my name is Dr Peter bagoan and today I'm here with Dr Bruce Gilly who's a world-renowned expert in colonialism and decolonization he'll be helping us unpack these terms and explaining the basics to us so colonization is a kind of way of of of of tutelage or kind of mentoring programmed way to think of it where an established state establish its rule in an area where there's not an established state with the aim to help them develop the foundations to become a self-governing people the shift from decolonization as the Fulfillment of liberal Society to decolonization as
the abandonment of liberal Society came about because of the rise of identity politics and what identity politics did was it rejected the fundamental premise of a free liberal society which is that people are all equal and all created with the same stuff however you explain that and so when people started to say let's decolonize something what they meant is we're going to give up on that equality of citizens and the equality of reasoning and approaches that we assume is the fundamental stuff of a Democratic Society and people started to think that was a good idea
because well if people are fundamentally different if a black person is just not the same as a white person probably not able to do the things a white person can do then you wouldn't want a black person to be held to the same standards of mathematical or scientific Excellence as a white person indeed you'd probably want to water it down a little so decolonize was a kind of form of segregation it was a kind of soft bigotry actually suggesting that some people couldn't measure up to the high standards of liberal society and needed to have
a whole different cultural and normative system to govern their behavior in whatever realm of life that was so people who made those assumptions about fundamental incompatibility of human beings based on their skin color or based on their language were the people who thought decolonization would be a great idea because suddenly everyone would live in their own parallel universe and these parallel universes would be culturally sensitive what Decon ization does to society is fragments it into different mutually incompatible and mutually intolerant groups sometimes we use this word balkanization it comes from the Balkans which is a
part of Southeastern Europe and in that part of the world each of the different groups was governed by different sets of norms none of them had the same legal system none of them used the same approaches to marriage none of them used the same approaches to science and that kind of society was fundamentally prone to collapse as happened in the society that had that form of organization formerly known as the Yugoslav Republic and now a kind of mess of competing groups who never had to deal with the need for a shared language a shared set
of assumptions about how to organize Society liberal society which is at the heart I think of the western tradition means a social organization or a set of assumptions about how Society operates that assumes a couple of things first of all human beings are all created equal uh this was actually written into our American founding documents but I think it is a fundamental aspect of the liberal Heritage the equality of citizens secondly that the purposes and aims of those citizens are for them to decide themselves so a liberal Society secondly requires a wide degree of freedoms
and there can't be an assumption about what certain people need stipulated by philosophers working in libraries or people with social justice agendas that that what Justice requires or what human need is to be determined by them and them alone and the only way to allow them to realize that is through an extensive provision of freedoms so liberal Society is two things an assumption of human equality and a provision of wide freedoms so that humans can pursue their own ends well originally when people said let's decolonize what they meant was let's fulfill the aims of becoming
autonomous and self-governing and free and everyone was on board with that indeed the American decolonization was a perfect example of that um and that was the program all along from the standpoint of Britain the timing was different but decolonization meant uh time to become self-governing using these institutions and these rules we've inherited from the uh the British Empire in the case of the United States and to decolonize meant to become fully British in the sense of becoming a democratic and liberal people so when people started to talk about decolonizing other things what they really meant
was letting those other spheres of life whether it's education or business or culture become authentic self-governing free and uh and and Democratic in their own sense in their own sphere that was a program that everyone was on board with uh and that's the way that we thought of decolonization until recently so the obvious answer to that is decolonization was when colonization worked uh colonization had as part of its program decolonization colonization was a way to help other peoples who had not established the basics of government to create a government and eventually be self-governing and independent
so the original meaning of decolonization was simply the Fulfillment of the colonial aims which was to create independent self-governing uh peoples out of places that didn't have those foundations in the past well that word used to be something that said we're going to use uh the idea of being uh self-governing we're going to make our own choice es we're going to have an authentic kind of democratic culture of making decisions that was okay but that word doesn't mean that anymore so if a parent hears someone in power say we're going to decolonize what they really
mean now is we're going to give up on giving everyone a fair voice we're going to give up on all these assumptions about a free society that we've worked in because what we really want to do is say we have a special way of making decisions and it no longer involves Freedom it no longer involves equality of all the voices it's going to be something else we're going to use decolonize as the word to describe what we're doing but it's basically what we're doing is we're rejecting freedom and we're rejecting democracy I think a a
a a decolonized society uh would look a lot like the Contemporary Academy is starting to look like what Contemporary American colleges are starting to look like like what they're starting to do in American universities and colleges is create segregated systems segregated dorms segregated graduation ceremonies segregated study programs segregated student groups Affinity groups uh even segregated sports teams and that's all being done in the name of decolonization so let's let's get the white man out of the way of the non-white people in society and let's let them rule themselves and govern themselves according to Norms that
