Through the vehicle of Nicolas Sarkozy’s so-called “Dakar Address” we will analyse the West’s persisting lack of insight into the need for a Western decolonization. We will try to identify the dangers that come from this refusal, such as the abidance in colonial patterns, the enduring self-understanding as superior com-pared to Africa, and the persisting unwillingness to accept the colonial guilt. Decolonization has to be understood as a two-fold business. Decolonization is over-coming endured and perpetrated violence. It is not only (...) important that the colonial oppressed regain strength, it is equally important that the perpetrator of colonial violence understand their excess of violence and work on effecting its return impossible. We explain how Western thinking remains dangerous and untrustwor-thy if it refuses its own decolonization. Finally, we will draw attention to a fundamental pattern of Western thought that clashes with the fundamental values of the West: contempt. In a final step we suggest how this contempt can be overcome through desuperiorisation and the establishment of elative ethics. (shrink)

There is a fundamental flaw in the Eurocentric epistemological foundation. Counter to the overwhelming ethos of the Enlightenment this epistemological bedrock shockingly does not seem to be an epistemology of the human being, but only of the white human being. I, as Western scholar, have to relativize my epistemological heritage, because it does not take into account the diversity of the human being. I will briefly explore the racist views of Voltaire, Hume and Kant and I will argue that Western (...) philosophy needs to (re)analyze its epistemological tradition with regards to the way the racist views of its protagonists corrupted their philosophical work. I suggest contextualization of the philosophical tradition and its desuperiorisation in order to foster ethical philosophical dialogue amongst global scholars. (shrink)