“[Donor Countries] When are we going to understand That donor countries never donate anything for free. When are we going to understand That the only countries that donate Are those with the biggest role in destruction and ravage? That such countries only donate To shape societies and destroyed countries According to their whims and their desires… That their only aim is To keep the defeated the marginalized the disempowered and the impoverished In that state for as long as they can… When are we going to understand That the easiest way to identify and name the big criminals, Is to take a quick look at the list of donor countries? [Original poem published in Arabic on November 12, 2022 at ahewar.org]” WarPovertyDevelopmentExploitationThird WorldReconstructionDecolonizationArabic PoetryArabic LiteratureDecoloniality Author:Louis Yako
“When are we going to understand That donor countries never donate anything for free. ... When are we going to understand That the easiest way to identify and name the big criminals, Is to take a quick look at the list of donor countries?” WarPovertyEconomyViolenceDevelopmentDestructionThird WorldDecolonizationDecolonialityDonor Agencies Author:Louis Yako
“Language is a living being that grows and dies. It can be healthy, sick, nurtured, or malnourished. It all depends on those using it. Just as in you are what you eat, it is even more precise to say you are what you say, what you read, and what you write…language can turn into a prison or a set of wings that can help us fly. It all depends on how we use it to challenge, expand, and question every single word we utter or write. Language is the beginning and the end of what makes us human. The language we do remains alive way after we depart this world. Language is in our mothers’ first lullaby, the first time we tell someone ‘I love you’, and we often talk about the significance of someone’s last words before they died. Therefore, we cannot decolonize anything, least of all knowledge production, if we do not examine why we say the things we say and how we get to internalize and express the things that shape our lives. In fact, language is truly the only home that remains even in exile when all else is lost.” WritingWisdomLanguageCreativityColonialismPower Of WordsCreative WritingPower Of ThoughtsLanguages And CultureDecoloniality Author:Louis Yako
“A long time ago, I discovered that all I have been taught about the disconnect and the contradiction between the heart and the mind is false and misleading. I have learned to feel with my mind and think with my heart. I have learned that the two are not enemies, but Siamese twins – you can’t silence one without crushing the other, too.” LoveMindHeartKnowledgeCreativityObjectivitySubjectivityDecolonialityKnowledge ProductionLife Of The Mind Author:Louis Yako
“It is imperative to think of the task of decolonizing knowledge production as inseparable from every other aspect of our lives. It must be applied to the smallest and most hidden details of life, including but not limited to decolonizing romantic relationships (stop seeing beauty only in whiteness, blue eyes, and blond hair); decolonizing social connections (stop believing that there is more value in socially connecting and networking with powerful people who often happen to be Westerners); decolonizing the workplace (stop believing that expertise, management and power are embodied in Western individuals); decolonize our hobbies and activities (don’t do things or enjoy activities promoted and imposed on us by the West such as going to the beach or wasting one’s life watching TV or Netflix); decolonize travel destinations (shatter the illusion that nowhere is more worth seeing that Europe, or that traveling around Europe equals ‘seeing’ the world). We need to seek and discover new destinations, peoples, and cultures to travel to and learn about and from.” FreedomKnowledgeDiversityLiberationColonialismImperialismDecolonizationDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“I have always maintained that genuine intellectuals, by definition, refuse to play any institutional games at any stage of their career or intellectual life. They can’t pretend to unsee once they see.” WritingCreativityIntegrityCreative ProcessAcademiaIntellectualsAcademicsDecolonialityLife Of The Mind Author:Louis Yako
“Most people are never allowed to truly understand and respect the value of what they have to offer. Denying people self-value has for the longest time been an effective and vicious colonial wound that only produces submissive and self-sabotaging individuals.” Self EsteemSelf RealizationColonialismDecoloniality Author:Louis Yako
“The secret of producing meaningful and powerful knowledge is simple: be sincere. We must strive to be sincere in the way we approach any question, to be sincere in understanding our limits and blind spots, and to acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses at all times. I have learned that objectivity is impossible, but sincerity is not. It is the latter that brings us the closest possible to objectivity, and only through sincerity we can build bridges of reconciliation between the subjective and the objective.” WritingReasonKnowledgeCreativityCreative WritingObjectivitySubjectivityDecolonialityKnowledge ProductionLife Of The Mind Author:Louis Yako
