The world needs new centres of knowledge beyond traditional Western capitals, Esra Albayrak, a Turkish sociologist, chair of the NUN Foundation’s Board of Trustees and daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said at the “World Decolonization Forum.”
Speaking at the opening of the two-day forum hosted by the NUN Education and Culture Foundation and Institute Social in Istanbul on Monday, Albayrak said the current international system had reached the limits of knowledge produced in cities such as Paris, London, New York and Amsterdam.
“The world now also needs new centres and the wisdom produced in Istanbul, Jakarta, Addis Ababa, Rabat, Cairo and Gaza,” she added.
The forum is examining the roots of global crises and the legacy of colonialism.
Albayrak said the gathering was not aimed at creating “another centre against the West” or imagining “a world without the West,” but rather encouraging a broader rethinking of global hierarchies.
“Decolonisation is also an open invitation for the West to free itself from the ‘master complex’ that has taken hold of it,” she said.
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