“[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
“What does it mean when language becomes the only 'home' to inhabit when all else is lost for displaced and exiled writers (and people)?” WritingWarHomeLanguageResistanceWritersExileDecolonization 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
“It is important to dedicate some space to discuss what one might call the hoax of diversity in the American workplaces, which entails putting ‘diverse’ faces of often low-paid employees at the forefront of most businesses to project the false impression that workplaces are diverse. It is pure tokenism.” DiversityRacismCorruptionPropagandaIntegrationMulticulturalismDecolonizationTokenism Author:Louis Yako
“Iraq has been forgotten. Even worse, or perhaps precisely because of this forgetting, many new Iraqs have been destroyed and added to the imperial list of oppression and domination since 2003. But, how can Iraq be forgotten? Isn’t forgetting it precisely the reason why many other Iraqs are being created around us without having enough people take notice? Are there still some naïve people out there who believe that what happened there will not happen here, albeit in a different shape or form? Are there any naïve people who believe that humanity can go on surviving with this brutal war machine? Are there still naïve people who divide our planet into 'here' and 'there'?” WarIraqPropagandaMiddle EastForgettingIraq WarRememberingDecolonizationMiddle East Conflict Author:Louis Yako
“(Donor Countries) When are we going to understand that donor countries never give anything for free? When are we going to realize that only those with the largest role in destruction offer themselves as benefactors? They donate merely to reshape societies and ravaged lands according to their whims and desires… Their sole aim is to keep the defeated, the marginalized, the disempowered, and the impoverished in that state for as long as possible… When are we going to see that the quickest way to name the world’s greatest criminals is simply to scan the list of donor countries? November 12, 2022” WarDevelopmentExploitationImperialismThird WorldRefugeesReconstructionDecolonizationArabic PoetryPlundering Book:سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere] Source: سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]
“If it is true that education is the main foundation of any society, it follows that the state of race in today’s America mirrors its education system. Therefore, America’s education needs serious examination and even remaking. It is a system that uses Blacks (and other marginalized people) as mere tokens. You see a meager quota of Black people (as employees or students) here and there to give the false impression of equity.” EducationRacismInequalityEquityRacism In AmericaEducational SystemDecolonizationTokenism Author:Louis Yako
“The world is expected to take it for granted than an American expat who studied at any 'reputable' American academic institution is smart, well trained, and competent to do a job anywhere around the globe, but the opposite is never true for newcomers in the U.S.” EducationInjusticeDiscriminationInequalityArroganceColonialismDecolonizationWorkplace PoliticsWorkplace Bias Author:Louis Yako
“[F]or most jobs that are not slavery conditions, American employers expect newcomers, if fortunate enough to be considered, to have a strong command of the English language. Yet, for Western expats in other countries, the colonially written job posts always make it clear that speaking the language of that country is ‘a plus, but not required.’ In brief, American education and qualifications are treated as sacred, while those acquired elsewhere are untrustworthy and must be proven all over again.” EducationInjusticeDiscriminationInequalityArroganceColonialismDecolonizationWorkplace Bias Author:Louis Yako
“If it is true that education is the main foundation of any society, it follows that the state of race in today’s America mirrors its education system.” EducationRacismInequalityEquityDiversity And InclusionEducational SystemDecolonization Author:Louis Yako
“[W]e need to acknowledge that violence begets violence. There are no violent people who were not first violated.” PowerViolenceRacismInjusticeOppressionInequalityColonialismDecolonization Author:Louis Yako
“Finally, the phrase ‘first world problems’ is built on the misleading assumption that every single individual in the first world is living in better conditions than those in the other worlds. And if so, this totally ignores the fact that the first world, too, is filled with violence, suicide, mental issues, homelessness, death, and every other problem we see in the rest of world. In this sense, the phrase ‘first world problems’ does not even do justice to millions of people suffering in the first world itself. The phrase assumes that people in the second or the third worlds are miserable and incapable of having economic, social, or even political fulfilment.” CultureLanguagePowerColonialismImperialismDecolonizationFirst WorldFirst World Problems 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
