Seeing 1942 Malaya  War in Colour. For decades, we have studied the fall of Malaya and Singapore through a specific lens—a monochrome lens. The grainy black and white photographs that fill our history books, while invaluable as historical records, have created a distance between us and the people who lived through those events. We see them as figures from another time, frozen in shades of grey. But that is not how they saw themselves. And that is not how they saw their world. The Monochrome Curtain There is an psychological phenomenon that occurs when we look at black and white photographs of the past. Our brains unconsciously categorize them as "old," as "historical," as something that happened to people who were fundamentally different from us. The black and white image creates a barrier. It whispers to us:  This was long ago. These people are not like you. But here is the truth that the colour-blind lens has hidden from us: The sun that rose over Singapore on 8...