Two months before, I enrolled myself in a course entitled De-colonial Research Course, initiated by the Center for Critical Peace Studies (CCPS) at the University of Management & Technology. The course, I must say, is eye-opening and revolutionary in the academic landscape of Pakistan. When I say it’s eye-opening, it’s in the sense that it’s shaking all my previous understanding of International Relations (IR). By the way, I have an MPhil in IR from Punjab University, Lahore, and have graduated from Government College University, Lahore, with a major in Political Science. I have been teaching IR for the last two years. However, when I say that De-colonial Research Course is shaking my bases, it’s in this way that it’s introducing me to a new world of IR.
When I say, it’s introducing me to a new world of IR, it’s in this sense that, initially, I had this belief unconsciously that the whole discourse of IR was rooted in the West. Talk about the History of IR which I teach as well to second-semester students. It’s in reality the West’s history. Talk about theories of IR. They are all coming from the West and explaining Western reality. Talk about any other domain in IR. Its starting point is the West. Either it’s explaining Western reality or is full of insights from Western scholars over any reflection of life in the Western world.
Before my introduction to the Decolonial Discourse Course in such a nuanced way, I— like many— had unconsciously this belief that what was in IR, was the reality of the whole world. However, after being a part of the Decolonial Research Course for one month, when I say that the course is eye-opening, it’s in the sense that all my previous bases of IR are shaking. Decolonial Discourse is built upon the premise that knowledge creation should be contextualized. Whatever knowledge is present in IR, it’s an explanation of Western reality. Calling this discourse the discourse of the world or perceiving it this way is nothing less than structural violence which is robbing people in other parts of the world of their creativity and potential. The whole focus of the Decolonial Research Course is how first we need to be conscious of how our thinking has been hijacked since we have indulged ourselves in Western discourse and how we need to consciously observe our contextual reality and build knowledge for our contexts.
Last week, in the course, we came across a concept known as “White Logic”. This concept has roots in the West’s colonial pursuits. To unpack the concept, let’s first explore the annals of history. In the 19th century, the West in a concerted manner started colonial pursuits in the wake of the Industrial Revolution although the colonial project had been started in the 15th century when Columbus, they say, discovered “America”.
After learning the concept of “White Logic”, I asked my students in classes “How can we decolonize classes?” The majority of the time, I found them blank. It’s because perhaps they have not experienced many classes in a de-colonial shape where knowledge is being co-constructed, instead of them being instructed all the time.
Focus on the word “Discovered”. It implies as if life on the American continent before 1492 was like that of aliens and was like a mystery. Only Europeans had this key to the unfolding of that mystery and they did it when Columbus reached there. The point I am trying to make is that portrayal of history in the way that “Columbus discovered America” shows that the story of America starts from the point of Columbus’s discovery and it is the fact as well that we don’t know anything about how life existed in America before Columbus reached there.
In history, we are not told about the dark sides of colonialism, especially in the sense of what Columbus and his followers did to Native Americans once they reached there; how Native American communities were systematically terminated, and how Europeans settled over there.
That’s how the history of the world has been structured, supporting western reality and suppressing the reality of the other parts of the world. In the Decolonial Research Course, our discussions revolve around how we need to be conscious of the Western constructed bubble in the knowledge domain and how we can consciously build a knowledge domain that reflects our and our ancestors’ reality.
So once the West started colonial pursuits, they not only started occupying the infrastructure of the occupied lands but also started building a superstructure for sustaining their control over the infrastructure. In simple words, East India Company— a British trading company— made its way into the Subcontinent under the guise of trade. Because of their advancement in military and mature political intellect which they developed in the wake of turbulent European history before they went for colonization across the globe, they initially started occupying infrastructure which, in other words, is a material control of the Subcontinent, and then to sustain that control they developed a superstructure in the shape of a political system, economic system, educational system, and social system as per their wishes.
One other thing which the West introduced as part of its colonial adventure, was the introduction of “White Logic”. What does it mean? Let’s deconstruct it. In simple words, it’s like wherever colonizers went, they did not regard the life and lifestyle of natives. So, for example, you can take it in a way that when Columbus “discovered” America and he did not find Americans like him, he started portraying their reality as primitive, ignorant, uncivilized, and barbarian, and took it upon himself that he was there to civilize. This is how we understand the concept of the “White Man’s Burden” emerged, which means that it’s the sheer responsibility of the “White Man” to civilize the uncivilized lot in other parts of the world and that is what we call “White Logic”. In simple words, “White Logic” means “I am better than you”; “I am going to educate you” or “I am your protector”. It’s a logic that does not regard others. It’s a logic that believes in the superiority of one over the other. It’s a logic that believes in control.
At present, seemingly we have got independence from colonizers; however, we have not made our way out of “White Logic”. That’s the message we are getting again and again in the Decolonial Research Course. Our whole educational system is embedded in “White Logic”. Our classrooms are a classical reflection of White Logic where a teacher portrays himself/herself all in all and considers students as blank slates who have no space to think or say anything outside of the syllabus. All our universities’ infrastructure and superstructure have been built upon “White Logic” in terms of the hierarchical structure of organizations in which there is no space for disagreement and things move from top to bottom instead of the other way around.
Last week, we ended the Decolonial Research Course class with one question that was assigned to us and that is, “How can we decolonize our universities?
After learning the concept of “White Logic”, I asked my students in classes “How can we decolonize classes?” The majority of the time, I found them blank. It’s because perhaps they have not experienced many classes in a de-colonial shape where knowledge is being co-constructed, instead of them being instructed all the time. In some classes, some of the students came up with quite creative answers.
I would like to end with a message for those who are engaged in academia.
Make “White Logic” a point of discussion in classes and make students aware of this monster. Make a collective effort not to feed this monster but knock it down because it’s a creativity killer.
