This essay seeks to analyze a practice at the Potchefstroom campus of North West University. This practice concerns “a higher education course which has not yet been decolonized”. Since 2015, students at South African universities have campaigned for the decolonization of higher education. This practice will be analyzed and explained using the theoretical framework of Modernity/coloniality. On the Potchefstroom campus of North West University, there is a practice that involves a curriculum that remains largely Eurocentric and colonial in nature. This problem is further compounded by the fact that the program is largely taught in Afrikaans. In fact, there is a campaign across all universities in South Africa calling for the decolonization of higher education. A perfect example is that we are taught more European history than African history. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get an original essay The starting point of the theoretical framework of modernity/coloniality is that “modernity” is a European narrative that hides its most dark, “coloniality”. . In other words, coloniality is constitutive of modernity: there is no modernity without coloniality (Mignolo 2007: 39). In this case, Northwestern University, which can be considered modern, still teaches a curriculum that is colonial in nature. Decolonial thought appeared, from the 16th century, as a response to the oppressive and imperial tendency of the modern European ideal projected and implemented in the non-European world (Mignolo 2007: 39). Since the end of the oppressive and racist apartheid system in 1994, the epistemologies and knowledge systems of most South African universities have not changed significantly; they remain rooted in colonial, apartheid, and Western worldviews and epistemological traditions (Heleta 2016). The agenda remains largely Eurocentric and continues to reinforce white and Western domination and privilege (Heleta 2016). The conceptualization of modernity/coloniality is based on a series of operations that distinguish it from established theories of modernity (Escobar 2007: 184). In summary, this includes the identification of the domination of others outside the European core as a necessary dimension of modernity, with the concomitant subalternization of the knowledge and cultures of these other groups; a conception of Eurocentrism as a form of knowledge of modernity/coloniality - a hegemonic representation and a mode of knowledge which claims universality for its own sake and which is based on "a confusion between abstract universality for its own sake and concrete global hegemony derived from Europe's position as center. (Dussel 2000, p. 471, Quijano 2000, p. 549, cited in Escobar 2007: 184). The modernity/coloniality research program is a framework constructed for the modern world system; it helps to explain the dynamics of Eurocentrism in the construction of modernity and attempts to transcend it (Escobar 2007: 189). If it reveals the dark sides of modernity, it does not do so from an intra-epistemic perspective, as in European critical discourses, but from the point of view of the beneficiaries of the supposed benefits of the modern world (Escobar 2007: 189). From the Caribbean, you see that modernity not only needed coloniality, but that coloniality was and continues to be a constitutive modernity (Mignolo 2007: 466). There is no modernity without coloniality (Mignolo 2007: 466). From England, we only see modernity and, in the shadows, “bad things” like slavery,exploitation, land appropriation, all of which will be expected to be corrected as progress progresses. of modernity and democracy when everyone arrives at the stage where justice and equality will be for all (Mignolo 2007: 466). In an article published in 1989 and reprinted in 1992, entitled “Colonialidad y modernidad-racionalidad,” Quijano explicitly linked the coloniality of power in the political and economic spheres with the coloniality of knowledge; and ended the argument with the natural consequence: if knowledge is colonized, one of the tasks facing us is to decolonize knowledge (Mignolo 2007: 451). Over the past three or four years, work and conversations among members of the modernity/coloniality research project, decoloniality has become the common phrase associated with the concept of coloniality and the extension of coloniality of power (economic and political) to the coloniality of knowledge and being (gender, sexuality, subjectivity and knowledge), were incorporated into the basic vocabulary among the members of the research project (Mignolo 2007: 451). South African students and a small number of progressive academics launched a campaign in 2015 to decolonize university curricula “by ending the domination of Western traditions, histories and epistemological figures” (Molefe 2016: 32, cited in Heleta 2016). In particular, the students called for an end to the domination of "white, male, Western, capitalist, heterosexual and European worldviews in higher education and for the incorporation of other South African perspectives, experiences and epistemologies , African and global as central principles of the curriculum, teaching. , learning and research in (Shay 2016, cited in Heleta 2016). National liberation, national renaissance, restoration of national identity to the people, Commonwealth: whatever the formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon (fanon et al 1963: 35). Whatever the level at which we study it - the relationships between individuals, the new names of sport for sports clubs, human diversity in cocktails, in the police, in the boards of directors of national banks or private - decolonization is quite simply the replacement of a certain "species" of men by another "species" of men (fanon et al 1963: 35). Without any transition period, there is a total substitution, complete and absolute (fanon et al 1963: 35). The modernity/coloniality perspective offers an alternative framework for debates on modernity, globalization and development; it is not simply a change in the description of events; , it is a change in epistemic perspective (Escobar 2007: 189) When speaking of colonial difference, this framework highlights the dimension of power that is often lost in relativist discussions of cultural difference (Escobar 2007:). 