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I just attended a wonderful talk at Wilfrid Laurier University by Oren Lyons, "Faithkeeper" for the Onandaga Nation and UN activist for Indigenous Peoples. His words and presence, as well as those of other beautiful people at the conference, inspired me to formulate some thoughts on decolonialism that had been floating around my mind for a while. Here is this formulation:
Seen from the subaltern side of the modern/colonial divide, modern civilization distinguishes itself as uniquely destructive. Colonized and neo-colonized bodies and epistemologies are being destroyed, languages are disappearing at an alarming rate, nuclear weapons continue to threaten the existence of humankind, the ice is melting (as our speaker kept reminding us)...the list of victims is endless. From below the colonial divide, modern Western-centric civilization appears as the civilization of unsurpassed death and destruction. Delinking involves realizing that this system can't be defeated on its own terms. No amount of violence from below can hope to counter the violence coming from above the colonial divide. Only life, love, and wisdom can defeat death, hatred, and arrogant scientism. We are beyond arguments of moral equivalence. It is a matter of survival. C'est le titre d'une présentation que je donnerai dans le cadre d'un atelier au CEETUM (Centre d’études ethniques des universités montréalaises) à Montréal.
I will be presenting a paper at the graduate symposium of the CEETUM (Centre d’études ethniques des universités montréalaises) in Montreal. Voici les coordonnées : Here is the information for the workshop: Salle 530-1-1 Atelier 12 (1re partie) Islam, islamophobie et migrants musulmans 18 mars, de 9 h à 11 h (partie 2 de 11 h 15 à 13 h) I gave a lecture to an undergraduate class today. It was entitled Islamophobia and the Americas: The Big Picture. The objective was to provide them with a longue durée analysis of how Islamophobia and the European conquest of the Americas are inextricably linked processes constitutive of modernity. I drew extensively on Enrique Dussel, Ramon Grosfoguel, Walter Mignolo and Dustin Craun. I don't think most of these young students had ever been introduced to such a narrative from a modernity/coloniality approach.
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AuthorTransdisciplinary scholar of Islam and Sufism. Archives
March 2023
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