are going to be different what what those Norms are is unclear and that then creates basically a campus of different identity groups who interact in different systems and ways now the promise of that supposedly is that this makes these people in nonwhite societies feel more safe it makes them more empowered they're less likely to suffer from uh microaggressions and whatnot that's the promise but I think the Peril which we've seen in a lot of these places is undermines their ability to function outside of their own cultural sphere and in a Multicultural Society that's the kiss
of death again we could come back to where this word came from originally where this word came from originally was this was part of the European tradition this was part of the western liberal tradition to decolonize meant to reach the final stage of being a self-governing free and Democratic people in whatever sphere of activity you're engaged in decolonized later became the opposite a rejection of the western tradition a rejection of Western liberal assumptions in the case of science those Western liberal assumptions had to do with the need for a shared Universal justification the use of
the scientific method the acceptance of meritocracy of best practice of a colorblind approach to knowledge claims that judged those knowledge claims only on their inherent value not on who was making them decolonized now means we're going to get rid of all that we're going to make decisions on things like math or education or the judicial system not based on those shared assumptions those shared arguments but we're going to say we're going to look at the color of your skin we're going to look at your cultural background and each person's going to be held to a
different standard a different set of norms because those old Norms we used to hold to Universal shared values that's now going to be called European eurocentric and we're going to decolonize that and throw certain people to the Ws or the arbitrary rule of certain decolonial Alternatives which may be traditional approaches from indigenous Traditions people who are bringing in uh certain claims about black American traditions basically we're throwing people out of liberal Society in the name of decolonization I think any informed citizen whether it's at a school board meeting whether it's in a corporate retreat whether
it's in a government agency get together and here's one of their leaders saying we're going to decolonize our organization I think the first thing to do is try and capture some of the things that are said allow it to be recorded make sure that's okay but first of all let's get this on the record let's make sure that this is all transparent so these terms are not being used in secret to bring about changes that no one agrees with secondly the most important thing is push on a definition of what that means ask the person
what do you mean by that can you give me an example can you tell me specifically how that will make things different in the future compared to the way we're doing things now because the problem with decolonize is when you push through and you understand what's being done you will see very quickly that this involves a degradation of the systems we're used to that assume excellence and freedom and Merit are the standards by which any organization should judge itself but the only way to get to that is to keep pushing them ask for an example
how can this work in our math class what's this going to mean when we make corporate targets how is this going to affect how we interact with citizens as an agency get those specifics because once you get to the specifics then you'll be able to see what the problems with this agenda are I think the first thing to always say to your child is don't just think that the teachers in the school always know what they're talking about when they're talking off subject and the second thing you can do is find some resources for them
about colonialism about Colonial history Regner has for example regnar publishing has a great series called Politically Incorrect guides there's a politically incorrect Guide to the British EMP Empire there's a politically incorrect Guide to the American Revolution and to American history these are great resources very simple to read that will provide your child with an alternative source of information that they're not getting at school thirdly remind your child that school is not the only place where they learn there's also access to museums there's access to Great films there's lots of books to read there's conversations they
can have help them to be more curious about their own education than what their teachers are trying to permit them to have and in that sense you're not only helping to be more educated on colonialism but you're also generating a stronger more learning oriented individual as well I think people need to realize that they're being subject to these terms because the people in power assume that when they use a fancy piece of jargon or a fancy word that people will just be quiet and often that works indeed that's why these fancy words get used so
the only way to puncture through that is to keep asking for specifics and not agreeing to changes just because someone with a fancy word seems to have authority and no one's saying anything if you think there's a problem with what you're hearing chances are everyone else in the room thinks there's a problem as well so be courageous and polite and ask for clarification and get to the bottom of it I uh applied to have a course added to our political science curriculum in conservative political thought because it is one of the major traditions in political
philosophy and it was missing on our curriculum most universities including UC Berkeley teach conservative political thought it's a standard aspect of Political Science teaching it's like having Shakespeare on the English cre culum although that's not so standard anymore but certainly we think of this uh as a normal part of political philosophy I applied to have that course made permanent because I had taught it and our University rejected that course arguing that teaching conservative political thought would not Advance the University's diversity equity and inclusion objectives and so the course was banned and again the fact that
the university didn't want our students exposed to ideas that the woke left didn't like was so so emblematic or so much of an indication of how the left has changed it used to embrace debate it used to think debate was critical and now it thinks debate is dangerous
