Yes this is a thing. Yes if you bring it up in random converstation you are destined to find that this might be a activating thought, of course this depends what demographic you are talkign to. After all how are we supposed to get rid of all those colonial and imperialist statues without creating a revisionist history? As it is often touted ‘history is written by the victors’. I wonder what that says about the relics of ancient Egypt? As of yet ancient Egypt’s epitaph to pagan living has yet to be entirely derided as savage. In fact quite the opposite. We continually look to ancient egyption society for the keys and secrets of modern day life, in the hope that it offers a more advanced understanding to life, the universe and everything than our current defunct human existance. As well as the Egyption artificats continued to prized and revered even though we might consider the ancient culture for which they sprout to be both archaic or offensive to our modern day sensibilites.
I suppose that casting our eyes to ancient egypt does give us the perfect opportunity to consider what is meant by decolonisation. Understanding decolonistaion also invites us to take a wider lens on human thinking and understanding. We didn’t always believe what we do now. Nor did we always think the way that we do. In fact much of the way in which we think can easily be understood as modernity. That human society and culture should alwaye progress towards a utopian dream scape of human living. Of course living here in the early 2020’s we can easily say that the dystopian present is quickly catching up with us. Beyond Bladerunner life on planet Earth is probably worse than we could have imagined existing in a pandemic and the center of a climate ermgency that the masses fail to be waking up to. We are still driving cars for fuck sake. Yet here we are scoffing at the concept of decolonisation. That maybe the people that came before us have a better understanding of how to maintain the balance of life than we do.
I always found it fascinating when I used to look at documentation of life in Africa how simple life was and how beautiful it seemed to live in balance with nature. These dasy I understand that as not much more than a pastoral idyl that denies the ‘developing’ world the self-detemination of the eurocentric model that was built through exploitation. At the same time I also recognis that eurocentric models have got a lot wrong. This is mainly beacuse they have built there world view on strange things like logic and reason while complete undermining the interconnectedness of everything.
A butterfly flaps it’s wings and somewhere in the word a monsoon starts. This was once called chaos theory. I now have to sit and wonder what is so chaotic about it? It makes perfect sense to me especilly when we are playing the game of consequences. Everything has both an equal and opposit balancing action in science. Yet her we are wondering why consumption is killing us, and yet we still do it?
Of course if you have be following me for any length of time you will know by now that I premise that the underlying cause of most human behaviour in this time is an embodiment of systemic trauma. That as humans we are being called to review who we are, where we come from to indentify the traumagenic points in our lives. These are the points in our lives that are generating trauma, not just for us, for our families , communites and future generations. It makes sense then to examin the roles of our ancestors. The good ones , the bad ones or lets keep it basic the known ones. Then oh what a surprise it must be to discover that African spirituality has ancestral reverence as it’s focal point. How much more surprising who it be to find that these are the references that a littered through our bible, even within the new testiment. As I get older I wonder how much more anceint human wisdom is hidden in plain sight. How much more of this wisdom has been corrupted in order to center the Eurocentric take. How much longer are we meant to sit here and believe the illusions of modernity, progress and exponential growth on a planet with finite resources. These days playing stupid equates to playing dead.
So decolonising your thinking become more about creating a reasonable critic that moves us away from the psychopathic and sociapthic thinking of both the imperialist and the colonialist. Where may be just maybe we begin to value the wider human narrative more than that of the ruling classes. After all why do we need rulers? When nobody else seems quite so commited to breaking all the rules? Why do we seek to maintain the current structures of power when they do not serve us.
This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.
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