While many have celebrated Black Panther, some have also criticized it – such as contemporary philosopher Christopher Lebron, who argues that Black Panther 's plot is centrally driven by anti‐Black stereotypes about Black Americans, and particularly about Black American men. Anti‐colonial theory emerges in situations of colonial domination. But there are different kinds of colonialism, and there are different manifestations of anti‐colonial resistance. The image of colonialism that Black Panther most directly invokes – stopping short, (...) however, of openly recognizing it – is really just one species of colonizatism. As previously noted, Black Panther rarely invokes the concepts of slavery and colonialism. In Black Panther, Killmonger is the very site at which the terror of colonial history is sutured – the anti‐heroic figure who must be depicted as a genocidal and misogynistic monster in order to dissipate the shame and the guilt he would otherwise elicit. (shrink)

Whether Kant’s late legal theory and his theory of race are contradictory in their account of colonialism has been a much-debated question that is also of highest importance for the evaluation of the Enlightenment’s contribution to Europe’s colonial expansion and the dispossession and enslavement of native and black peoples. This article discusses the problem by introducing the discourse on barbarism. This neglected discourse is the original and traditional European colonial vocabulary and served the justification of colonialism from ancient (...) Greece throughout the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. Kant’s explicit rejection of this discourse and its prejudices reveals his early critical stance toward colonial judgements of native peoples even before he developed his legal theory. This development of his critical position can be traced in his writings on race: although he makes racist statements in these texts, his theory of race is not meant to ground moral judgements on ‘races’ or a racial hierarchy but to defend the unity of mankind under the given empirical reality of colonial hierarchies. (shrink)

This chapter explores the anti-colonial narrative potential of certain works of cinema taking Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Caché as a case in point. To do so, this chapter first and mainly draws upon the theoretical and normative lens put forward by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak on the representation of the colonized other and her resulting political and intellectual call for self-reflection on one's privileged Western intellectual positioning. This lens has many normative implications for the ways in which the (...) colonized subject and colonial history are discussed and represented. The partial lack of representation of the colonized other in Aguirre, the Wrath of God leaves the subjectivity of the colonizer in crisis and madness. Second, the narrative of Caché is explored and it is suggested that it resembles the rhetoric of Foucauldian disciplinary power of surveillance turned upside-down thus enforcing the complicit of colonialism to question her privilege. (shrink)

"The fields of settler colonial, decolonial, and postcolonial studies, as well as Critical Animal Studies are growing rapidly, but how do the implications of these endeavours intersect? Colonialism and Animality: Anti-Colonial Perspectives in Critical Animal Studies explores some of the ways that the oppression of Indigenous persons and more-than-human animals are interconnected. Composed of twelve chapters by an international team of specialists plus a Foreword by Dinesh Wadiwel, the book is divided into four themes: Tensions and Alliances between (...) Animal and Decolonial Activisms Revisiting the Stereotypes of Indigenous Peoples' Relationships with Animals Cultural Perspectives Colonialism, Animals, and the Law This book will be of interest to undergraduate, postgraduate students, activists, as well as postdoctoral scholars, working in the areas of Critical Animal Studies, Native Studies, postcolonial and Critical Race Studies, with particular chapters being of interest to scholars and students in other fields, such as Cultural Studies, Animal Law, Critical Prison Studies, and radical criminology"--. (shrink)

Despite recent strides in the direction of achieving a more equitable and genuine place for Indigenous voices in the conservation conversation, the conservation movement must more deliberately and thoroughly grapple with the legacy of its deeply settler colonial history if it is to, in actuality and not merely in rhetoric, achieve the aim of being more equitable. In this article, we show how the conservation movement, historically and still largely today, traffics in certain ethical and political values that are, in (...) principle or in effect, anti-Indigenous. Through this examination, we hope to reveal how present-day conservation efforts, even if ‘well-meaning’ or nominally deferential regarding Indigenous peoples and perspectives, in fact reinforce settler colonial structures. In particular, we critique the notion of the uninhabited wilderness as a conservation ideal and the disavowal of originary violence (along with a parallel positing of settler nativism) in the articulation of conservation historicity and the founding of conservation movements. We conclude by offering some steps conservationists can take to alter their practices, methods, and values in ways that recognize, respect, and reciprocate with Indigenous peoples. (shrink)

The paper begins from a working definition of caste as a contentious form of social belonging and a consideration of casteism as a form of inferiorization. It takes anti-casteism as an ideological critique aimed at unmasking the unethical operations of caste, drawing upon B. R. Ambedkar’s notion of caste as ‘graded inequality’. The politico-legal context of the unfinished trajectory of instituting protection against caste discrimination in Britain provides the backdrop for thinking through the philosophical foundations of anti-casteism. The (...) peculiar religio-discursive aspect of ‘emergent vulnerability’ is noted, which explains the recent introduction of the trope of ‘institutional casteism’ used as a shield by deniers of caste against accusations of casteism. The language of protest historically introduced by anti-racists is thus usurped and inverted in a simulated language of anti-colonialism. It is suggested that the stymieing of the UK legislation on caste is an effect of collective hypocrisies, the refusal to acknowledge caste privilege, and the continuity of an agonistic intellectual inheritance, exemplified in the deep differences between Ambedkar and Gandhi in the Indian nationalist discourse on caste. The paper argues that for a modern anti-casteism to develop, at stake is the possibility of an ethical social solidarity. Following Ambedkar, this expansive solidarity can only be found through our willingness to subject received opinions and traditions to critical scrutiny. Since opposed groups ‘make sense’ of their worlds in ways that might generate collective hypocrisies of denial of caste effects, anti-casteism must be geared to expose the lie that caste as the system of graded inequality is benign and seamlessly self-perpetuating, when it is everywhere enforced through penalties for transgression of local caste norms with the complicity of the privileged castes. The ideal for modern anti-casteism is Maitri formed through praxis, eschewing birth-ascribed caste status and loyalties. (shrink)

