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Reflections on decolonising the curriculum panel

By utnvmab, on 9 February 2020

Blog by Muhammad Salihen bin Haji Mohammed Azmi 

On 22 January, I attended a panel on decolonising the curriculum. The panel is one of the various sessions of the Active Citizenship Strand- UCL Global Citizenship Programme.

There were 3 speakers on the panel. Each had a different focus on decolonisation but their presentations interlinked. What caught my attention the most was the discussion about the removal of Rhodes statue in Cape Town University as a resemblance of empowerment to the black people in Cape Town University. Other than a number of other issues were discussed, which might be considered controversial, such as linking anti-Zionism (criticising the violations committed by the state of Israel)  with anti-Semitism. From the entire discussion I was trying to reflect on the effect of colonialism in this day and age on education systems. It was an eye opener especially to people like myself who are coming from a comfortable background. Even though I might have been ignorant about this matter, now I can see the situation in a different lens, relating the case back home in Brunei whereby we still use the British education system, believing that it is the best since it gives us better opportunities to further our studies abroad causing our mother tongue to be our secondary mode of communication. Most of the discussions focused on the super powers from the West, the discussion about the super powers of the East were barely touched upon even though there are a lot of things that need to be raised such the conflict between Taiwan and China, the oppression in Hong-Kong against activists fighting for freedom , and China’s influence towards other countries in South East Asia for example claiming the islands in South China Sea. The reason why we have to talk more about this is because this issue is timely, we see its implications now on our campus. Students who are raising the issue of repression in Hong-King are being silenced. This is the link to the article about the closing down a students’ lead Amnesty stand in support of Hong-Kong: https://thetab.com/uk/london/2019/12/02/ucl-amnesty-stall-on-democracy-in-hong-kong-closed-down-due-to-security-concerns-35577 .

We need to raise our voices, and the right to freedom of expression needs to be protected on camps.

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