia, in Southeast Asia,

look at ourselves
and understand ourselves.

Now, there's one thing
that I cannot explain

as a historian,

and this has been puzzling me
for a long time,

and this is how and why
certain ideas, certain viewpoints

do not seem to ever go away.

And I don't know why.

And in particular,

I'm interested to understand why
some people -- not all, by no means --

but some people
in postcolonial Asia

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

see it through kind of rose-tinted lenses

as perhaps a time that was
benevolent or nice or pleasant,

even though historians know
the realities of the violence

and the oppression

and the darker side
of that entire colonial experience.

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

(Makes beeping noises)

I build a time machine,

I send myself back to the 1860s,

a hundred years before I was born.

Oh dear, I've just dated myself.

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

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

in the 19th century,

I would not be a professor.

Historians know this.

And yet, despite that,

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

that that past was not as murky,

that there was a romanticized side to it.

Now, here is where I, as a historian,

I encounter the limits of history,

because I can trace ideas.

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

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

But there's one thing I cannot do:

I cannot get into the internal,
subjective mental universe of someone

and change their mind.

And I think this is where and why,
over the last few years,

I'm increasingly drawn
to things like psychology

and cognitive behavioral therapy;

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

Why do some people
have certain prejudices?

Why are there certain biases,
certain phobias?

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

racism persists, all kinds of phobias.

Islamophobia, for instance, is now a term.

And why do these ideas persist?

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

we fall back, we fall back, we fall back

on a finite pool,

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

Look at how we, particularly us
in Southeast Asia,

represent ourselves to ourselves
and to the world.

Look at how often,

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

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

on the same set of ideas,

all of which have histories of their own.

Very simple example:

we live in Southeast Asia,

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

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

I think it's good
that tourists come to Southeast Asia,

because it's part and parcel
of broadening your worldview

and meeting cultures, etc, etc.

But look at how we represent ourselves

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

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

(Laughter)

And the orangutan doesn't even get paid.

(Laughter)

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

Look at how we represent the countryside.

Look at how we represent
agricultural life.

Watch our sitcoms.

Watch our dramas. Watch our movies.

It's very common,
particularly in Southeast Asia,

when you watch these sitcoms,

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

they're funny, they're silly,

they're without knowledge.

It's as if the countryside
has nothing to offer.

Our view of nature,

despite all our talk,

despite all our talk about
Asian philosophy, Asian values,

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

how do we actually treat nature
in Southeast Asia today?

We regard nature as something
to be defeated and exploited.

And that's the reality.

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

postcolonial Southeast Asia,

in so many ways, for me,

bears residual traces to ideas, tropes,

clichés, stereotypes

that have a history.

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

the idea of countryfolk
as being without knowledge --

these are ideas that historians
like me can go back,

we can trace how
these stereotypes emerged.

And they emerged at a time

when Southeast Asia

was being governed according to
the logic of colonial capitalism.

And in so many ways,

we've taken these ideas with us.

They're part of us now.

But we are not critical

in interrogating ourselves
and asking ourselves,

how did I have this view of the world?

How did I come to have
this view of nature?

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

How do I have this idea of Asia as exotic?

And we, Southeast Asians in particular,

love to self-exoticize ourselves.

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

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

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

And we parade this identity,

not asking ourselves how and when

did this particular image
of ourselves emerge.

They all have a history, too.

And that's why, increasingly,

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

I see that I can't work alone anymore.

I can't work alone anymore,

because there's absolutely no point
in me doing my archival work,

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

tracing the genesis of ideas

and then putting it in some journal

to be read by maybe
three other historians.

There's absolutely no point.

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

will, I believe, in the years to come,

go through enormous changes,
unprecedented changes in our history,

partly because of globalization,

world politics,
geopolitical contestations,

the impact of technology,

the Fourth Industrial Revolution ...

Our world as we know it
is going to change.

But for us to adapt to this change,

for us to be ready for that change,

we need to think out of the box,

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

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

We need to think out,

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

I, I need to engage
with people in psychology,

people in behavioral therapy.

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

I need above all to engage
with people in the arts

and the media,

because it's there, in that forum,

outside the confines of the university,

that these debates
really need to take place.

And they need to take place now,

because we need to understand
that the way things are today

are not determined by some fixed,

iron historical railway track,

but rather there are many other histories,

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

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

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

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

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

and a person's wondering,

"Will empire ever come to an end?

Will there be an end to all this?

Will we one day be free?"

So the person invents a time machine --

(Makes beeping noises)

goes into the future

and arrives here in postcolonial
Southeast Asia today.

And the person looks around,

and the person will see,

well yes, indeed,

the imperial flags are gone,

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

There are new flags, new nation-states.

There is independence after all.

But has there been?

The person then watches the tourist ads

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

The person watches on TV

and watches how images
of an exotic Southeast Asia

are being reproduced again and again
by Southeast Asians.

And the person might then
come to the conclusion that, well,

notwithstanding the fact that

colonialism is over,

we are still in so, so many ways

living in the long shadow
of the 19th century.

And this, I think, has become
my personal mission.

The reason why I think
history is so important

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

to go beyond history,

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

all of us.

We talk about, "No, I have my viewpoint,
you have your viewpoint."

Well, that's partly true.

Our viewpoints are never
entirely our own individually.

We're all social beings.
We're historical beings.

You, me, all of us,

we carry history in us.

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

It's in the movies we choose to watch.

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

We are historical beings.

We carry history with us,

and history carries us along.

But while we are determined by history,

it is my personal belief

that we need not be trapped by history,

and we need not be the victims of history.

Thank you.

(Applause)