The global economic crisis, the popular discontent against traditional parties and post-democratic forms of governance, as well as the sharp increase in migrant and refugee arrivals have led to the resurgence of populist parties around the world. Left-wing parties usually express an inclusionary populist discourse with patriotic features, while right-wing parties utilize an exclusionary populism with strong nationalist and xenophobic characteristics. In Greece in recent years, the radical left party of SYRIZA rose to power through a left-wing populist and (...) class='Hi'>anti-imperialist discourse. Alexis Tsipras formed a paradox coalition government with the radical right party of ANEL to reach an agreement that would lessen the effects of austerity policies. However, once in office, SYRIZA transformed some features of its political style and began to follow a type of "pragmatic populism". This paper examines the relationship between populism and anti-imperialism, while analyzing SYRIZA's discourse in opposition and in power. The questions that it attempts to answer are: does Tsipras express an anti-imperialist discourse both in opposition and in power? What forces are considered imperialist by SYRIZA? Can the notion of "crypto-colonialism" explain the rise of left-wing populism in Greece? (shrink)

Immanuel Kant viewed himself as the first person to have properly defined the concept of a human ‘race’. He distinguished four human ‘races’ and ranked the.

This study aims to investigate whether some of the Eurocentric and colonialist contents of Hegel's thought are open to criticism with elements of his own philosophy. First, I intend to show that some of these contents can be organized around the connection between ‘spirit’ and ‘progress’. I then construct an interpretation of Hegel's notion of spirit, based upon which I discuss its possibly pro-colonialist tendencies, arguing that disconnected from the philosophy of history it establishes a connection of autonomy and critique (...) crucial even for anti-colonialist thought. Furthermore, following Adorno's criticism of Hegel, I investigate the possibility of finding in the ‘progress in the consciousness of freedom’ an experiential dimension capable of capturing its regressive moments. This analysis then leads to a discussion of colonization in the reconstruction of capitalist society presented in the Philosophy of Right, which reveals an important discrepancy, so I argue, concerning the Eurocentrism of the Philosophy of History. Finally, I propose a comparison of Hegel's discussion of colonization with Marx's theory of ‘primitive accumulation’, and evaluate thereby the pertinence of Hegel's connection between imperialism and the critique of capitalism. (shrink)

I argue that while recognition is important for Middle Eastern and North African philosophers in academia and society, recognition alone should not define the anti-colonial movement. BDS provides a better model of engagement because it constructs identities in order to bring about material changes in the academy and beyond. In the first part of the essay, I catalog how MENA thought traditions have been and continue to be suppressed within the academy and philosophy in particular. I then sketch one (...) possible path to better representation in philosophy by reading Fayez Sayegh’s analyses of Zionist colonialism and Palestinian non-being. In the second half of the essay, I argue that BDS is among the premier anti-colonial movements on American campuses today because it is a materialist anti-racist movement. Insofar as that movement is often shunned and prohibited, an anti-colonial society offers a membership in exile. (shrink)

An interdisciplinary book written by Métis scientist and activist Max Liboiron, Pollution is Colonialism shows how doing environmental research and activism is often premised on a colonial worldview even when practitioners are working towards benevolent goals. The book lays out key terms and a framework for understanding scientific research methods as ways of being in the world that can align with or against colonialism. Liboiron models an anti-colonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous concepts of land, ethics, and (...) relations, all while taking up the project of Western science, dealing with issues of compromise and conflicting ideas of good relations. (shrink)

In the past two decades academic and research literature on “corruption” has flourished. During the same period organizations and initiatives fighting against corruption have also significantly expanded, turning “anti-corruption” into a new research subject. However, despite a few exceptions there is a division of labor between scholars who study corruption itself and those who study the global anti-corruption industry. Juxtaposing corruption’s local discourses and anti-corruption international practices, this article is an attempt to bring together these two intertwined (...) research dimensions and explore how an ethnographic approach might contribute to framing them together. Firstly, it describes how corruption in Romania is often conceptualized and explained in terms of national heritage, something related to old and recent cultural history, including traditional folklore. Secondly, it explores how anti-corruption works in practice, focusing on international legal cooperation projects monitoring the progress and shortcomings both prior to and post Romania’s accession to the European Union. Finally, revealing the articulations of these two apparently unrelated research fields, the article argues that corruption’s local explanations and the circular logic of auditing observed within the anti-corruption industry share a common developmental ideology mirroring the crypto-colonialist structure of power relations and dependency among European nation-states emerging out of the Cold War. (shrink)

