The viewpoint that won’t go away: why nostalgia for Empire persists | Farish Ahmad-Noor | TEDxNTU

Our colonial past has had a big impact on who we are as a people today and how we relate to that history. Even today, Southeast Asian countries continue to be exoticized in the minds of many, with some citizens of these countries romanticizing their colonial history. As a historian, one can trace these ideas to their points of origin, but cannot answer why biased viewpoints continue to persist about colonial history. Farish A. Noor is a political scientist and historian of Southeast Asia, whose focus has been on the impact of colonialism in Asia in particular. He has written extensively about the power of ideas and how colonization was never simply a case of violent conquest but also subtle transformation and coercion. His latest book is entitled ‘Data-collecting in 19th Century Colonial Southeast Asia: Framing the Other’ (Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, forthcoming). He believes that we can never truly escape history, but need not be victims of it either. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx