Newsletter September 2016

The University of California Berkeley has taken the unprecedented step in curtailing academic freedom by suspending a student-led course
“Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis” under pressure of political lobbyists from the Jewish community. The Decolonial International Network has sent a letter to the Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, Executive Dean of Letters and Sciences Carla Hesse to protest this decision. We call upon individuals and organizations in our network to sent a similar mail to UC Berkeley: chancellor@berkeley.edu.

Decolonial International Network
September 2016. Editor Sandew Hira: sandew.hira@iisr.nl
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Decolonial Theory


Asma Lamrabet on Islamic Liberation Theology
Asma Lamrabet is a Islamic liberation theologist from Morocco who lectures at the Granada Summer School on Islamic Liberation Theology. DIN interviewed her about her work on Islamic feminism.
Click here to read the interview.


Hatem Bazian: a new inquisition
“Today’s Europe is in the middle of an identity crisis, and questions who belongs to it and who should be kept out,” writes Hatem Bazian. He invokes the memories of the Spanish inquisition.
“The Inquisition was a repressive regulatory structure that governed Muslim and Jewish bodies and spaces, with limits imposed on clothing, food, hygiene and movement,” says Hatem. “The Islamophobia industry’s expected response to drawing similarities between the Inquisition and what is occurring today would be rejection, and possibly to consider it faulty because Europe is facing Muslim terrorist and security threats.”
But Hatem explains the reason for the comparison: “The Inquisition witnessed the construction of a distinct European identity centring on whiteness and coupled with Christianity, which meant casting out the other – the Jew and Muslim – to arrive at “purity of race” or “pure to the source” epistemic.”
Read more.


Sandew Hira: a decolonial critique of intersectionality
Many progressive groups and academics carry the narrative of intersectionality in their work and activism. Intersectionality calls for the recognition of multiple forms of oppression and exploitation and the need for solidarity. These are ideas that should be supported by everybody. So where does the need come from to criticize the concept of intersectionality from a decolonial perspective?
Sandew Hira explains both the need and the nature of the critique.
Read more.


Projects


IHRC: Environment of Hate – The New Normal for Muslims in the UK
IHRC launched its second UK-wide study, ‘Environment of Hate: The New Normal for Muslims in the UK’. It is an indispensable work which draws on rigorous survey findings and academic studies to address the candid realities of Muslims in Britain based on thoughts and experiences, the normalisation of Islamophobic rhetoric and increasing anti-Muslim hate crime.
The study will be presented at a meeting in the European parliament on September 27 2016 in Brussels.
The study is relevant for the rest of Europe where the rise of the police state creates the normalization of an environment of hate.
Read more.


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