Sartre's writing on colonialism and anti-colonial critique is diverse, protean and frequently self-contradictory, and for this reason has generated a good deal of controversy. His celebrated and notorious 'Orphée noir', written as the preface to Senghor's Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française, has been read as both veneration and critique of the negritude movement, and he has been named both spokesman and traitor of anti-colonial resistance in Africa. Explicating the dynamics of an (...) assertion of black identity in contradistinction to colonial influence, Sartre introduced revolutionary black poetry to the European audience it was directed against, only to be condemned by some of the other negritude thinkers, such as Alioune Diop, as eurocentric and blinded by his own position as a metropolitan, and therefore colonial, intellectual. The version of negritude promoted in 'Orphée noir' was criticised by such thinkers for being too rigid and essentialist, yet conversely, Fanon objected that Sartre's stress on the movement as transitory and provisional meant that was insufficiently immersed in 'authentic black experience'. In addition, Sartre's more journalistic writing, which called for the withdrawal of the French presence in Algeria during the war of independence, aptly served to draw attention to dissension about the Algerian question within French society, but, as Robert Young points out, the Marxist approach underpinning many of these pieces has also been seen as universalising. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] This paper tackles Kant’s juridical arguments for criticizing European colonialist practices, taking into account some recent accounts of this issue given by Kant scholars as Ripstein, Cavallar, Flikschuh, Stilz and Vanhaute. First, I focus on Kant’s grounding of cosmopolitan union as a juridical requirement stemming of the systematic character of the rational doctrine of right. Second, I pay attention to Kant’s remarks about how the European nations ought to establish commercial relations (...) with other nations in the world and how they should approach non-state people. I draw the conclusion that Kant’s juridical-political writings should be consider as a forerunning corpus for furthering an anti-colonialist mind in the European philosophy of Enlightenment. (shrink)

Following postmodernism, post-colonialism reflects modernity from a new perspective-the cultural perspective. Post-colonialism interprets colonialism contained in modernity, deconstructs orientalism and cultural hegemonism, and turns western reflection of modernity into an inquiry about the global relationship between the East and the West. Post-colonialism brings forward a new theoretical domain, that is, the colonizational relationship between the East and the West in the process of modernization. This interpretation expresses a strong tendency of anti-western centrality and shares some (...) ideas with Marxism. This article discusses the essence, characteristics, and limitation of post-colonialism from the viewpoint of Marxism, expecting to further the study of post-colonialism and its relationship with Marxism. (shrink)

This article examines Bentham's contribution to anti-colonial thought in the context of the development of the British radical movement that attacked colonialism on the grounds that it advantaged what Bentham called the at the expense of the . It shows that Bentham was influenced as much by Josiah Tucker and James Anderson as by Adam Smith. Bentham's early economic critique is examined, and the sharp changes in his arguments after 1800 assessed, in the context of the American and (...) French Revolutions and the effects of British industrialization. The article also highlights the importance of Bentham's writings inspired by the Spanish colonial crisis of the early 1820s. They show developments in his economic analysis and include some very acute discussions of the psychological satisfactions that elites could gain from colonialism. The article ends with a brief comparison between Bentham and later radical thinkers to put his ideas in context. (shrink)

Liberal thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were alert to the political costs and human cruelties involved in European colonialism, but they also thought that European expansion held out progressive possibilities. In Progress, Pluralism, and Politics David Williams examines the colonial and anti-colonial arguments of Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and L.T. Hobhouse. Williams locates their ambivalent attitude towards European conquest and colonial rule in a set of tensions between the impact of colonialism on European (...) states, the possibilities of progress in distant and diverse places, and the relationship between universalism and cultural pluralism. In so doing he reveals some of the central ambiguities that characterize the ways that liberal thought has dealt with the reality of an illiberal world. Of particular importance are appeals to various forms of universal history, attempts to mediate between the claims of identity and the reality of difference, and the different ways of thinking about the achievement of liberal goods in other places. Pointing to key elements in still ongoing debates within liberal states about how they should relate to illiberal places, Progress, Pluralism, and Politics enriches the discussion on political thought and the relationship between liberalism and colonialism. (shrink)

This article highlights the impasses of anti-racist struggles that understand racism as an opinion or a prejudice and use education as their only means for addressing it. Racism should rather be understood as a socio-historical subjective structure rooted in the process of constitution of the division of labour on a global scale through colonialism, a process that was crucial to the institution of capitalism. This is why we will put forth the importance of rejecting the narrations that camouflage (...) colonization with the idea of civilization, and the necessity to produce decolonial counter-histories. We will thus claim that such an endeavor should start from the struggles of racialized peoples against the different forms of coloniality—that is, from the refusal by racialized peoples of the representations that are imposed on them, and from their repositioning on the basis of their alterity. Only the position of a powerful alterity can in fact make possible a real equality.Cet article met en évidence les impasses des luttes antiracistes qui conçoivent le racisme comme une opinion ou un préjugé et utilisent l’éducation comme le seul moyen d’y remédier. Le racisme devrait plutôt être compris comme une structure socio-historique subjective qui s’enracine dans le procès de constitution de la division mondiale du travail par le colonialisme, un procès qui a été décisif pour l’institution du capitalisme. C’est pourquoi nous mettrons en avant le caractère problématique des récits qui recouvrent la colonisation de l’idée de civilisation et la nécessité de produire des contre-histoires décoloniales. Il s’agira alors de montrer que, pour ce faire, il faut partir des luttes des racisés contre les différentes formes de colonialité—c’est-à-dire du refus par les racisés des représentations qui leur sont adressées et de leur repositionnement à partir de leur altérité. Seule la position d’une altérité puissante peut, en effet, rendre possible une égalité réelle. (shrink)

