The DIN Foundation has developed a policy for the future that will focus on the following topics:

• Develop decolonial theory as an instrument of change, and not only as an instrument of critique.
• Develop and educational infrastructure for decolonial education.
• Develop relations with a global network, and not limited to Europe.
• Develop relations not only with academics and activists, but also with anti-imperialist movements with state power (institutions, networks in governments).

The Decolonial History App (DHA) is one of the projects that follows from this policy. It will enable us to reach tens of thousands if not millions of people (especially young people) with an popular educational instrument: the decolonial history app.

The DHA is a free mobile app that will be available in Google playstore and Apple store. It will be known as the decolonial history app and will be a product of the DIN Foundation.

The key features of the app are:

• When you open the app, you see the date of today and a list of events that happened x year ago on this day or biographical information of people (born or died that day, went to prison or was released etc).
• Click on the event or bio and you get information in 255 characters of what happened.
• When an item is connected to other items via a timeline, then the timeline is shows in this screen.
• An event description can be linked to sources: hyperlinks, videos, literature suggestions.
• It also links to current events to commemoration an event or person.
• The information can be presented in any language that is available in a translation software (Google Translate or DeepL Translate). A user can select a language in the app and the information is show via translation software in the chosen language, including non-European languages such as Chinese, Arabic, Japanese or Hindi.
• There is a search function to search in keywords and description of events and bio’s.
• There is game function for games like quizzes.

The app is targeting the following groups:

• All people in the world who are interested in a decolonial view of history. Google gives 10 million hits with the keyword “Decolonize”. This is an active keyword meaning that there is some activity going on and somebody is involved. There is a huge decolonial movement. With this app The DIN Foundation can tap into these target group.
• Young people from secondary school onwards up to the university who can use the app when they have to study the subject of history.
• People who are engaged in social and political discussions and want to support their argument with historical information.

Here is a beta version of the app.

DIN wants to get researchers across the world involved in filling the app. Anyone who is interested in the app can start a conversation with DIN. Send an email to info@din.today and DIN will make an appointment for the conversation.

There is a new source of information about the Cuban revolution we should be all aware off: https://www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com/. Their website states: “The media landscape in Cuba is bleak. State-run outlets churn out propaganda while US-based journalism reinforces narratives propagated in Miami and DC. Some foreign media organizations try to find an “unbiased” happy medium, but the result is often false balance that obscures the context necessary to understand a country where every aspect of life is shaped by six decades of economic war waged by the world’s most powerful government.”

Their aim: “Through hard-hitting journalism and stunning cinematography we inform and inspire, opening eyes and hearts to a country with a unique past and a wide-open future.”

Watch their videos on the War on Cuba:

Season 1

https://youtu.be/z1mknIkBGUA Part 1 – 12 minutes

https://youtu.be/61hYxh9x61Y Part 2 – 12 minutes

https://youtu.be/_pNBp0n08ak Part 3 – 16 minutes

Season 2

https://youtu.be/CfPq6uUO7Og Part 4 – 21 minutes

https://youtu.be/WavOrU-g2E4 Part 5 – 21 minutes

https://youtu.be/uRxtVGeolu0 Part 6 – 22 minutes

What happens when a decolonial thinker meets decolonial dancers, when decolonial pholosophy meets decolonial arts….. it blows your mind away!

Decolonizing The Mind is a philosophy of liberation. Decolonial arts transforms entertainment in education and empowerment. Sandew Hira, secretary of the DIN Foundation combines a lecture on decolonial theory with dances performances of the Amenti Theatre Company in a lecture/dance combination.

This lecture/dance is an experiment in the combination of philosophy and art. Is it possible for dancers to teach decolonial philosophy with movement and expression from the body? It is possible for a decolonial thinker to have a conversation with dancers in their respective languages?

Amenti Theatre Company and Sandew Hira will engage in a unique artistic experiment that might open the door in the future for merging art with philosophy.

