I present to you another segment of EL DESPERADO STUDYING WITH EZHEN!

Today we'll be covering Sejarah Form 5 Chapter 1 - one of my most hated chapters in the History textbook. There is just too many facts.

We'll start with the first subtopic, which introduces the Western Imperialists. Imperialism, in a nutshell is an unequal human and territorial relationship. In our syllabus, we'll be covering the imperialists of South-east Asia, i.e. Portugal, Spain, Britain, France and USA.
In 1511, Portugal took over Melaka which made the Portuguese the "pilot" power of colonialism.
Apparently, this sparked an intense competition among the imperialists which resulted in the direct expansion of political power over South-east Asia (henceforth known as SEA)
By 1914, the entire SEA was taken over by these imperialist (except for Thailand, which I believe we will cover later on.)

On to the next subtopic, which I will be very brief on.
Basically, what attracted these imperialists in the first place was that SEA was so rich with raw material, something the European countries obviously lacked as the Industrial Revolution was getting so on fire, they had to find more resources to keep up with the demand. They reaaaally needed rubber and tin, and SEA is just so conveniently  abundant with these resources.

Another factor is the ease of transportation.
With the steamships that the European countries had, it wasn't exactly hard for them to come over here in SEA and exploit us of our resources.
There is also the fact that the Terusan Suez cut down the time for them to get here.

There is also these stupid slogans and mottos they live by.
Like the British and Americans for example had the whole "Beban Orang Putih" in them that made them think that they're more civilised and advanced than us mere country-folk. They felt that it was their responsibility to lead us to our overall well-being as Eastern countries.
The French had the slogan "Tugas Menyebar Tamadun". Their reason was that Christian missionaries were responsible to spread Christianity for the Colony Residents.



Now for the not-so-fun part. The part full of DETAILS, DETAILS AND MORE DETAILS.

Now before the Western Imperialists came and meddled, SEA countries were monarchical countries. FACT.

General characteristics of Western Bureaucracy in SEA:

• the establishment of a central government (kerajaan pusat) which was the result of combining all the colony territories. 
• Election of a Gabenor Jeneral as the chief administrator of these territories
• The administration was carried out via bureaus. A bureau is like an office or department.
• The introduction of Western Law