Christian ethical practice has historically fallen short, when we consider the histories of European colonial violence from the sixteenth century and the transatlantic slave trade in Africans. Today, Christian ethics can fail to uphold a standard of resistance to contemporary evils, including racial injustice. To what extent can Christian ethics break with this history and be saved? This article considers the ongoing colonial tendencies of Christian ethics and theological education in Britain, before considering the centrality of decolonisation, primarily ‘of the (...) mind’. In the latter part, it turns to examples of anti-colonial Christian ethics, in the work of Robert Beckford, Anthony Reddie, Anupama Ranawana and Anderson Jeremiah. It ends by giving attention to what decolonisation might mean in religious and theological education, as we seek to create spaces for learning in which all people's bodies, minds and voices are welcomed and honoured. (shrink)

This paper offers a transnational analytical framework to inform contemporary anti-racist solidarity building in what is now called Canada by engaging with migration, colonialism, and indigeneity. In particular, I trace the historical entanglements of modernity/coloniality from the British Empire’s Canal Colonies project in Punjab to colonial policies in what is now called British Columbia while centring land and Indigenous sovereignty.

This article provides an introduction to the themed section ‘Anarchism and the national question—historical, theoretical and contemporary perspectives.’ We discuss first the long and often overlooked engagement of anarchists with the colonial and national liberation question, particularly—but not exclusively—in the heyday of the movement (from the second half of the 19th to the first decades of the 20th century). We discuss in particular the overlaps and tensions between anarchists and republicans (those who favoured republics as opposed to monarchies) and (...) class='Hi'>anti-colonial nationalists (anti-colonialists who defended the right of national self-determination). Then we proceed to discuss the potential for a dialogue between anarchist and nationalism studies based on three interventions. First, to problematise the narrative that conflates nations with state-building processes. Second, to better grasp the emergence of alternatives to the nation–state as a historical construct. Third, to complicate narratives that associate in an unproblematic fashion internationalism and classless society. Finally, the introduction highlights the four questions which lie at the core of the themed section and discuss briefly how the papers relate to these. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt’s account of imperialism has become an unlikely source of inspiration for scholars invested in anti-colonial and postcolonial critique. However, the role of settler colonialism in her thought has come under far less scrutiny. This essay reconstructs Arendt’s account of settler-colonization. It argues that Arendt’s republican analysis of imperialism hinges on her notion of the boomerang effect, which is absent in settler-colonial contexts. Arendt recognized some of the distinctive features of settler expansionism but reproduced many of the (...) ideologies that sustain practices of settler-colonial conquest. This interpretation sheds light on the promises and limits of contemporary retrievals of Arendt’s analysis and critique of imperialism by foregrounding the specificity of settler colonialism as an axis of ongoing colonial violence. (shrink)

This essay uses Maria Lugones’s account of the colonial/modern gender system to analyze the retro-use of “biological sex” in recent anti-trans legislation. The retro-use of sex refers to the role of sex in legislation that has been widely described by critics as moving the U.S. backward in time, or as a rollback of trans rights. The essay argues that Lugones’s theorization of the sex/gender distinction in the context of colonialism offers a better way of understanding the retro-use of (...) sex in this legislation than white Anglo-American feminist theories. While Lugones does not explicitly engage with this legislation, the essay shows that her racialized material history of the concept of biological sex not only allows for an expanded sense of the pasts that are at work in the present use of sex but also sharpens the need for feminist and trans responses to the retro-use of sex that are explicitly anti-racist and decolonial. -/- . (shrink)

THE CONGRESS The infrastructure of the colonial territories obeyed the logic of economic exploitation, territorial domain and commercial dynamics among others that left deep marks in the constructed landscape. The rationales applied to the decisions behind the construction of infrastructures varied according to the historical period, the political model of colonial administration and the international conjuncture. This congress seeks to bring to the knowledge of the scientific community the dynamics of occupation and transformation of colonial territory, especially related to and (...) resulting from the war effort, which involved not only the agency of architecture and urbanism but also of military apparatus, and its repercussions in the same territories as independent countries. Colonial infrastructures will be addressed to question, for instance, how housing production during armed conflict has conditioned future spatial models of the independent countries or what options taken by colonial administrations were abandoned or otherwise strengthened after independence. The congress is part of the ongoing research project entitled “ARCHWAR - Dominance and massviolence through Housing and Architecture during colonial wars. The Portuguese case (GuineaBissau, Angola, Mozambique): colonial documentation and post independence critical assessment” funded by ‘Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia’ (FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology), ref. PTDC/ART-DAQ/0592/2020, in which Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG) is a partner. The general goal of the congress is to debate on the repercussions of the decisions taken by the colonial states in the area of territorial infrastructures – in particular through the disciplines of architecture and urbanism – in post-independence spatial and urban models and the formation of independent countries with a colonial past. (shrink)

