Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Part 3 I: ON KNOWLEDGE AND THE ACADEMY Chapter 4 1: Fano... more Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Part 3 I: ON KNOWLEDGE AND THE ACADEMY Chapter 4 1: Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge Chapter 5 2: Opening up the Academy: Fanon's Lessons for Inclusive Scholarship Part 6 ON FANON AND PSYCHIATRY Chapter 7 3: Fanonian Musings: Decolonizing/Philosophy/Psychiatry Chapter 8 4. Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry Part 9 III: ON FANON AND VIOLENCE Chapter 10 5: Fanon on Turtle Island: Revisiting the Question of Violence Chapter 11 6: Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence Part 12 IV: FANON ON RACISM AND SEXUALITY Chapter 13 8: Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order Part 15 V: BEYOND COLONIZATION Chapter 15 7: Decolonizing Selves: The Subtler Violences of Colonialism and Racism in Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua Chapter 16 9: Hegel, Fanon, and the Problem of Negativity in the Postcolonial Chapter 17 10: Tourism as Racism: Fanon and the Vestiges of Colonialism Part 18 VI: BEYOND FANON Chapter 19 11: Amilcar Cabral: A Philosophical Profile Chapter 20 12: Fanonian Presences in South Africa: From Theory and from Practice Chapter 21 Suggestions for Further Reading
The discourse of democracy,' Ferit Güven writes, 'is the continuation of a (neo)colonial world or... more The discourse of democracy,' Ferit Güven writes, 'is the continuation of a (neo)colonial world order' (p. xi). This is so because 'democracy manifests itself in the form of colonization of the future,' or as a discourse without alternatives (p. xiii). In 'colonizing the political space that is supposed to be open to the future,' democracy therefore occupies 'alternativity' as such (pp. 3-4). The idea of democracy, then, is 'tyrannical, in the sense that it expresses a desire for universality beyond its scope' (p. 2) by colonizing what is thinkable. Güven's objective in Decolonizing Democracy is to elaborate the basis for this claim by tracing intersections between democratic and postcolonial theory, both broadly conceived. Democracy, on Güven's rendering, takes on what Lewis R. Gordon calls a 'theodicean grammar.' Theodicy refers to the effort to reconcile God's goodness and omnipotence with iniquity. To 'demonstrate the compatibility of evil and injustice' alongside the existence of God, Gordon argues, we render its contradictions external (2013, p. 726). As democracy circumscribes the conceivable, political failing cannot be the consequence of the system's order; rather, it is an aberration or the result of poor execution. In other words, when democracy fails to fulfill its own promises, fault is externalized to preserve the category's coherence. The system's contradictions, then, are shifted to the limits of what Güven calls 'democracy in practice' (p. 10). Democracy, as a result, much like God, is not problematic. We are simply bad democrats. Democracy's colonial logic emerges here. Colonization, Güven writes, is a 'process and discourse of disciplining, ordering, rendering visible, unveiling, and making comprehensible' (p. 4). In positing itself as the standard of justification, democracy's internal logic produces a series of exclusions. The result is a paradox: 'democracy can only protect and has always protected itself undemocratically' (p. 13). This paradox emerges most forcefully when democracy is confronted with its oppositions, which it either incorporates in a way that leaves the system fundamentally intact, or expels because the excluded falls 'outside the rules of democracy' (p. 16). This works within a 'theodicean grammar.' When God is
In a sermon on the idea of detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) and the impossibility of uttering God's ... more In a sermon on the idea of detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) and the impossibility of uttering God's name, Meister Eckhart compares the unity of the soul with God to a kiss. To utter the otherwise ineffable name of God means that "[God] has put his word in my mouth...That is the kiss of the soul, there mouth touches mouth, there the Father bears his Son into the soul, and there Soul is spoken to." 3 Eckhart uses the image of a kiss in a similar context in order to explain how the superior (God) unfolds, opens and manifests itself to an inferior. 4 The simile of the kiss designates the possibility of a certain proximity or union with God. The notion of detachment, which is the main existential state (Seinszustand) where such a union with God is to be realized, occupies a central position in Eckhart's corpus. In "On Detachment" Eckhart writes:
Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Part 3 I: ON KNOWLEDGE AND THE ACADEMY Chapter 4 1: Fano... more Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Part 3 I: ON KNOWLEDGE AND THE ACADEMY Chapter 4 1: Fanon on Decolonizing Knowledge Chapter 5 2: Opening up the Academy: Fanon's Lessons for Inclusive Scholarship Part 6 ON FANON AND PSYCHIATRY Chapter 7 3: Fanonian Musings: Decolonizing/Philosophy/Psychiatry Chapter 8 4. Fanon, Foucault, and the Politics of Psychiatry Part 9 III: ON FANON AND VIOLENCE Chapter 10 5: Fanon on Turtle Island: Revisiting the Question of Violence Chapter 11 6: Sovereign Violence, Racial Violence Part 12 IV: FANON ON RACISM AND SEXUALITY Chapter 13 8: Fanon and the Impossibilities of Love in the Colonial Order Part 15 V: BEYOND COLONIZATION Chapter 15 7: Decolonizing Selves: The Subtler Violences of Colonialism and Racism in Fanon, Said, and Anzaldua Chapter 16 9: Hegel, Fanon, and the Problem of Negativity in the Postcolonial Chapter 17 10: Tourism as Racism: Fanon and the Vestiges of Colonialism Part 18 VI: BEYOND FANON Chapter 19 11: Amilcar Cabral: A Philosophical Profile Chapter 20 12: Fanonian Presences in South Africa: From Theory and from Practice Chapter 21 Suggestions for Further Reading
The discourse of democracy,' Ferit Güven writes, 'is the continuation of a (neo)colonial world or... more The discourse of democracy,' Ferit Güven writes, 'is the continuation of a (neo)colonial world order' (p. xi). This is so because 'democracy manifests itself in the form of colonization of the future,' or as a discourse without alternatives (p. xiii). In 'colonizing the political space that is supposed to be open to the future,' democracy therefore occupies 'alternativity' as such (pp. 3-4). The idea of democracy, then, is 'tyrannical, in the sense that it expresses a desire for universality beyond its scope' (p. 2) by colonizing what is thinkable. Güven's objective in Decolonizing Democracy is to elaborate the basis for this claim by tracing intersections between democratic and postcolonial theory, both broadly conceived. Democracy, on Güven's rendering, takes on what Lewis R. Gordon calls a 'theodicean grammar.' Theodicy refers to the effort to reconcile God's goodness and omnipotence with iniquity. To 'demonstrate the compatibility of evil and injustice' alongside the existence of God, Gordon argues, we render its contradictions external (2013, p. 726). As democracy circumscribes the conceivable, political failing cannot be the consequence of the system's order; rather, it is an aberration or the result of poor execution. In other words, when democracy fails to fulfill its own promises, fault is externalized to preserve the category's coherence. The system's contradictions, then, are shifted to the limits of what Güven calls 'democracy in practice' (p. 10). Democracy, as a result, much like God, is not problematic. We are simply bad democrats. Democracy's colonial logic emerges here. Colonization, Güven writes, is a 'process and discourse of disciplining, ordering, rendering visible, unveiling, and making comprehensible' (p. 4). In positing itself as the standard of justification, democracy's internal logic produces a series of exclusions. The result is a paradox: 'democracy can only protect and has always protected itself undemocratically' (p. 13). This paradox emerges most forcefully when democracy is confronted with its oppositions, which it either incorporates in a way that leaves the system fundamentally intact, or expels because the excluded falls 'outside the rules of democracy' (p. 16). This works within a 'theodicean grammar.' When God is
In a sermon on the idea of detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) and the impossibility of uttering God's ... more In a sermon on the idea of detachment (Abgeschiedenheit) and the impossibility of uttering God's name, Meister Eckhart compares the unity of the soul with God to a kiss. To utter the otherwise ineffable name of God means that "[God] has put his word in my mouth...That is the kiss of the soul, there mouth touches mouth, there the Father bears his Son into the soul, and there Soul is spoken to." 3 Eckhart uses the image of a kiss in a similar context in order to explain how the superior (God) unfolds, opens and manifests itself to an inferior. 4 The simile of the kiss designates the possibility of a certain proximity or union with God. The notion of detachment, which is the main existential state (Seinszustand) where such a union with God is to be realized, occupies a central position in Eckhart's corpus. In "On Detachment" Eckhart writes:
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