Decolonial Thought is Geopolitical
A Response to Reactionaries
Context: This is a response Sara and I wrote to someone trying to silence a student who invited everyone in the listserv to show support for Palestine. Our response can also be directed to all those who have consumed decolonial theory for years yet who have remained silent as a genocide campaign against Palestinians unfolds before our eyes.
With all due respect,
First of all, if you don't consider yourself an expert in decolonial thought and praxis, perhaps it would be best not to try to take the initiative as to what is or is not decoloniality or what should or should not be discussed. I don't find it "ironic" that the geopolitical is being discussed. The problem with the consumption of decolonial theory is precisely how its concepts are emptied of their geopolitical content. Decolonial thought is meant to unsettle the geopolitical modern/colonial order rather than solely focusing on texts. This leads to another issue: believing that academicized discussions, analyses, and interpretations of texts are all that matters, when in fact what is of great concern is seriously thinking about the geopolitical context and how decolonial thought can assist (even if modestly) in examining what is unfolding before our eyes.
As for the "both sides" approach, this has already been significantly critiqued. It will suffice to point out the liberal commitments (even a vote is being called) of trying to find this sort of equivalence between a "conflict" that is, in fact, a genocidal campaign against Palestinians. I mean this unequivocally. Trying to question or analyze those who are being bombed and who have lost entire families or who have seen universities blown up to smithereens is not something I am willing to do.
Again, decolonial thought and praxis is not solely a textualist exercise for academics to pursue. It is likely, however, that those "decolonial" scholars who are remaining silent today will then publish articles on this very topic. As I mentioned above, Global North academia does a great job of consuming concepts and theories meant to interrogate geopolitical contexts, but it refuses to read and unsettle the world when the time is needed.
As I have shared on social media for the past three weeks (which has resulted in threats and possible suspension and dismissal at my university): “In the near future, decolonial and postcolonial scholars will publish special issues, articles, and books on racializing and dehumanizing discourse. They will likely focus on the ‘children of light’ conquering the ‘children of darkness,’ as Netanyahu expressed. Or, as I mentioned in another post, “the universities that love to begin their meetings with land acknowledgments are the same universities firing those who are in solidarity with the Palestinians being displaced from their land as we speak. Many academics are also policing students and untenured professors.”
Whether we are being policed at our institutions or whether we are being policed for discussing geopolitical matters via email makes no difference to me. I see the same reaction and reactionaries.
Best,
Jairo
Dear ….,
I am normally a very quiet member and passive in this group, but your email prompts me to speak up. Decoloniality is not just the theoretical task of ‘surfacing the ideological indoctrinations that are hardwired into ourselves, our narratives, and our institutions; and it is about understanding how the colonial matrix of power, the industrial knowledge complex of universities, libraries, museums, the media and governments codify knowledge in such a way to create ideologies that are then perpetuated and enacted’. Aside from also aiming to understand how the world-system and global order ensures the structural and epistemic continuation of coloniality, including the silencing of oppressed ‘othered’ voices who have faced colonial genocide continually (which you seem to miss in your description), it is also a practice and action. It is the practice of countering colonial narratives that paint European colonialism as saviours of the world; it is a practice that makes visible the dispossession, exploitation, and genocides enacted (past and present). It is listening and amplifying the voices of those that have been relinquished to the zones of non-being (Fanon 1967) and demanding a different system, structure and world. It is recognizing and acting towards a world otherwise. As Grosfoguel (2016) states – one of the key markers of those that get to be human and those that don’t (and hence are in the zone of non-being) is the access to (and ability to leverage) human rights. This is what we are seeing in Gaza today, as their human rights are denied through the Israel’s government’s continual siege, resulting in the now over 5000 Palestinians dead (over half of which are children), the sheer state of emergency Gazan hospitals as they run out of fuel and their supplies are low – resulting in threating the lives of hundreds of thousands more (this is according to the Red Cross). The UN states that 1.4 million Gazans are already internally displaced. And this is historical (something key to de/coloniality – seeing the long durée of history). Gazans are already a displaced people, who have faced (and as we see, continue to face) dispossession since 1948. This is so well documents that even the UN’s General Secretary, Antonio Guterres has called this out. He is hardly a contraversial, revolutionary, or decolonial figure. So, Birzeit Universities letter shared on this ‘community of practice’ focused on ‘Decolonial Critique’ is exactly where it should be. It is a call for those of us claiming to work from a decolonial perspective to move beyond just theorizing about how coloniality operates to speaking up on the real, not metaphorical, ways in which coloniality leads to genocide. Decoloniality is political. And more to your point, it is geo-political because it is enacted on ‘othered’ people across the globe (often away from the centre of empire) as they are denied their very rights to exist. And therefore, a group called ‘decolonial critique’ is exactly the place to share a letter urging ‘the international community to immediately intervene to stop this barbaric aggression and to protect Palestinians from the dramatic escalation of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing throughout all of Palestine.’ Now, if you choose to heed that call, that is completely up to you. But I do challenge you on your view that decoloniality is somehow delinked from real, current geo-political struggles of indigenous folks facing a genocide as a part of settler colonialism.
Best,
Sara
Gracias!
Thank you for your clear words.