“It is not a secret that most American and Western institutions and workplaces are very much like mountains: the higher one climbs, the whiter they become. But this whiteness at the top should not be seen as representative of all white people. We must distinguish between the white people who are as marginalized, silenced, and impoverished just like many other groups, and the specific ruling class that is white and that in fact also includes a big percentage of people who only started passing as white in recent history. The latter fact is crucial to understand why the small percentage of privileged whites at the top don’t mind the narratives that bracket all white people together, because in doing so, they continue to use all whites as human shields, while benefiting from framing everyone else as an enemy of white people at large. [From "Understanding the DEI Dismantlement” published on Counterpunch on January 31, 2025]” RacismWhite SupremacyDiversity And InclusionInstitutional RacismDivide And ConquerDecolonialityEquity And InclusionWhitness Author:Louis Yako
“This is exactly what it means to be caught in the colonial matrix of power. It is to be constantly suffering from lack of options, and constantly finding oneself in such a position that all the choices available have already been chosen for you. As a result, you are constantly trapped and unable to think or do otherwise. You are consistently deprived of the possibility of working with other possibilities.” KnowledgeColonialismImperialismCritical ThinkingCurriculumDecolonizationDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“I hope, wherever we are, we start to decolonize knowledge production through rekindling that deep and strong spark between the heart and the mind; through understanding that the path to objectivity goes through the painful corridors of subjectivity.” ThinkingCreative ProcessObjectivityCritical ThinkingCurriculumSubjectivityDecolonialityKnowledge ProductionLife Of The Mind Author:Louis Yako
“For me, to decolonize knowledge production does not mean to dismiss or never engage with Western knowledge. Rather, as many decolonial thinkers have repeatedly pointed out, it means that the terms of engagement must change. It means that we should not only engage with Western knowledge, but also deeply engage with knowledge from all over the world. It means that we must not use Western knowledge as a compass to measure the value of other forms of knowledge produced around the world…[T]o decolonize knowledge production is to reject and dismantle the Western hegemony of knowledge production; the Western control on what counts and what does not count as knowledge.” ThinkingKnowledgeCreativityColonialismCurriculumDecolonizationHegemonyDecoloniality Author:Louis Yako
“One of the most serious damages caused by the domination and hegemony of Western knowledge is that it makes you dismiss knowledge from every other part of the world – even your own – as less than or inferior. To decolonize, then, means to believe in our ability to be producers not just consumers of knowledge. In any walk of life, being just a consumer carries the danger of being deprived and impoverished as soon as the suppliers choose to block their production from you (be it knowledge, goods, mobility, and so on), which is precisely what happens when the West practices its favorite vicious game of sanctioning and cornering any country or group of people that dares to challenge its hegemony, or seek to change the rules of the game as we know it.” KnowledgeColonialismImperialismCurriculumDecolonizationHegemonyDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“If I could summarize everything I have learned from my praxis, it is this: Every human being can and must contribute to this world. I believe that contributing to the world in meaningful ways is non-negotiable. Yet at the same time, most people never realize their dreams of making meaningful contributions. Most people I have met in most places, including in the West itself, feel unfulfilled. They feel alienated from what they love and what they do, regardless of where they are or what they do. Fulfilment seems to be reserved solely for the few privileged elites primarily interested in dominating everything under the sun, including knowledge production.” PowerSelf RealizationFulfillmentColonialismImperialismCurriculumDecolonizationDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“In the area of Middle East Studies, you can always count on getting funding if your research is about minorities being treated horribly by ‘authoritarian regimes’ that the West want to topple, women oppressed and forced to wear the hijab, masculinity and femininity, gays are oppressed, refugees (provided that they are seeking safety in the West and running from a ‘dictator’ the West wants to topple), and so on. The pattern and the intentions are clear to a vigilant observer. What all such topics have in common is not that they are not important or need attention (they are so on both counts), but that their function is to maintain the West’s colonial and racist gaze on the rest of the world, which, in turn, serves the West’s hegemony and control