Decolonisation – another word for dehumanisation

Decolonisation – a warrant for dispossessing people of their humanity

The meaning of decolonisation has altered dramatically in recent times. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term means ‘the withdrawal of a colonizing state from its colonies, leaving them independent; the acquisition of political or economic independence by a former’.

Today, this word has nothing to do with the act of a colonising state withdrawing from a colony. It often has nothing to do with a colony at all. It can be used to justify just about anything – from rewriting the school curriculum to altering the look of a classroom to demanding that the name of a street should be changed. As recent experience shows, even acts of atrocity and the casual murder of civilians can be justified on the grounds that it is okay because it represents decolonisation in action.

The cause of so-called decolonisation now serves to excuse the pogroms and atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel. Acts committed in the name of decolonisation need not be held to account by normal standards of moral responsibility. Indeed, those who criticise a decoloniser's actions stand accused of various cultural crimes such as racism, xenophobia or Islamophobia.

In some circles, the very mention of the term decolonisation works as a magical incantation to appease the conscience of those who may otherwise be upset by the sight of murdered children, women and the elderly, whose bodies are viciously humiliated and violated by Hamas terrorists. Those who still retain a vestige of moral instinct and may react with revulsion to these celebratory videos produced by Hamas are swiftly informed that this is what decolonisation looks like.

It is principally within the institutions of higher education that the meaning of decolonisation has been transformed to provide a warrant for committing barbaric acts of violence. According to the revised decolonisation conception, all acts committed by those who perceive themselves as colonised are understandable and justifiable. Since the anti-Jewish pogroms in Israel, numerous pro-Hamas academics have gone to great lengths to explain that decolonisation is not simply a nice theory but also a liberating practice of revenge. They have taken to social media to point out that ‘decolonisation is not a metaphor’ but the violence that Hamas has inflicted on Jewish civilians.

Walaa Alqaisiya, a research associate of the London School of Economics, assumes a tone of contempt towards colleagues who have only now woken up to the real meaning of decolonisation. He posted on X:

‘Academics like to decolonize through discourse and land acknowledgements. Time to understand that Decolonization is NOT a metaphor. Decolonization means resistance of the oppressed and that includes armed struggle to LITERALLY get our lands and lives back!’

Numerous academic apologists frequently echo the phrase ‘decolonization is not a metaphor’ for Hamas violence. Three researchers attached to the University of Sussex’s Institute of Development Studies declared that

‘In the long term, it is crucial to underscore that decolonisation is not a metaphor, and the time is now to recognise Western imperialism, Israel’s settler colonial project – and the cycle of violence that these precipitate – is the crucial backdrop to the horrifying events reaching international headlines this week’.

Sarcastic reminders to academics who hesitate before giving Hamas a standing ovation communicate the sentiment that unless you are prepared to applaud the behaviour of this jihadist group, you are on the wrong side of history. As one professor from St Lawrence University posted:

‘Faculty colleagues: if you think “decolonization” is fine for your syllabus, your curriculum, or your classroom, but not for actual colonized people in Palestine, then you’ve never understood decolonization. Please stop using the term until you take the time to educate yourself’.

The call on faint-hearted academics to educate themselves does not mean ‘go away, read some books and study the politics of the Middle East’. The call to educate yourself simply means ‘fall in line and agree with our unquestioning support for Hamas’ actions.

In his message to academic colleagues, Sandeep Bakshi, who describes himself as ‘Queer vegan of colour academic. Committed to decolonial inquiry. Postcolonial and Queer Studies. Université Paris Cité’, was unambiguously clear:

‘All scholars who’ve even once used the term “decolonisation” for the advancement of their careers, please note that now is the time to show solidarity with Palestine. Stand with Palestine. End all occupations’.