189). Universities have made very little effort since 1994 to open up “to different bodies and traditions of knowledge and knowledge creation in new and exploratory ways” (Heleta 2016). Although universities have adopted new policies and frameworks that speak to equality, equity, transformation and change, institutional cultures and epistemological traditions have not significantly changed (Heleta 2016). The South African higher education system remains a colonial outpost to this day, reproducing hegemonic identities rather than eliminating hegemony (Mckaiser 2016, cited in Heleta 2016). Mbembe (2016:32) argues that there is something wrong when programs designed to meet the needs of colonialism and apartheid shouldcontinue well into the era of liberation (Heleta 2016). The colonized of course do not have epistemic privileges: the only privilege is on the side of the colonizer, even when it comes to emancipatory, liberal or Marxist projects (Mignolo 2007: 459). The “colonizing side” here designates the Eurocentric categories of thought which carry both the germ of emancipation and the germ of regulation and oppression (Mignolo 2007: 459). Kelly (2000: 27) writes that colonial rule demanded a whole way of thinking, a discourse in which all that is advanced, good and civilized is defined and measured in European terms (Heleta 2016). In this process, colonial education played a key role, promoting and imposing Eurocentric ways of thinking and worldviews while subjugating everything else (Heleta 2016). Thus, one of the most destructive effects of colonialism has been the subjugation of local knowledge and the promotion of Western knowledge as universal knowledge (Heleta 2016). Decoloniality therefore means working towards a vision of human life that does not depend on or be structured by the forced imposition of a societal ideal on those who differ, which is what modernity/coloniality does and, therefore, where the decolonization of the mind should begin (Mignolo 2007: 459). The struggle is to change the term in addition to the content of the conversation (Mignolo 2007: 459). European scholars have worked hard for centuries to erase historical and intellectual centuries, to erase the historical, intellectual and cultural contributions of Africa and other regions. from the “non-Western” world to our common humanity (Heleta 2016). They did this as part of the project of white supremacy (Heleta 2016). As (1994:8) put it, Western European literature has for centuries portrayed the non-Western world and people as inferior and subordinate; this helped normalize racism among colonialists and developed the idea that Europe should rule, non-Europeans ruled (Said 1994: 120, cited in (Heleta 2016). Eurocentrism, racism, Segregation and epistemic violence in South African universities were not a product of apartheid (Heleta 2016). Rather, these problems began with the establishment of universities by British settlers and evolved after 1948 (Sehoole 2006: 4). , cited by Heleta 2016). the meeting of two forces opposed to each other by their very nature, which in fact owe their originality to this sort of substantiation which results and is nourished by the situation of the colonies (fanon et al 1963: 36). (fanon et al 1963: 36). It transforms spectators crushed by their essence into privileged actors, under the grandiose glare of the spotlight of history (fanon et al 1963: 36). It gives rise to a natural rhythm, introduced by new men, and with it a new language and a new humanity (fanon et al 1963: 36). In South Africa, colonial universities were established by settler elites who saw them as both symbols and disseminators of European civilization in the colonies (Pietsch 2013, cited by Heleta 2016). The role of universities, which were an integral part of the colonial project - was to promote white supremacy and develop white youth to maintain and further develop colonial society ((Pietsch 2013; Ramoupi 2011: 5, cited by Heleta 2016). Colonial universities were resolutely Eurocentric, modeled on the metropolitan universities from which they drewmany of their faculty and programs (Zeleza 2009: 114, cited by Heleta 2016). Decolonization is the true creation of new men (fanon et al 1963: 35). But this creation owes none of its legitimacy to any supernatural power; » who has been colonized becomes a man during the same process by which he frees himself (fanon et al 1963: 37). In decolonization, there is therefore a need for a complete questioning of the colonial situation (fanon et al 1963: 37). ). If we wish to describe it precisely, we could find it in the well-known words: “the last will be first and the first will be first” (fanon et al 1963: 37). Decolonization is the putting into practice of this phrase (fanon et al 1963: 37). This is why, if we try to describe it, all decolonization is successful (fanon et al 1963: 37). After 1994, epistemological transformation was meant to involve a reorientation from the colonial and apartheid knowledge system, in which the curriculum was used as a tool of exclusion, to a democratic curriculum that includes all human thought ( Department of Education 2008: 89, cited in Heleta 2016). However, universities have done little, if anything, to change the curriculum since the end of apartheid (Heleta 2016). As the Ministry of Education concluded in 2008, transformation efforts have not translated into significant changes in structure and content. of the program (Department of Education 2008: 90, cited in Heleta 2016). The curriculum is inextricably linked to institutional culture and, given that the latter remains white and Eurocentric in historically white institutions, the institutional environment is not conducive to curriculum reform (Department of Education 2008: 91, cited in Heleta 2016). Epistemic decolonization parallels disconnection (Mignolo 2007: 453). A dissociation that leads to a decolonial epistemic change and brings to the fore other epistemologies, other principles of knowledge and understanding and, consequently, another economy, another politics, another ethics (Mignolo 2007: 453) . The “new intercultural communication” must be interpreted as a new inter-epistemic communication (Mignolo 2007: 453). Furthermore, disconnection supposes evolving towards a geopolitics of knowledge which, on the one hand, denounces the supposed universality of a particular ethnic group (politics of the body), located in a specific part of the planet (geopolitics), i.e. that is to say, a Europe where capitalism accumulated as a result of colonialism (Mignolo 2007: 453). Disconnection must then be understood as a decolonial epistemic change leading to another universality, that is to say pluriversality as a universal project (Mignolo 2007: 453). The colonial and apartheid curriculum in South Africa promoted white supremacy. and domination and stereotypes of Africa (Heleta 2016). The current higher education curriculum still largely reflects colonial and apartheid worldviews (Ramoupi 2014: 271, cited in Heleta 2016) and is disconnected from African realities, including the lived experiences of the majority of South Africans black (Heleta 2016). Most universities still follow the hegemonic Eurocentric epistemic canon that attributes truth only to the Western way of producing knowledge (Mbemebe 2016: 32, cited by Heleta 2016). Such a curriculum does not develop students’ critical and analytical skills to understand and advance the African continent (Heleta 2016). what we see in most fields of study (and particularly in the humanities and social sciences) is Eurocentric indoctrination, which.