over others. Furthermore, the single thread that connects the topics above is that they all practically open the door for Western intervention in the region under the pretext of ‘salvaging’ this cause or that group of people.” ResearchPhilanthropyImperialismFundingCurriculumHegemonyDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“While the imperial university continues to pay lip service to letting the subaltern speak, make no mistake: the subalterns have never been silent. They have always been thinking, writing, doing, and sensing. The problem has always been with the shortsightedness and racism of the colonizers and the imperial spaces where certain knowledge gets produced and promoted, while other knowledge gets silenced, mutilated, and buried under the rubble of indifference and arrogance.” KnowledgeColonialismImperialismCurriculumHegemonyDecolonialityKnowledge ProductionSubaltern Author:Louis Yako
“Equating obscurity with rigor, while at the same time equating a clear and creative language with lack thereof is one of the most serious ills one faces in Western academia. Neither of these equations are accurate. They are certainly not mutually exclusive. Often feeble minds with mediocre arguments hide behind obscure and convoluted language. I am sure most readers have seen enough examples of clear writing that is profound, deep, and able to convey very complex ideas clearly. We simply must be careful not to confuse complexity with rigor and profoundness, as drunk people mistaken their foolishness for wisdom. Nor should we dismiss a clear language simply because it is conveying the point without unnecessary complexity or beating around the bush.” WritingCreativityPowerCreative WritingCurriculumAcademiaHegemonyDecolonialityAcademic WritingKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“Another way, and this applies to all the areas covered under this section, is by practicing what I call intellectual boycotting, which I simply define as: boycotting any intellectual or writer canonized and imposed on us through Western academic institutions, media, or any other institution with money and power. Note that this doesn’t mean not to read them, but rather, to read and cite them (if necessary) with caution, and preferably with the intent of debunking or exposing their silences and blind spots rather than using them as a compass to evaluate other forms of knowledge.” KnowledgeResistanceImperialismAcademiaHegemonyIntellectualsAcademicsDecolonialityKnowledge ProductionBoycotting Author:Louis Yako
“I personally believe (and I know many readers will find this controversial) that we should never engage with any writers or scholars whose work is intentionally Euro-American centered and purposely ignores or refuses to engage with knowledge produced by thinkers outside the West. In other words, in knowledge production, reciprocate treatment (whether in engagement or citation) can be effective in challenging and changing the rules of the game.” ImperialismAcademiaHegemonyIntellectualsAcademicsDecolonialityKnowledge ProductionLife Of The MindSubalternBoycotting Author:Louis Yako
“It still shocks me to see countless academics who consider themselves intelligent, deep, or critical who constantly post and share articles from places like NYTimes, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and other such sources that, at the surface, appear to be intelligent, objective, and critical even of the power under which they operate (the Western elites), but if you dig deeper, you will discover that they are, one way or another, in perfect harmony with the imperial and colonial agenda of the West against the rest.” MediaPropagandaDeceitControlImperialismDecolonizationHegemonyDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“Decolonizing knowledge shouldn’t put us in the position of only producing knowledge as a reaction to Western knowledge. Our existence should not become one in which everything we produce is to justify our intellectual existence vis-à-vis the West. It means to produce what we see as important, fit, and nurturing to our communities, countries, and cultures, in separation from the West and its colonial and imperial agenda. This way, we will ensure to not waste our energy in simply reacting to the West to justify the value of our contribution to knowledge.” ThinkingWisdomCreativityColonialismImperialismDecolonizationHegemonyDecolonialitySubaltern Author:Louis Yako
“It is fair to argue that conservative and liberal media in the West are two sides of the same coin. I personally see CNN and Fox News as complementing not contradicting each other. The former gives viewers the false impression of being liberal and critical of the system, while the latter vehemently promotes and defends the existing militaristic, racist, and supremacist system in place. The former gives the world the false impression of freedom and democracy where everything and everyone can be criticized and held accountable (which is far from the truth), while the latter constantly agitates the public to ensure that the predominantly militaristic, capitalist, and racist system remains intact. The outside world thinks that America is so free to have a newspaper like the NYTimes, but they don’t realize that the system operates precisely as Fox News wants it to.” MediaDeceptionPropagandaImperialismPublic OpinionHegemonyMedia ManipulationDecoloniality Author:Louis Yako
