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100 things to recolonise

January 7, 2022 By MsAfropolitan 3 Comments

The indigenous Waorani activist, Nemonte Nenquimo, wrote in an unforgettable Guardian
Op-ed titled This is my message to the western world – your civilisation is killing life on Earth,
that,


You forced your civilisation upon us and now look where we are: global
pandemic, climate crisis, species extinction and, driving it all, widespread
spiritual poverty. In all these years of taking, taking, taking from our lands, you
have not had the courage, or the curiosity, or the respect to get to know us. To
understand how we see, and think, and feel, and what we know about life on
this Earth.

Nemonte Nenquimo

Her words summarise colonisation, the process of occupying land without regard for existing
inhabitants and their economic, socio-cultural and psychological realities.

Decolonisation is, consequently, approached as a process of “reversing” colonisation.
The prefix “de” typically implies to undo or reverse an action: to decaffeinate, defrost,
deindustrialise, dethrone, demythologize, detoxify and so on, all connote a reversal, a
backpedalling.

Yet when it comes to colonisation, the innocuous-seeming prefix “de” cannot be taken
literally to mean undo or reverse, as neither is possible when it comes to colonisation.

What is possible is to reimagine and reconceptualise a way of being in the world. Nenquimo
ends her Op-ed by saying, “It is the early morning in the Amazon, just before first light: a time
that is meant for us to share our dreams, our most potent thoughts.”

In that spirit I share below some dreams and potent thoughts which involve reconceptualisation. Language that needs reclaiming. Things that we should recolonise.


A colony does not, after all, only connote a place occupied by violent and destructive forces.
A colony is also a place to grow vegetables, and flowers and fruit, as well as community and
ideas. These one hundred prompts are not intended as a procedural guideline but rather as a
reimagining.

100 Things to recolonise

  1. Gaze
  2. TLC
  3. The possibilities of language
  4. Sexual freedom
  5. Ageing ungracefully, or however the fuck one wants to age
  6. One’s own life
  7. Sensuousness
  8. Multitudes
  9. The Centre
  10. Your body
  11. New ways of thinking
  12. Movement
  13. Utopias
  14. Sustainability
  15. Islands of possibility
  16. Play
  17. Wildness
  18. Landscapes
  19. Frolicking
  20. The dissolution of patriarchy
  21. Landscapes of love
  22. Critical interventions
  23. Rage
  24. Leisure
  25. The space between illusion and deception
  26. Authenticity
  27. Honesty
  28. Non-heteronormative complementarity
  29. Poetry
  30. Rationality and reason
  31. An ethics of caring (thank you, Patricia Hill Collins)
  32. Circles
  33. Gratitude
  34. The expansion of science
  35. The beauty of eternity
  36. Honest relationships
  37. Deserved goodbyes
  38. Passionate conversation
  39. The enchantment of reading stories
  40. Humaneness
  41. Nature’s comradeship
  42. Nonconforming beauty
  43. Pausing
  44. Tabula rasas
  45. Breathing deeply
  46. Awareness of the cosmos
  47. Attentiveness
  48. Learning from children
  49. Learning from elders
  50. Conscientious objection
  51. Meaning-making
  52. Subjectivity
  53. Being present where you find yourself
  54. Expanding the mind
  55. Lovemaking
  56. Consciousness raising
  57. Political solidarity
  58. Uncommercialised feminism
  59. Uncertainty
  60. Cuddles
  61. Sexual stimuli that isn’t sexist
  62. Deep time
  63. Lost chronicles of women chroniclers
  64. Flowing with nature’s rhythms
  65. Shadows
  66. The difference between gluttony and appreciation
  67. The power of kindness
  68. Tolerance
  69. A tenderness toward one’s own eccentricities
  70. Discernment of public opinion
  71. Lightness
  72. Unwritten pages
  73. Open-mindedness
  74. A mind and body that resists becoming a machine
  75. Stepping out of the familiar
  76. Self-awareness
  77. Fearlessness
  78. The lessons of grief
  79. A playful attitude
  80. The realisation of the stark reality of the climate emergency
  81. Inventing new gods
  82. Dancing from the soul
  83. Intellectual agility
  84. Creating hope
  85. Ending denialism
  86. Entertainment that isn’t oppressive or capitalist
  87. Dialogue
  88. New archetypes
  89. Banter
  90. Non-dogmatic prayer
  91. Existential lust
  92. Acts of generosity
  93. Borderlessness
  94. Unhierarchical relationships
  95. Nonpatriarchal kinship
  96. Informed inventiveness
  97. Stillness
  98. Opening doors of opportunity
  99. Disturbing claims of inherent objectivity
  100. Making a place for imagination.