Examines Bergson’s work from the perspectives of critical philosophy of race and decolonial theory, placing it in conversation with theorists from Africa, the African Diaspora, and Latin America. Building upon recent interest in Henri Bergson’s social and political philosophy, this volume offers a series of fresh and novel perspectives on Bergson’s writings through the lenses of critical philosophy of race and decolonial theory. Contributors place Bergson’s work in conversation with theorists from Africa, the African Diaspora, and Latin America to examine (...) Bergson’s influence on literature, science studies, aesthetics, metaphysics, and social and political philosophy within these geopolitical contexts. The volume pays particular attention to both theoretical and practical forms of critical resistance work, including historical analyses of anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist movements that have engaged with Bergson’s writings—for example, the Négritude movement, the Indigenismo movement, and the Peruvian Socialist Party. These historical and theoretical intersections provide a timely and innovative contribution to the existing scholarship on Bergson, and demonstrate the importance of his thought for contemporary social and political issues. Andrea J. Pitts is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Mark William Westmoreland is a doctoral candidate and instructor of ethics and philosophy at Villanova University. (shrink)

The Gaza War is a watershed moment not only in the Middle East. It has also increased political divisions in Germany, where Israel’s security and the fight against anti-Semitism are part of its historical legacy and political and moral identity. Incidents of anti-Semitism have increased dramatically, as have overdrawn accusations of it. An analysis of controversies about the definition of anti-Semitism, about the use of the term apartheid for the situation in the West Bank, of the BDS (...) movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), and particularly the characterization of Israel as a settler-colonial state shows how difficult it has become to maintain a fair, honest, and frank discussion considering different points of view. The current crisis should be used as an opportunity for Germany to, on the one hand, face the unavoidable contradictions in its responsibilities stemming from the crimes of its Nazi past and, on the other hand, come to grips not only with Arab and Iranian terrorism and eliminationist rhetoric but also with the deficiencies in Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. Germany’s new leitmotiv ought to be: ‘Between the River and the Sea, Jews and Arabs should be free.’. (shrink)

Here, the claim that Middle Eastern persons are racialized is a response to complexities that define the United States ; namely, the language of race is seen as antiquated or misleading, and thus it fails to capture MENA American experiences, leading some to call for different terminology. The author argues that we should call social-political violence committed against MENA people racism because to name it otherwise is to ground the experience in an incomplete description which affords lighter moral responsibility and (...) omits historical conflict. The article first elaborates the problem of racial conflict in the US and the specific problem of MENA racialization. It then responds with a historical argument that emphasizes key genealogical markers in the co-emergence of orientalism, colonialism, and racialization. The article closes by contrasting the idea of race with competing terms to defend its use on descriptive and normative grounds. (shrink)

Recent studies on colonial discourse have demonstrated that the speeches of freedom activists in colonial Africa served as sites of resistance. One key text type that has, however, been neglected in the critical literature on the discourse of emancipation is the national anthem of colonised states. To fill this gap, the present study examines the discursive enactment of resistance in the anthems of former British colonies in Africa, focusing on the transitivity framework in systemic functional linguistics. Semantic and structural parallelisms (...) across the anthems are identified as evidence of a collective memory, a cultural trauma reconfigured and reconstituted to reclaim a positive identity and project a desirable postcolonial future. They also foreground the motif of freedom and legitimise the African as the owner of the reclaimed territory. These procedures articulate an anti-imperialist and anti-establishment stance that provides hope, strength and encouragement to an oppressed group. This paper extends the scholarship on the discursive enactment of resistance by focusing attention on a context underexplored in the literature. It also illustrates the (re)construction of relevant ideologies in national anthems to stimulate desirable, progressive attitudes among citizenry in African states. The paper is furthermore significant to decolonial research and highlights the role of language in political decolonisation processes. (shrink)

This text explores critical perspectives on the intersections between colonialism, political violence, and environmentalism to deepen our understanding of genocide and genocidal violence.

In this article, I discuss prospects for democracy in the Middle East. I argue, first, that some democratic experiments—for instance, Egypt under Mohammed Morsi—are not in keeping with etymological and historical meanings of democracy; and second, that efforts to promote democracy, especially as exemplified in U.N. documents emphasizing universal rights grounded in Western traditions, are possibly totalitarian and also colonialist and hence counter to democratic ideals insofar as they impart one set of values as the only morally acceptable ones. A (...) respectful dialogue in which people from both regions strive to understand conditions giving rise to certain social practices would be more productive than morally superior attitudes, and help all to see areas where their respective cultures could be improved. I conclude by discussing concepts of democratic and pragmatic faith articulated by John Dewey and William James, arguing that democracy will continue to flounder in the Middle East so long as the basic trust implied in these concepts is lacking; and how Westerners might consider this a cautionary tale regarding social attitudes and public policies contrary to democratic life in their own countries. (shrink)

In the conditions in which dominant global powers is still trying to expand their cultural hegemony, neo-colonialism, over the countries which are trying to hold their independence, through the creation of native intellectuals who are mentally Gharbzadeh, Westoxificated. This study finds it crucial to take the issue a step further ahead to discuss how the ideas of Ale-e Ahamad’s famous theory of Gharbzadegi is still applicable in our time and reveals its representations in Said’s well-known concept of Orientalism. These (...) imperial powers through the controlling of the world’s educational system and thoughts and ultimately the mindsets of the native intellectuals of the downtrodden countries would have produced Intellectuals who are mentally filled with Westernized knowledge. These people who are mostly kind, good in nature, and placid seem to be dominated by a sense of instrumental rationality which makes them obediently adaptable to the dominant power. These people have narrated our history so far and we have had enough. (shrink)