“One of the biggest and most invisible – which in the long run becomes visible— wounds of coloniality is to make those at the receiving end of it question themselves; their physical, mental, and spiritual value and meaning; their ability to think, invent, innovate, and theorize. It happens so slowly, viciously, and unconsciously that many people suddenly see themselves at a point where the only expertise and knowledge they deem valuable come to them from the heart of Europe and North America. The colonized, slowly but surely, become at once the dagger and the wound to themselves. We come to such a place where we cooperate with the dagger against our own wounds. It takes a long time and reflection to realize that the wound (the colonized mind) will never stop bleeding so long as it is cooperating with the dagger (coloniality).” ThinkingWisdomCulturePowerColonialismImperialismDecolonizationHegemonyDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“For example, the colonized people have ‘regimes’ and ‘dictators’, whereas the West has ‘democracies’; the people in the ‘first world’ ‘tolerate’ cancer chemotherapy and ‘tolerate’ refugees or other religions and beliefs; if you go to work and settle in the West, you are an ‘immigrant’, but when Westerners come to plunder your country and get overpaid jobs (often despite mediocre qualifications), they are ‘expats’; and on goes the list of how we devalue ourselves and glorify our killers and plunderers without even realizing it simply through the language we use daily.” ColonialismExploitationImperialismThird WorldDecolonizationHegemonyDecolonialityPlundering Author:Louis Yako
“The role of the academy as a colonial and imperial space par excellence, which in the age globalization and corporatization of practically everything, has become the biggest enemy of knowledge and the decolonial option. In fact, the academy has become a space that instead of creating options, is doing everything in its power to deny most people options and keep itself as the only game in town.” WritingKnowledgeColonialismImperialismAcademiaCorporate CultureHegemonyAcademicsDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“I hope it is clear to anyone who has a shred of critical thinking skills that those who fund research projects in Western universities are anything but kind-hearted and generous, and that their intentions are anything but benevolent or intended solely for the objective advancement of knowledge. It is usually more about controlling who gets to produce certain knowledge about others, because nothing maintains the myth of exceptionalism like ensuring that knowledge only comes from the West, and particularly from selected or even appointed individuals.” WritingPowerResearchColonialismPhilanthropyImperialismAcademiaHegemonyDecolonialityKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“As a scholar of Iraqi origin, the West not only reduces me into a token or an informant to write about Iraq, but even more damaging than that, I have to write about Iraq on their terms, if I am to be acknowledged or given the ‘honor’ of getting a place in their ‘prestigious’ institutions and publications. I understood this game early in my intellectual life and chose to opt out (to delink) to save my mind and to preserve my value and self-respect. I did not see a point in reaching ‘prestigious’ institutions while losing self-respect, knowing that I am not really writing, thinking, and doing knowledge conscientiously on my own terms.” ColonialismExploitationImperialismDecolonizationAppropriationDecolonialityInformant Author:Louis Yako
“In certain cases, I learned that the biggest reason to read and engage with writers, activists, and artists is precisely because they are being dismissed, silenced, or ignored by the Western mainstream media. Likewise, very often, it is probably safe to refuse to pay too much attention to ideas, individuals, or groups promoted by the mainstream, because they are most likely (intentionally or unintentionally) serving a colonial or elitist agenda. In my experience, anyone promoted by mainstream media is almost always mediocre and their primary job is to promote mediocrity for public consumption.” PowerMediaInstitutionsPropagandaMediocrityColonialismPublic OpinionAppropriationDecoloniality Author:Louis Yako
