Decolonising academia beyond the metaphor

April 25, 2024

DHAKA – As we continue to witness a genocide unfold in real time through social media, there is no denying that our world has irrevocably changed. Over the last six months, the courage of the Palestinian people has radically shifted the collective consciousness of people in every corner of the world, leading to a global awakening. In many ways, it has exposed the long-standing colonial agenda and hypocrisy of the West, both of which have been slowly crumbling down for quite some time now. Simultaneously, it has sparked necessary conversations regarding military occupation, settler colonialism, neocolonialism, and the deeply interconnected nature of these struggles worldwide. Every day, citizens from all walks of life have been confronting and mobilising against oppressive power structures head-on, in small and large ways.

One such example was the student-led protest at Columbia University in New York, US last week. Several students took to the university campus and set up tents on the lawn, demanding that their institution immediately divest from corporations, institutions, weapons manufacturers, and donors complicit in the genocide against Palestinians. These students remained steadfast as they resoundingly rejected Columbia’s shameful stance supporting Israel’s brutal occupation. Predictably, what followed was a mass arrest called by the university’s administration. The New York Police Department (NYPD) forcibly removed the peaceful student activists from the premises. Many students were also suspended from Columbia and its associate institution, Barnard College, as well as from their housing. This is the same Columbia University that has been home to revolutionary scholars such as Edward Said, Gayatri