DECOLONIZATION OF EDUCATION

THROUGH ISLAMIZATION AND

DEWESTERNIZATION

BY

S. MANURUNG

The International Seminar on Decolonization of Education, 10 - 11 Apr 2012

Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara (UMSU)

&

Center for Islamic Development Management Studies (ISDEV), UniversitiSains Malaysia., (International)

FRAMEWORK

1. INTODUCTION

2. HISTORY OF DECOLONIZATION

3. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ISLAMIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE

4. THE WESTERN CONCEPT OF KNOWLEDGE

5. DECOLONIZATION OF EDUCATION

6. DECOLONIZATION OF EDUCATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF DEWESTERNIZATION AND ISLAMIZATION

INTRODUCTION

Knowledge -----Development--------Civilization

Greek /Yunani Era

Islamic Civilization

Dark age (Jahiliyyah) ----- Islam ------- TheGolden age of Islamic Civilization ------decline

Western Civilization

Church Hegemony ----- Dark age ----- Decline ofthe Church Hegemony ------ Western CivilizationEra

• In understanding of Knowledge/Science:

Worldview -----

Western Islam

Only Hereafter Word and Hereafter

Colonialism

& Decolonization

Imperialism

• Colonialism: - Injuctice

Oppresion

Establish, new territory…..

Decline ---

Cultural & Intellectual

HISTORY OF DECOLONIZATION

• Colonialism -----destroyed : , social, cultural, economic, political, religious,and others

• Economic motif & Missionaries

• Colonialism : Dichotomy education ----Science to Motif, essence of the welfare of mankind

• Methodology – reality – paradigm ---- openwindow----

• Epistemology --------Knowledge

• Second World War

• Decolonization:

– Elemenation

– Returning power to the people

– A subordinated territory becomes a sovereign

and independent state

– Removing the heavy burden of empire

colonization: Culturallly & Naturally.

• Decolonization of education -- Authenticate of

knowledge about problem and phenomena

• Decolonization of education ----the first steps

toward the decolonization is to equation the

legitimacy of colonization

THE PHILOSOPHY OF

ISLAMIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE

• Rosenthal : about 750 words “i-l-m” in the

Qur‘an.

• Knowledge as sine qua non of humanity---

Adam --- ―the names of all things‖ by Allah

• Al-Ghazali : Knowledge as ‗acquisition of that

information through which one can

successfully attain the true goal of life

• To fulfill religious and spiritual responsibilities

• Islamization of knowledge:

first: expanding, upgrading and modernizing

Islamic disciplines

second: connecting all other disciplines to

Islamic faith and values

THE WESTERN CONCEPT OF

KNOWLEDGE

• Plato, knowledge is sensible perception; true

opinion; and true opinion with reasoned

explanation (Fowler: 1929, p. 3). A knowledge of

the nature of the original; a knowledge of the

correctness of the copy; and a knowledge of the

excellence with which the copy is executed?

(Burry: 1926, p. 145). For Plato (ca. 429–347

B.C.) said that knowledge can only be of what is

real. Protagoras said that "man is the measure of

all things".

While Heracleitus said that all things are always in

motion. Here Plato distinguishes two kinds of

motion—movement in space and change of quality

and asserts that constant motion of the first kind

must be accompanied by change, because otherwise

the same things would be at the same time both in

motion and at rest. This obvious fallacy Plato

appears to ascribe to Heracleitus and his school. The

result of this discussion is that if nothing is at rest,

every answer on whatever subject is equally correct.

Read more in the book of H. N. Fowler. (tr.). (1929).

Plato: Theaetetus – Sophist. Volume II. London:

William Heinemann.

• Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) use commonsensible, Epicurus (341–270 B.C.) see allknowledge is rooted in experience, the contactbetween the soul and the external world. St.Augustine (354–430) said that all knowledgeinvolves the individual‘s awareness of God.Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) view thatknowledge is something that is empirical—which can be acquired through experience.René Descartes (1596–1650) said that themind is everything in getting science---withthe famous statement ―cogito ergo sum (Ithink, therefore I am)‖

• Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) likened thehuman mind with the mind of God, theargument that ―the human mind perceivesideas that are in the mind of God‖. BenedictSpinoza (1632–1677) argues that there is onlyone substance, God or Nature, of which bothideas and physical objects, Spinoza concludedthat ideas are true or false only from theperspective of an individual human mind.Tweedledum and Tweedledee, GottfriedWilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) said thatindividual substances each of which reflectsthe entire cosmos from its own point of view

John Locke(1632–1704) argues that all our

knowledge rests ultimately on simple ideas of

sense. He says, consists in one‘s recognition of

relationships of agreement or disagreement

among ideas. George Berkeley (1685–

1753), argues that physical objects are

preserved, but only as clusters of ideas in

minds. He declaring that only minds and ideas

in the mind existed

David Hume (1711–1776) built conceptknowledge that began with the skepticaltheory. He argued, there is no sure thing fromthe experience of our senses, whether visibleor not visible. Nothing in our experiencejustifies our confidence in the uniformity ofnature; it may be that unobserved instances arequite unlike the observed ones. Immanuel Kant(1724–1804) uses a priori syntheticpropositions in explaining that we know thatfor any two events, either they occursimultaneously or one occurs before the other.

DECOLONIZATION OF EDUCATION

When science is built by western scholars with

philosophical speculation is based on the idea

of secular life, and focuses on human rationality.

Islamic scholars as well as anti-colonialists trying

to fight through the decolonization of knowledge

or education, such as: Jalal Al-e Ahmad, in The

Occidentosis: Plague from the West (1952) and The

School Principles (1978); Muhammad Naquib Al-

attas, in Islam and Secularism (1993); Wan Mohd.

Nor Wan Daud, in

• Dewesternisation and Islamisation: Their Epistemic

Framework and Final Purpose (2010); Chinua

Achebe, in No Longer at Ease (1960) and Things

Fall Apart (1958); Frantz Fanon, in Black Skins

White Mask (1952) and A Dying Colonialism (1959);

Julius Nyerere, in Freedom and unity: Uhuru na

Umoja (1966); Aimé Cesaire, in Discours sur le

colonialisme (1955); Edward Said, in Orientalism

(1977) and A Legacy of Emancipation and

Representation (2010); Ngugi wa Thiongo, in

Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of language in

Africa Literature (1986), Albert Memmi, in The

Colonizer and the Colonized (1957)

DECOLONIZATION OF EDUCATION

WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF

DEWESTERNIZATION AND

ISLAMIZATION

• Dichotomy

• Tawhid

• Adab

• historical split

CONCLUSION

• Decolonization of education refers to the

process education use to authenticate the

knowledge about problem and phenomena that

occur within the framework of the

decolonization of education

• religious and cultural approaches

• to clear the mind and soul of the elements of

colonization