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When Barbarians Claim Enlightenment …
Part One: Waking Up to Liberalism’s Big White Lies
As the Earth’s living systems and People of Color around the globe are getting the life squeezed out of us by the compulsively greedy, all-grabbing tentacles of white domination, constantly inventing demonic weapons of mass intimidation and destruction, it can be easy to lose perspective and forget there were civilisations that existed for many more centuries than the Euro-American. These ancient civilisations, thousands of years old, located in Africa, China, India, and South and North America were barely even hinted at, in the White-centering narrative that passed for my education in the U.K, from primary to postgraduate. What was the role of education in say, India or the Persianate civilisation and what is the role of education in the Western Empire? Here, in Part One, I will share two personal experiences as a child and as a young adult of first generation migrants to the U.K. Part 2 of this series will explore the sensibilities and goals of education in India and what Professor Mana Kia terms the ‘Persianate region’ that held sway across a vast region from the Balkans to Bombay for some six centuries longer therefore than the Euro-American Empire. Part 3 will explore the implications for young people deciding whether to spend colossal amounts of money on an education in the West, or stay home/ go to alternative places of…
