The inability to produce one's own knowledge as the main form of colonial dependence
What if we identify one of the most harmful features of colonial dependence? Perhaps it is the inability to produce knowledge.
How is knowledge produced? This is, of course, science. Both natural sciences and humanities. This is a university that has non-applied faculties. It is all forms of art. This is writing. And it is, of course, philosophy.
Governance and jurisprudence grow out of this. Diplomacy. Management. Journalism.
If a modern society does not have knowledge production institutions, it uses knowledge produced in some other center. Usually in a metropolis or former metropolis.
This is especially true for the humanities, because it deals with big concepts that explain society to itself.
If you look at pre-war Ukraine from this angle, this is exactly what happened. Because even the remnants of the hard sciences that were well developed under the Soviet Union were deeply neglected. Our universities, museums, and journals (what journals?) are still on thin ice.
Thus, in our case, real decolonization is precisely the building of capable institutions of knowledge production.
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