Ameil Joseph, a social work professor at McMaster University in Canada, also used social media to encourage the faint-hearted to get real. He stated, 'Postcolonial, anticolonial, and decolonial are not just words you heard in your EDI workshop’. His message was clear: anything decolonial is sacred and beyond criticism. So, when the decolonial was acted out by the perpetrators of the atrocity inflicted on music festival goers in Israel, they were only following the script of decolonisation.

Professor Joseph’s colleague at McMaster is Maddie Brockbank, whose speciality is apparently the management of gender-based violence. She previously stated that ‘I want to create avenues for preventing gender-based and sexual violence that do not rely on the carceral state and, instead, seek to create cultures of consent, care and accountability’. It appears that the imperative of decolonisation easily trumps her commitment to preventing gender-based violence.

She responded to events in Israel by attacking those sickened by Hamas’ cruel acts of gender-based violence. She wrote that ‘Hyperfixation’ on ‘interpersonal violence’ distracts from state violence and dehumanises the oppressed. That’s academese for saying that showing concern for the women raped and brutalised in Israel is a bit of a distraction. Brockbank’s concern was not with the women who were raped, humiliated and killed but with those who ‘demonised’ the barbaric behaviour of the Hamas men. She wrote, ‘These stories of alleged sexualized violence reinforce racist & colonial imaginaries where state violence against Palestinians is framed as necessary because they are immoral, inhuman “monsters”/“animals”’. Her statement implied that the appalling acts of rape and murder must be excused when it comes to demonised Hamas men.

Some of you might wonder what kind of a world these academics inhabit. How can they downplay the brutal events surrounding the casual violation and murder of civilians with words like ‘hyperfixation’ and ‘demonisation’? It is almost as if they have become desensitised from showing the slightest degree of empathy for the victims of the blood-soaked pogrom. This almost playful response to the pogrom by Somali-American journalist Najma Sharif is paradigmatic in the way victims of the pogrom are casually dehumanised. Najma Sharif posted to her followers: ‘What did y’all think decolonisation meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays? Losers’.

Decolonisation becomes dehumanisation

One justification for relieving the practitioners of decolonisation of bearing moral responsibility for their behaviour is that they suffer from mental disorders because they are victims of oppression. The Algerian theorist of decolonisation, Franz Fanon, argued that revolutionary violence can have a positive therapeutic effect. He suggested that violence could serve as a ‘cleansing force’ which could help a colonial subject to be cured of his mental illness.¹

The representation of violence as a cleansing force reframes Hamas's display of barbaric cruelty as an understandable act of self-care. From this therapeutic perspective, violence loses its negative connotation. What is remarkable about this grotesque representation of therapeutic cleansing is that it runs in parallel with the dehumanisation of its victims. The indifference demonstrated towards those who were killed during the pogroms required that they should be perceived as abstract numbers rather than humans.

In the past, acts of people-cleansing were justified on the ground that their targets were sub- human. Today’s decolonisation inspired form of people-cleansing offers a therapeutic and medicalised version, whose justification lies in its promise to restore the mental well-being of the cleanser.

Nazi children’s book cast Jews intpo the role of sub-humans

The ideology of decolonisation explains the readiness with which so many academics so easily affirmed Hamas’ display of violence. It does not directly explain their shocking display of indifference to the loss of Jewish lives. Their reaction to the systematic killings of civilians – including children – can only be explained by their unique hatred towards Israelis. For some time now, it has been evident that in the eyes of the left, Israel has emerged as the symbol of evil. There are many reasons why Israel has become the target of so much hatred – one of which is that, quietly, over recent decades, antisemitism has embraced anti-Zionism as the main medium for expressing its hatred of Jews. It is the convergence of the ethos of therapeutic cleansing contained within the imperative of decolonisation and the new form of antisemitism that explains the ease with which Jews can acquire a dehumanised existence in the imagination of supposedly sensitive academics. Hence their shocking indifference to the loss of Jewish life.

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1. Fanon, F. 1963, The Wretched of the Earth, Farrington, C. (trans.), Grove Press, p.94.