An Indo Dutch Nostalgia

Tempo Doeloe
(Nusantara 1910-1915)
R and P unkown, NL ca. 1915 (?)

Colonial footage, composition and titles by Het Nederlands Filmarchief

Tempo doeloe, Dutch, borrowed from Malay or Indonesian tempo dulu (“time of old, olden days”). The period of the Dutch East Indies, the period of Dutch colonisation in Indonesia, in particular as a nostalgic construct in personal, familial or social history; even more specifically, the time between 1870 and the beginning of the First World War around 1914. The term is chiefly used by Indo Dutch people (both Europeans and Eurasians) with a sense of nostalgia in reference to a bygone, semi-mythologised era. It is also used for a period before one’s own life time. It is not well known outside the Indo Dutch demographic. Its use for the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is informed by a certain ‘pioneer’ romanticism, because this was a period of early modernisation before large-scale industrialisation, also a time when Dutch settlement increased but was still too small to form a wholly closed caste isolated from the native population.”
Wictionary

“Nusantara is the Indonesian name of Maritime Southeast Asia (or parts of it). It is an Old Javanese term that literally means ‘outer islands’. In Indonesia, it is generally taken to mean the Indonesian Archipelago. Outside of Indonesia, the term has been adopted to refer the Malay Archipelago. (…) Today in Indonesian, Nusantara is synonymous with the Indonesian archipelago or the national territory of Indonesia. In this sense, the term Nusantara excludes Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, and the Philippines. In 1967, it has transformed into the concept of Wawasan Nusantara or ‘archipelagic outlook’, which regards the archipelagic realm of Indonesia, the islands and seas surrounding them, as a single unity of several aspects, mainly socio-cultural, language, as well as political, economic, security and defensive unity.”
Wikipedia

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