Source: Quillette
by John Aziz
“Over the past year, a new ideological framework, which I’ll call neo-decolonialism, has been taking hold in activist, academic, and political discourse. This framework has the potential to reopen and reinflame a vast number of conflicts. This is where slogans like ‘globalise the intifada’ ultimately lead — to a world in which no political settlement is ever final, and no peace is durable. It’s important to make a clear distinction between actual decolonisation and what I am calling neo-decolonialism. Real decolonisation was a concrete, historically specific process in which empires withdrew from territories they had been administering, as exemplified by the end of the Raj. … neo-decolonialism is not about dismantling real empires …. Instead, it retroactively reclassifies political arrangements as ‘colonial’ based on contemporary group dynamics, racial or ethnic categories (e.g. ‘whiteness’), and the question of which side has the most power.” (12/20/25)
https://quillette.com/2025/12/20/the-infinite-reopening-of-history-activism-decolonisation/