The ideas and political commitments of the revolutionary abolitionist and Spencean Robert Wedderburn (1762–1835) represent a compelling example of a form of universality, articulated in the midst of the Age of Revolution, which defied European colonialism and plantation slavery. An engagement with Wedderburn’s writings on the Haitian Revolution, maroon warfare and his proposal of a Spencean communist programme will clarify ongoing debates about Enlightenment, empire, slavery and universality, and might inform a re-engagement with the idea of universal emancipation in (...) the political present. (shrink)

In recent years, the ‘Western tradition’ has increasingly come under attack in anti-colonialist and postmodernist discourses. It is not difficult to sympathise with the concerns that underlie advocacy of historically marginalised traditions, and the West undoubtedly has a lot to answer for. Nonetheless, while arguing a qualified yes to the central question posed for this special issue, we question the assumption that the West can be neatly distinguished from alternative traditions of thought. We argue that there is fundamental implicit (...) and explicit agreement across traditions about the most difficult of issues and on standards about how to reason about them and that the ‘West’ has demonstrably learned from within and without itself. But, we question the very viability under conditions of heightened globalisation and neo-colonialism of distinguishing between thought of the ‘West’ and thought outside the West. It is time to move beyond the reified assumptions that underlie the idea of ‘Western thought’, cast as an agent with a collective purpose. (shrink)

From St. Augustine and early Ethiopian philosophers to the anti-colonialist movements of Pan-Africanism and Negritude, this encyclopedia offers a comprehensive view of African thought, covering the intellectual tradition both on the continent in its entirety and throughout the African Diaspora in the Americas and in Europe. The term "African thought" has been interpreted in the broadest sense to embrace all those forms of discourse - philosophy, political thought, religion, literature, important social movements - that contribute to the formulation of (...) a distinctive vision of the world determined by or derived from the African experience. (shrink)

In this anti-colonial treatise, Ricœur reflects on the responsibility of every French citizen and of the French state with respect to colonialism. He establishes five principles that should guide his readers in their reflection on this issue and expresses his support for the independence of the colonies.

Critical social theory is a late product of the Enlightenment, though pushed beyond its original intentions. It then developed mainly with Marxism, but since the beginning other strands have been important, such as anarchism, feminism, anti-colonialism, anti-racism and environmentalism. The immanent critique of modernity must be seen indeed as ecumenical. In its plurality, it must have however at its core the realisation of equal freedom and full solidarity that remains an unfulfilled promise and offers a criterion of (...) demarcation for critical theory. The diagnosis of the times for critical approaches also depended on identifying long-term developments, especially within Marxism, but this seems to have been almost entirely forgotten. I will argue that it is both possible and necessary to resume this strategy. Finally, I ask how we connect these conceptual issues to praxis. The article concludes with a more substantive discussion of political modernity. (shrink)

From the late nineteenth century onwards, Asian Buddhist monks have been associated in American thought with science, rationality and anti-colonialism. Though the narrative of nineteenth century ‘Buddhist Modernism’ is routinely invoked to explain this, a more illuminating genealogy of this ‘modernist monasticism’ identifies deeper roots in anti-Catholicism. This paper explores these roots through a genealogy of the Buddhist Modernist Monk. Beginning with the seventeenth century travel journals of Jesuit missionaries, it winds its way through varied British rhetorics (...) to nineteenth century Sri Lanka, and ends in Chicago, at the World’s Parliament of Religion of 1893. There, these intertwined discourses coalesced in the form of the Buddhist Modernist Monk: a figure now familiar and beloved in American culture as an embodiment of compassion and rationality, yet with a history of prejudice and politics that has yet to be meaningfully explored. As we acknowledge anti-Catholicism’s centrality to the history of the Modernist Monk, we are necessarily reminded of the moral ambivalence of the ‘science-religion’ dichotomy that fuels his mystique. At minimum, future analyses must critique the presumption of such supra-historical binaries, and deploy an open framework attentive to the contradictions and relations of reciprocal determination that characterize his genealogy. (shrink)

Speaking of Freedom analyzes the development of ideas about freedom and politics in contemporary French thought from existentialism to deconstruction, in relation to several of the most prominent twentieth century liberation struggles. It describes the paradox of freedom—that freedom "kills itself" in both thought and practice: in the attempt to theorize the indeterminate, and in the revolution or emancipatory discourse that dies as it hurries towards its utopian conclusion, rejecting one system only to be enslaved by another. Both the philosophical (...) wariness of the concept of liberation that one finds in Foucault and Derrida, and the desire for freedom from oppression expressed by anti-colonialists and feminists, are shown to be necessary for political practice. The book thus provides a cogent analysis of some of the most difficult concepts of contemporary continental philosophy, along with a profound sense of engagement with liberation struggles. (shrink)

