Nostalgia for empire: ‘Tempo doeloe’ in contemporary Dutch literature

Abstract

This article focuses on ‘tempo doeloe’, a mode of nostalgia to the Dutch East Indies (colonial Indonesia) in contemporary Dutch literature. The phrase ‘tempo doeloe’ denotes ‘the good old days’ in Pasar Malay, the colloquial colonial language that was used in the Dutch East Indies. The article examines some of the historically contingent dimensions, mnemonic features and ideological complexities of tempo doeloe. Particular attention is devoted, first, to how tempo doeloe is constitutive of a memorial community of repatriates in the Netherlands, and second, to how notions of authenticity and beauty are critically imbued with this particular type of nostalgia. The aim is to gain a better insight into tempo doeloe as a historically contingent Dutch mode of nostalgia for empire and to review some of the recent theoretical perspectives on possible intersections between memory and the postcolonial.