The racialist agenda of the “Decolonise Education” movement

 

The racialist agenda of the “Decolonise Education” movement

By
Joe Mount

24 February 2017

The students’ union at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London recently demanded the removal of “white” philosophers from the university curriculum.

The union’s “Educational Priorities” statement for 2016/17 outlined demands for far-reaching changes to curricula and teaching under the heading, “Decolonising SOAS: Confronting the White Institution,” opposing what it describes as “the structural and epistemological legacy of colonialism within our university.”

“Our aims,” they write, are “to make sure that the majority of the philosophers on our courses are from the Global South or its diaspora. SOAS’s focus is on Asia and Africa and therefore the foundations of its theories should be presented by Asian or African philosophers.”

SOAS, founded in 1916, is one of Europe’s most elite higher education institutions. It was established to promote the long-term interests of British imperialism in Africa and Asia by training a cadre of colonial administrators. Alumni include countless heads of state, diplomats and civil servants in the former colonial countries.

Under the cover of anti-colonial rhetoric, the students’ union advances a racialist perspective: “If white philosophers are required, then teach their work from a critical standpoint. For example, [by] acknowledging the colonial context in which so-called ‘Enlightenment’ philosophers wrote within [emphasis added].”

The classification of philosophers based on their skin colour, rather than their place in the historical development of human thought, is combined with an attack on the entire progressive tradition of the Enlightenment. A period of great intellectual awakening…

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