This piece was originally published in We Should All Be Dreaming: Words Make Worlds by Sonya Lindfors and Maryan Abdulkarim commissioned in the frame of A I S T I T / coming to our senses contemporary art program 

Image is by Armando Drechsler

Filed Under: Decolonisation, feminism, Sensuous Knowledge Tagged With: feminism, Nemonte Nenquimo

Comments

  1. Adika says

    January 14, 2022 at 9:56 am

    Thank you Minna for another insightful piece to start the year. It is always invigorating to think afresh and expand our possibilities and reconfigure our thought patterns. I am however stuck at the location of our being ‘defenseless’. After all, the history of European colonization of the world has been the history of armed men forcefully taking over territories by virtue of superior technology, germ warfare and a complacent and colluding “patriarchy” in the native territories. This is followed up by an indoctrination regime of religion and secular education to truly cultivate a dominating hegemony.

    Why has patriarchy existed? Well partly to serve as “protection” to the communities that were invaded. (And to be the invaders of other communities in a quest for resources and well being, for one’s progeny). What were they protecting? Livestock, Ancestral worship zones, their women and children, etc. (Obviously this is in general; there were women protectors in some societies).
    I hope you are aware, We are still unable to do this. By we I mean the formerly colonized. Now a few have advanced to the point where they can say, if you attack me I will hurt you or wound you, but almost none who have recovered to the point where they can assure the former colonizer they will vanquish them if they attack. However this is approaching for some cultures, it is within the horizon.

    So if we begin to “recolonize” anew along the lines you have outlined, what is there to prevent the bully from tearing down the sand castles erected? I wonder if feminists have a really difficult time coming to terms with the fundamental brutality of natural law and man’s quest for dominion on earth. If women figure out how to tame this brutality (especially sans men – who have been traditionally sacrificed for the comfort of women in every culture and era) then maybe true “equality” will be ushered in. The idea of creating soft, declawed/neutered males, to “detoxify” their masculinity has not worked. It has created even more miserable women. So how will you go about eradicating the need to defend?

    Reply
  2. Nto says

    February 21, 2022 at 10:08 am

    Who is an African, and what is it to be an African? These are the questions that strike me whenever I seriously think about my identity as an African. I look at myself, and other Africans around me, and I think, indeed we’re Africans — it is in our skin, our languages, and in the vestiges of our culture and heritage that hold for dear life despite the unending assault from an increasingly globalized world. But then I take a closer look and realize, we’re also European, and an American, and Indian, and perhaps Chinese too. Our identity has and continues to be sculpted by outside cultures far more significantly than we’re able to reclaim, reinvigorate and reintegrate our forgotten, sidelined cultures, that are indeed, more in tune with our natures both as individuals and the lands we inhabit. That’s the tragedy of “African-ness” — that no matter how we try to reclaim this essential part of our nature, our immediate situation doesn’t offer much incentive to give our full attention to this task. Instead, the more pressing needs of our necessity, our survival and immediate dignity, have conspired to ensure that much of the recolonisation you rightly detail here, is always sitting on the back burner, and thus, consigned to playing catch up while each passing day the world grows ever smaller. I suppose in this sense, recolonisation is a calling first and foremost for the individual soul, and not the multitude.

    Reply
  3. Titilayo Adeleke says

    March 23, 2022 at 2:03 am

    Wow . I had to relearn

    Reply

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Feminism. Africa. Popular Culture. Social Criticism.

Hi! I'm Minna Salami, I'm a Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish writer and social critic, and the founder of the multiple award-winning blog, MsAfropolitan, which connects feminism with critical reflections on contemporary culture from an Africa-centred perspective. As a lecturer and keynote speaker, I have spoken at over 300 universities, cultural events and conferences, on five continents. I am the author of "Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone - a collection of thought provoking essays that explore questions central to how we see ourselves, our history, and our world." (Harper Collins US) Read full bio

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