“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
“Hiba S. is one of the pioneer Iraqi women academics and authors in the field of media and journalism, currently exiled in Amman. During a visit to her office in summer 2014, Hiba shared that the early days of the occupation in 2003 were the most difficult she had ever experienced. She recollected: ‘I was sitting in my garden smoking when I suddenly saw a huge American tank driving through the street. I saw a Black soldier on the top of the tank. He looked at me and did the victory sign with his fingers. Had I had a pistol in my hand, I would have immediately shot myself in the head right then and there. The pain I felt upon seeing that image is indescribable. I felt as though all the years we had spent building our country, educating our students to make them better humans were gone with the wind.’ Hiba’s description carries strong feelings of loss, defeat, and humiliation. Also significant in her narrative is that the first American soldier she encountered in post-invasion Iraq was a Black soldier making the victory sign. This is perhaps one of the most ironic and paradoxical images of the occupation. A Black soldier from a historically and consistently oppressed group in American society, who, one might imagine had no choice but to join the military, coming to Iraq and making the victory sign to a humiliated Iraqi academic whose country was ravaged by war. In a way, this image is worthy of a long pause. It is an encounter of two oppressed and defeated groups of people—Iraqis and African Americans meeting as enemies in a warzone. But, if one digs deeper, are these people really 'enemies' or allies struggling against the same oppressors? Do the real enemies ever come to the battlefield? Or do they hide behind closed doors planning wars and invasions while sending other 'oppressed' and 'diverse' faces to the battlefield to fight wars on their behalf? Hiba then recalled the early months of the occupation at the University of Baghdad where she taught. She noted that the first thing the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) tried to do was to change the curriculum Iraqi academics had designed, taught, and improved over the decades. While the Americans succeeded in doing this at the primary and high school levels, Hiba believed that they did not succeed as much at the university level. Iraqi professors knew better than to allow the 'Americanization of the curriculum' to take place. 'We knew the materials we were teaching were excellent even compared to international standards,' she said. 'They [the occupiers] tried to immediately inject subjects like "democracy" and "human rights" as if we Iraqis didn’t know what these concepts meant.' It is clear from Hiba’s testimony, also articulated by several other interviewees, that the Iraqi education system was one of the occupying forces’ earliest targets in their desire to reshape and restructure Iraqi society and peoples’ collective consciousness.” WarColonialismImperialismIraq WarHigher EducationDecolonizationHegemonyMiddle East ConflictMiddle Eastern Studies Book:Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile Source: Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile
“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
“Second…decolonizing is about reeducating ourselves in ways that allow us to reconnect with our own souls, minds, and bodies. To rebuild all that has been damaged by the colonial wounds and the disciplinary institutions we dealt with throughout our lives. It is indeed about reeducating ourselves in such ways that we realize our full potential to contribute to our communities and to the wider world. We must learn (or relearn) how to harvest the fruit of knowledge from every part of the world, not just the West.” WisdomKnowledgeSelf WorthColonialismImperialismDecolonizationHegemonyDecolonial Option 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
“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
“Another painful irony is that, in exile, many refugees strive to stay alive, while watching an absurd show of fraud politicians, experts, pundits, academics, and journalists on the empire’s payroll fighting about them merely to serve their own careers and fortunes. Some promise to imprison refugees, some promise to build walls to stop their influx, some promise to deny them any human rights, others promise to publicly shame and attack them. Many ask refugees to ‘fuck off and go back to their countries,’ forgetting that their empire left nothing to go back to. Yet, conveniently, nobody promises to stop waging wars against refugees. Nobody promises to stop destroying and economically exploiting the places from which refugees escaped. They discuss everything except the actual solution to the refugee crisis, which is simple: