09.06.2026 17:20
The world now needs new centers, wisdom produced in Istanbul, Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Rabat, Cairo, and Gaza. These statements belong to Esra Albayrak, President of the NUN Foundation. Albayrak wrote an article titled "Beyond Decolonization: Knowledge, Power, and Shared Responsibility."
In an article for Kriter Magazine on decolonization, Esra Albayrak stated, “The aim of decolonization is not to establish another center against the West or to build a world without the West. On the contrary, decolonization is an open invitation for the West to rid itself of the ‘mastery complex’ that has seized it. For it is understood that the stalled international system has reached the limits of knowledge produced in Paris, London, New York, and Amsterdam. The world now needs new centers of wisdom produced in Istanbul, Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Rabat, Cairo, and Gaza.”
In her article titled “Overcoming Decolonization: Knowledge, Power, and Shared Responsibility,” Esra Albayrak offered assessments on the establishment of the colonial power matrix, the partnership between science and colonialism, the weapons of the oppressors, the burden of humanity, and digital colonialism.
Emphasizing that modern Western philosophy positions itself as a “zero point” — a timeless, spaceless, universal reality free from any perspective — Albayrak stressed that science has been molded to suit colonialism and highlighted that humanity needs diversity to breathe.
Noting that the human mind is the final frontier of colonization, Esra Albayrak wrote: “Land can be occupied, language suppressed, history distorted, but as long as the mind does not surrender, decolonization is possible. Frantz Fanon analyzes this with clinical precision: The colonized person, after a while, begins to see their own body not in the first person, but as a third person under the colonizer’s gaze, becoming alienated even from their own face. The same is true for peoples. When a people’s memory is erased, their ability to recognize and heal their own wounds is taken away. When a society begins to see its own language as foreign, its own history as incomplete, its own knowledge as worthless, then exploitation is no longer just an external pressure but becomes an internalized destiny.”
In her article, Albayrak also addressed the historical classification of the colonial paradigm, shedding light on the abuse of democracy in this categorization: “It extends from people without writing and literature in the 16th century, to people without history in the 18th and 19th centuries, to underdeveloped people in the 20th century. Today, this classification has turned into the narrative of ‘bringing democracy’ to so-called underdeveloped societies as the white man’s burden.”
Stating that decolonization has three levels — epistemic, institutional, political, and economic — Esra Albayrak also expressed that these three levels are intertwined and that one cannot be complete without the others.
In her article, evaluating the counterpart of screen addiction, one of today’s most critical problems, in the colonized mind, Esra Albayrak stated: “In a world where knowledge flows to screens filtered through a single center and various algorithms, it is becoming increasingly difficult for children to find their own voices and value their own experiences. Children’s attention, imagination, and memory have been transformed into raw materials for the continuity of the techno-colonial regime.”
At the end of her article, Esra Albayrak particularly emphasized that it is understood the stalled international system has reached the limits of knowledge produced in Paris, London, New York, and Amsterdam, and noted that the world now needs new centers of wisdom produced in Istanbul, Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Rabat, Cairo, and Gaza.