Modernity has been working since the sixteenth century in western Europe at what Mr. Gauchet has described as the “exit from religion,” adding that Christianity alone has been able to gain the historical position of “the religion of the exit from religion.” It is indeed the case that the other great religions have not felt, as Christianity has, the intellectual, political and legal necessity to revise their theological foundations radically. Islam in particular has not only been shielded from the fundamental (...) criticisms of intellectual and scientific modernity, but the managers of the sacred have formed alliances with nationalist movements engaged in the anti-colonialist struggle to legitimize wars of liberation and post-independence one-party states. It is true that Islam's mechanisms of state control first came into play in the period of prose-lytism of the new religion, chiefly between 622 and 632; but state control turned into the complete takeover of the irreducible autonomy of the religious domain (the spiritual sphere) by all the states that emerged after the 1920s (Ataturk's radical experiment) and even more so after the post-1945 liberations. (shrink)

This paper examines political philosophy of Pedro Albizu Campos, a 20th Century political leader and public philosopher from Puerto Rico. It argues that his apparent similarity to other anti-colonial thinkers of his day like José Vasconcelos and José Martí belies a deeper difference. It uses commentaries of his work by scholars such as Carlos Rojas Osorio and Antonio Steven-Arroyo to show that Albizu’s unflinching resistance against imperialism that cost him nearly three decades of freedom and ultimately his life was (...) in his mind not the defiant act of a political rebel but the faithful obedience of a devout Catholic. It argues that Albizu’s radical Catholic nationalism marks him as an eclectic political thinker of the Americas whose work complicates common narratives about the history of political philosophy in Latin America and the geography of anti-colonialism in the Americas. Most importantly, Albizu offers much needed insight into Puerto Rico’s present crisis. (shrink)

This article critically engages with central tenets of decolonial thought. While sympathetic to decolonial thought's anti-colonialism and critique of Eurocentric universalism, the article argues that decolonial thought's understanding(s) of knowledge relies on an essentialising centralisation of origins and roots. Against decolonial thought's assertion that a knowledge's relevance for anti-colonial struggle results from its position of exteriority vis-á-vis colonial systems of domination, the article suggests that we need to look at the dialectical and hybrid processes through which bodies (...) of knowledge are made agentic in relation to concrete contexts of political conflict. To discern a body of knowledge's meaning and relevance for anti-colonial struggles, we need to understand that it is continually shaped and reshaped from recurrent practices of reading, dissemination and re-articulation, through which the theory or knowledge body becomes hybridised and reformulated in relation to incessantly evolving contexts. (shrink)

In recent decades, the trope that classical Muslim thinkers anticipated or influenced modern European thought has provided an easy endorsement of their contemporary relevance. This article studies how Arab editors and intellectuals, from 1882 to 1947, understood the twelfth-century Andalusian philosopher Ibn Ṭufayl, and Arabo-Islamic philosophy generally. This modern generation of Arab scholars also attached significance to classical Arabic texts as precursors to modern European thought. They invited readers to retrospectively identify with Ibn Ṭufayl and his treatise, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān. (...) Comparisons of Ibn Ṭufayl to European thinkers, and re-presentations of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān as the precedent or genesis of European thought, facilitated these editors’ global imaginaries, anti-colonial projects and political fantasies. This article tracks these projects and fantasies through the afterlife of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān from early printings and generalist surveys to later editions and studies, as Ibn Ṭufayl’s significance became sutured into his imagined importance for Europe, and for going beyond Europe. (shrink)

In this anti-colonial treatise, Ricœur reflects on the responsibility of every French citizen and of the French state with respect to colonialism. He establishes five principles that should guide his readers in their reflection on this issue and expresses his support for the independence of the colonies.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 67.3 (2006) 523-545 [Access article in PDF] Enlightenment! Which Enlightenment? Jonathan Israel Institute for Advanced Study Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, 4 vols., editor in chief Alan Charles Kors; eds. Roger L.Emerson, Lynn Hunt, Anthony J. La Vopa, Jacques Le Brun, Jeremy D. Popkin, C. Bradley Thomson, Ruth Whelan, and Gordon S. Wood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). On the surface it might (...) well seem that during the last fifteen or twenty years the Enlightenment understood as a new way of thinking about reality and society has receded more and more from its former privileged status as a pivotal turning-point in the making of the modern world, and especially as any kind of leap forward in the making of a freer, more rational, and better humanity. Under the combined assaults of Post-Structuralism, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism, the rise of the new social history (and not least Robert Darnton's critique of the old intellectual history), the Enlightenment conceived as a movement of ideas appears to be not just firmly in retreat and increasingly under siege but also fragmenting into disparate remnants with no coherent overall profile.Yet, paradoxically, there are grounds for conjecturing that the Enlightenment despite all this, has actually been becoming, under the surface, an even more crucial and robust force than it was before, much like a powerfully compressed spring being pushed back but ready to rebound with greater impetus than ever. One reason for thinking this is the extensive new material unearthed in the last few years, mostly by colleagues in continental Europe, about the origins of "radical," in the sense of egalitarian, secularist, Spinozist, and anti-colonial, thought. A second and possibly more important [End Page 523] reason is that the terrible events of the last several years have provided thoughtful readers with more than just a glimpse of the nightmare world apt to result from enshrining as a new set of privileged and prevailing values "difference," a thoroughgoing relativism, and the doctrine that all sets of values, even the most questionable kinds of theology, are ultimately equivalent.The inevitable recoil from Postmodernist "relativism" will presumably strengthen the appeal, at least in some quarters, of the Radical Enlightenment's claim that the improvement of human life inescapably involves emancipating men from the collective force of autocracy, intolerance, and prejudiced thinking, and establishing a predominantly secular morality, no less than it involves promoting the ideals of equality (sexual and racial), democracy, individual liberty, and a comprehensive toleration. Indeed, recent developments on all continents seem likely to lend new weight to the radical philosophes' argument that the moral basis of their theorized egalitarianism, democracy, toleration, and individual freedom, despite the arguments of the Postmodernists (which by no means lack weight in certain contexts), is after all concretely superior in terms of reason and moral equity not just to what one faith or traditional system or another contends, in opposition to its claims, but absolutely—that is in ethical and political as well as social terms. One may confidently predict that such a development will render the Enlightenment both more compelling and much harder to disparage than it has appeared to be in the wake of the Postmodernist upsurge in recent years.The prestige and status of the Enlightenment Western and Eastern, still conspicuously low for the present, may powerfully rebound, then, and in all parts of the world; and this for the simple reason that "Enlightenment thinking," as one scholar recently expressed it, "remains the best foundation for any genuinely progressive politics not simply in the West but in those states that suffered most at its [i.e. the West's] hands."1 To anyone authentically committed to democracy, toleration, and personal liberty this seems undeniable and, what is more, as we see in Bayle, Diderot, the Abbé Raynal, Lahontan, Van den Enden, and other radical writers of the Enlightenment, the roots of anti-colonialism itself, as well as the modern idea of racial, ethnic, and sexual equality, are undoubtedly to be found precisely in the "philosophical" thought-world of the Enlightenment—and especially the... (shrink)