stop waging wars of any sort against other people! Everyone loves hearing themselves talking about the refugee crisis, but almost never talking with refugees in meaningful and honest ways. If they talk with them, it is only to depict them as victims or villains in the unjust courts of the empire’s arrogance. They defend them or hate them, depending on the direction in which they wish to advance their fortunes and careers. It all depends on what they need to put on their CVs at any given time or in any given situation. The last piece of this absurd game is that the careers of every self-appointed mouthpiece for refugees are almost always dependent on paychecks paid by those who directly or indirectly run the military-industrial-complex, the biggest producer of refugees. This last piece is precisely what makes breaking the vicious cycle almost impossible. And such continues the game, all while refugees are sitting and watching in bitter silence.” WarViolencePropagandaColonialismImperialismRefugeesDecolonizationMilitary Industrial ComplexMiddle East Conflict Author:Louis Yako
“Rather than considering the Iraqi regime solely responsible for these sanctions, many exiled and displaced academics believe that the UN bears the main ethical and human responsibility for the damage the embargo caused for Iraqi people and society. Many academics saw these sanctions as the UN’s method to obtain the consent of Iraqi people to the 2003 occupation through starving and weakening the people, as well as destroying Iraq’s strong institutions and infrastructure.” WarViolenceMiddle EastColonialismImperialismSanctionsIraq WarDecolonizationEmbargo Book:Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile Source: Bullets in Envelopes: Iraqi Academics in Exile
“Great works of literature from other places are not only censored by banning them, but even more so by silencing them, by refusing to translate them in the first place. Marginalization is the worst form of censorship and intellectual assassination. Likewise, choosing what gets translated into a certain language and what gets marginalized is a form of shaping and constructing the historical memory of a place according to whims of those who own the money and means of knowledge production.” KnowledgeColonialismTranslationDecolonizationMarginalizationWorld LiteratureKnowledge Production Author:Louis Yako
“Racists, then, are indoctrinated citizens who think they are entitled and superior to all others, and therefore capable of committing racism and violence against them. I contend that indoctrinated individuals are prisoners to the walls built around them that keep them indoctrinated. Therefore, instead of seeing them as ‘enemies’, we need to apply the same methods of reform some thinkers have suggested to the prison system in that rather than being purely punitive, prisons should aspire to rehabilitate prisoners in such ways that they may return to society with better attitude, understanding, and healthier minds and bodies (all things lacking in racist people, if you think about it deeply). Even more important is to build a society in such a way that there would be little need to have prison systems in the first place.” JusticeRacismEqualityRacism In AmericaIndoctrinationDecolonizationSubjugationPrison SystemRacism In The WestRacist People Author:Louis Yako
“Like many types of criminals who may often be a product of ills that exist in their society, racists are often products of similar ills – they are the uninformed hand pulling a trigger of a gun handed down to them by a vicious system of indoctrination.” RacismOppressionGovernanceIndoctrinationDecolonizationSubjugationRacist PeopleRacist Ideas 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
“How and why many of us blindly repeat words, idioms, and phrases passed down to us like shabby clothes from our parents or ancestors, without even pondering the exact meaning of what we say.” ThinkingLanguageMindfulnessDecolonizationLanguage LearningLanguage And CultureLanguage And Racism Author:Louis Yako
“As such, phrases like ‘first world problems’ assume that those in the first world live such stress-free and luxurious lives that any problems they have are considered when compared with those from the rest of the world. Not only are such assumptions false, but they also function as myth generators by giving the people of the first world the impression that they – and their problems – are superior to everyone else around the world. Likewise, it misleads people outside the first world into thinking that the first world is full of joy and happiness, which is false by all measures.” PowerRacismPropagandaColonialismImperialismDecolonizationLanguages And CultureFirst World ProblemsMythmaking Author:Louis Yako