How can art contribute to decolonizing the mind? Immersing the spectator with feelings, rather than intellectual words. A way to empathize and create a connection. Amenti invites Sandew Hira this evening. Sandew Hira, penname for Dew Baboeram, is a historian and writer who published 20 books. Currently, he is writing a book about decolonizing the mind.

During this evening we will go into a conversation with Sandew, through words and dance. We invite you to attend this evening to learn but also discuss topics related to the decolonizing of the mind. During our ‘conversation’ there is room for questions and remarks. We would like to make this evening interactive, knowledgeable and magical.

Date: Friday 26 November 2021

Start: 19.00 – 22.00 hr.

Location: ‘s-Gravendijkwal 58, 3014 EE Rotterdam

Entree: € 7,50

Order your ticket here: https://www.eversports.nl/e/event/xgcpqz4Ti

DIN has reported about the case of Sheikh Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky and his wife Maillimah Zeenah who were arrested in 2015 after the Nigerian army massacred almost 400 Muslims in Zaria, Kaduna State. On July 28, 2021, Justice Gideon Kurada of the Kaduna State High Court discharged and acquitted them of culpable homicide, and unlawful assembly, among other criminal charges for which they have been standing trial. In his first interview with Press TV he goes into this ordeal. See the interview here: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1mnxedyVoLAJX?s=08.

Ibraheem Yaqoub El-Zakzaky and his wife Maillimah Zeenah were arrested in 2015 after the Nigerian army massacred almost 400 Muslims in Zaria, Kaduna State. Sheikh al-Zakzaky, a leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, was injured and arrested along with his wife. The couple have nine children; six of them were murdered by the state. They were kept in state detention since 2015.

On 2 December 2016, they were ordered to be released from Department of State Services detention into police custody within 45 days. The judge announced that the justification of “holding him for his own protection” is not sufficient. He also ordered the state to pay $164,052 in compensation. The state refused to let them go.

In 2019, a court in Kaduna state granted him and his wife bail to seek treatment abroad but they returned from India after 3 days because of unfair treatment and restrictions by security services. Finally on July 28, 2021, Justice Gideon Kurada of the Kaduna State High Court discharged and acquitted them of culpable homicide, and unlawful assembly, among other criminal charges for which they have been standing trial since December 2018.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), a founding member of the Decolonial International Network Foundation, has been in de forefront of the campaign to free Zakzaky and Zeenah. Follow the campaign here.

From Januari 10-14, 2022, the Center of Study and Investigation for Decolonial Dialogues will organize an online international decolonial school: the South-South Decolonial Dialogues. The school aims to open a dialogue among different decolonial thinkers of the Global South. The school’s goal is to present different decolonial perspectives produced from the body-politics and geo-politics of knowledge of liberation struggles in the Global South. For this purpose, we have a group of decolonial intellectual/activists from different regions of the world that will participate as faculty of the decolonial school. They will cover different aspects of decoloniality with emphasis on their regional location.

Affiliated Faculty Members include: Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Houria Bouteldja, Ramón Grosfoguel, Faith Mkwesha, Sandew Hira, Ashraf Kunnummal, Dina Odessy.

Application: http://southsouthdialogues.dialogoglobal.com/

About the Center

Center of Study and Investigation for Decolonial Dialogues is a non-profit and non-governmental organization promoting research, knowledge-making, education (through seminars, workshops, exhibits, round-tables discussions, publications and video-making) and public policy to invent and work towards non-competitive horizons of life, of socio-economic organization and international relations. Non-profit and non-governmental organizations emerge from within civil and political society to address issues that are not supported or attended to by government and corporations. Their function is crucial in building futures that are beyond the regulations of States or the needs of the Corporations. In order for civil and political society to become relevant actors in social transformation and pointing out the limits of corporate values and state regulation, it is necessary to create institutions of knowledge-making not at the service of the state or corporations, but to the benefit of the civil society.

Prof. Grosfoguel from the University of California Berkeley explains how the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union was fought in hot wars outside these countries. After the demise of the USSR there was a debate in the Pentagon on who the new enemy was. The debate ended with Samuel Huntington book on the Clash of Civilizations. See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG5gBOIwSyo.