In her two books, Maia Ramnath attempts to construct an antiauthoritarian/anarchist anti-colonialist politics through an analysis of India’s freedom struggle. Ramnath reconstructs a history of Indian anti-colonial movements from an anarchist perspective, while seeking to locate forgotten possibilities such as the ‘libertarian Marxism’ of the Ghadar party and its successors. Haj to Utopia is an important addition to the literature on early communism in India inasmuch as it allows us to revisit said history in India in a renewed (...) and critical manner. On the other hand, Decolonizing Anarchism is an ambitious book that seeks to unearth an antiauthoritarian account of India’s struggle for independence, but falls far short of its intended goal because of Ramnath’s inattentiveness to the implications of Hindu revivalism on caste and gender in India. Thus, she reproduces many of the characteristics of mainstream nationalist narratives. (shrink)

Romain Ducoulombier, author ofCamarades!, a study of the origins of the French Communist Party, belongs to a different ideological context to earlier authors on the subject, such as Kriegel, Wohl or Robrieux. But though Ducoulombier claims originality for his work, there is little genuinely new here. He fails to grasp the impact of the Russian Revolution on the French working class and has little understanding of the dynamics of the Communist International. He stresses the ‘asceticism’ and ‘messianism’ of the early (...) Communist Party without giving a precise meaning to these terms. Worst of all, Ducoulombier concentrates on archival material while saying remarkably little about the French Communist Party’s actual activities, notably work in the trade unions, anti-militarism and anti-colonialism. (shrink)

An interpretative history of human rights in Africa, exploring indigenous rights traditions, anti-slavery, anti-colonialism, post-colonial violations and pro-democracy movements.

Oswald de Andrade’s « Cannnibal Manifesto » was anticipative in its apprehension of the Brazilian dynamic as it emerged from its European colonial heritage projecting itself towards the future. As Brasil entered modernity, what Oswald observed was « a country of the future », not from the perspective of the dynamic of a construction of a national trajectory of development, but from the perspective of the development of the indigenous Brazilian relation to colonial alterity. The anthropophagic revolution, as it projected (...) the Indians into the world, rested on a theory of multiplicity and not of « diversity ». Anti-colonialism was not a form of nationalism, but a war machine which served to take what we wanted in the rich Europe. (shrink)

The emergence of legal decolonization in the mid-twentieth century, as evidenced by the 1960 United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, is often understood through the lens of race and the disruption of racial hierarchy. If we take seriously the transnational feminist contention that the colonial racial order was also gendered, however, how might this perspective shift our understanding of decolonization? In this article, I explore the debates on decolonization that take place in the (...) UN General Assembly from 1946–1960 that lead to the 1960 Declaration from a transnational feminist perspective to answer this question. Specifically, I use comparative historical and discourse methods of analysis to explore how colonialists and anti-colonialists negotiate the onset of legal decolonization, focusing especially on how colonialist hierarchies of race, culture, and gender are addressed in these debates. I argue that, on the one hand, colonialists rely on a paternalist masculinity to legitimate their rule (i.e., our dependencies require our rule the way a child requires a father). In response, anti-colonialists reply with a resistance masculinity (i.e., “colonialism is emasculating;” “decolonization is necessary for a return of masculine dignity”). I argue that decolonization in the United Nations transpires via contentions among differentially racialized masculinities. Ultimately, a transnational feminist perspective that centers the intersection of race and gender offers a richer analysis than a perspective that examines race alone. (shrink)