“Another word we hear repeatedly is ‘tolerance’. Many people use this word positively in situations like ‘tolerating difference’… If you simply search the linguistic meaning of the word, the first definition you will get is (tolerance: noun): ‘to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of something that one does not necessarily like or agree with without interference.’ In this sense, using this word is disturbing because it suggests two things: first, the person who is doing the tolerating has the upper hand in everything; that they ‘tolerate’ others out of the kindness of their hearts. Second, it gives those doing the ‘tolerating’ the right to change their mind and stop ‘tolerating’ others any time they please, which could make them commit violence against those they deem ‘intolerable’, since they have the upper hand on matters. In brief, this leaves no voice, power, or agency to the tolerated. I never understand how any native English speaker could thoughtlessly use ‘tolerate’ as a positive word in such situations. How could they use the same word to tell us that they tolerate a medication, an immigrant, or another religion? We need a culture that teaches us to appreciate, to love, and to affirm others not to tolerate them!” InspirationalWisdomRacismToleranceColonialismImperialismAmerican CultureDecolonizationLanguages And CultureLinguistic Hegemony Author:Louis Yako
“This is precisely why the mainstream media’s language has failed us, it has not been telling us what we really need to know, because their language marches in step with that of the bankers, warmongers, oppressors, and executioners. We need a new language of radical love not radical hate.” HateMediaNewsPropagandaMisinformationDecolonizationHate SpeechMedia Manipulation Author:Louis Yako
“Before you hate refugees, remember that ideally, most people wish to live peacefully and with their dignity intact. Remember that many of these refugees would rather come to you as ‘tourists’ with cameras in their hands under much better circumstances rather than as people with no options but to put up with the hate and humiliation awaiting them in the often not so hospitable ‘host’ counties. Before you protest refugees, protest your governments that are either intervening militarily in their countries or arming different groups and factions in their territories to kill each other. The refugee crisis is a deeply political crisis for all actors involved. Before you go in the streets demanding ‘no more refugees,’ rest assured, that these people would never have chosen to come all the way here to take your menial job offers while see you protest their very human existence. Likewise, before you extend your benevolence to these refugees by ‘tolerating’ them, as if doing them a favor, remember, that you actually can really love them because there is so much you can learn from their stories. There is so much work that can be accomplished when you hold hands with these refugees towards mutual human goals.” WarHatePoliticsForeign PolicySolidarityRefugeesDecolonizationDisplacementRefugee Crisis Author:Louis Yako
“Keeping our focus on racist individuals is not only futile, but it also spends a precious energy that we need to direct at changing the entire structure and the system in place as we have it. We must understand that the system and the structure we have in place are created by the powerful 1% that clearly benefits from racism as a form of governance.” HatePowerDiversityRacismDiscriminationGovernanceDiversity And InclusionRacism In AmericaDecolonizationRacism In The West Author:Louis Yako
“Yes, make no mistake, racism (like sexism, patriotism, and ethnonationalism) is a form of governance in that it consistently prevents change and maintains the status quo by deflecting attention from the core issues; by pitting people against each other. In doing so, it blinds most people from seeing who the real enemy is. Racism as a form of governance makes people waste all their energy in the wrong places as well as channel all the hatred and bitterness against the wrong populations (Blacks, immigrants, foreigners, and so on).” HatePowerRacismGovernanceBlack Lives MatterRacism In AmericaDecolonizationColonizationRacism In The West Author:Louis Yako
“Some try to tell themselves that they tried to make changes from within the system the best they could. Unfortunately, however, anyone who has had the chance of working inside brutal, unjust, and systematically racist and oppressive institutions knows that trying to make changes from within is not only a myth, but more likely than not, the huge, sophisticated and unjust institutions will change you to conform to their agenda rather than the other way around. At best, if one tries to make changes or challenges brutal workplaces, one would either lose their job, or – if lucky enough – would simply remain static and never advance in their job or pay. In other words, they will remain poor and powerless, which, by definition, significantly limits any possibility for challenging, let alone, changing such institutions or corporations from within.” InspirationalWisdomChangeMythActivismCorporationsDecolonizationWorkplace PoliticsWorkplace Culture Author:Louis Yako