“Another dangerous neoliberal word circulating everywhere that is worth zooming in on is the word ‘resilience’. On the surface, I think many people won’t object to the idea that it is good and beneficial for us to be resilient to withstand the difficulties and challenges of life. As a person who lived through the atrocities of wars and sanctions in Iraq, I’ve learnt that life is not about being happy or sad, not about laughing or crying, leaving or staying. Life is about endurance. Since most feelings, moods, and states of being are fleeting, endurance, for me, is the common denominator that helps me go through the darkest and most beautiful moments of life knowing that they are fleeing. In that sense, I believe it is good for us to master the art of resilience and endurance. Yet, how should we think about the meaning of ‘resilience’ when used by ruling classes that push for wars and occupations, and that contribute to producing millions of deaths and refugees to profit from plundering the planet? What does it mean when these same warmongers fund humanitarian organizations asking them to go to war-torn countries to teach people the value of ‘resilience’? What happens to the meaning of ‘resilience’ when they create frighteningly precarious economic structures, uncertain employment, and lay off people without accountability? All this while also asking us to be ‘resilient’… As such, we must not let the word ‘resilience’ circulate or get planted in the heads of our youth uncritically. Instead, we should raise questions about what it really means. Does it mean the same thing for a poor young man or woman from Ghana, Ecuador, Afghanistan vs a privileged member from the upper management of a U.S. corporation? Resilience towards what? What is the root of the challenges for which we are expected to be resilient? Does our resilience solve the cause or the root of the problem or does it maintain the status quo while we wait for the next disaster? Are individuals always to blame if their resilience doesn’t yield any results, or should we equally examine the social contract and the entire structure in which individuals live that might be designed in such a way that one’s resilience may not prevail no matter how much perseverance and sacrifice one demonstrates? There is no doubt that resilience, according to its neoliberal corporate meaning, is used in a way that places the sole responsibility of failure on the shoulders of individuals rather than equally holding accountable the structure in which these individuals exist, and the precarious circumstances that require work and commitment way beyond individual capabilities and resources. I find it more effective not to simply aspire to be resilient, but to distinguish between situations in which individual resilience can do, and those for which the depth, awareness, and work of an entire community or society is needed for any real and sustainable change to occur. But none of this can happen if we don’t first agree upon what each of us mean when we say ‘resilience,’ and if we have different definitions of what it means, then we should ask: how shall we merge and reconcile our definitions of the word so that we complement not undermine what we do individually and collectively as people. Resilience should not become a synonym for surrender. It is great to be resilient when facing a flood or an earthquake, but that is not the same when having to endure wars and economic crises caused by the ruling class and warmongers. [From “On the Great Resignation” published on CounterPunch on February 24, 2023]” CapitalismResilienceCritical ThinkingNeoliberalismLanguages And CultureCorporate GreedDecolonialityShock And AweDecolonizing The Mind Author:Louis Yako
“Arabs & Garbage" Strange is the Arab story with garbage! Who told them who taught them to toss garbage randomly wherever and however they please? When will the Arabs understand that placing garbage in its right place will solve half of their environmental and societal problems? And the other half of their problems will be solved, too, as soon as they stop tossing out their human gems forcing out their most talented and qualified human capital to serve foreigners in foreign lands? When will the Arabs stop getting rid of their best minds, replacing them with foreign garbage they glorify simply because the foreign individuals have white skin and blue eyes and claim to possess skills and expertise the Arabs can’t survive without… When will the Arabs understand that placing garbage in its right place -be it the garbage that govern their countries or the foreign garbage they import – will solve all their problems? [Original poem published in Arabic on February 20, 2024 at ahewar.org]” EnvironmentRacismClimate ChangeImmigrationColonialismExileDecolonizationInferiority ComplexDecolonialityGarbage Disposal Author:Louis Yako
“Reem’s life was one of a lost past, a present she rejected, and a future that is up in the air, like a plane traveling between continents.” LifeRealityTrappedExileRefugeesDisplacementDecolonialityThe Human Condition Book:Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile Source: Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile
“Colors" A long time ago our national IDs had the word “wheat” next to the “skin color” category… Some people’s colors were associated with olives and chocolate… Eye colors were described as honey and pistachio colored… There was also the chestnut-colored hair – all descriptions reminding us that we are gifts from the same source: Mother Nature’s womb! As for the racist West, it insists on reducing humanity and painting it with politicized colors of which only one color matters! As for other colors, they are made to be equivalent to nobodies and nothingness… They insist on turning this world into a snow-covered wasteland Into one blank page and no more… [Original poem published in Arabic on October 31, 2023 at ahewar.org]” HateCultureRacismColonialismImperialismDifferenceExclusionArabic PoetryDecoloniality Author:Louis Yako