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How to say no to recolonisation

Samantha Suppiah
POSSIBLE FUTURES
9 min readNov 23, 2024

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It was just a half-hour introductory call.

I’d exchanged several messages with some guy who cold-messaged me on LinkedIn, having convinced himself that I must be showing up on his feed because of divine intervention.
That is how I found myself yet again staring down the barrel of the gun of recolonisation.

It wasn’t like he was masking it. It was clear within the first 60 seconds.
Yet, I spent the next twenty-nine minutes in the call. Listening to more colonial-apologist tech-solutionist power-agnostic nonsense romanticisation.

When I dig down deep, the only reason I can think of as to why I agreed to and stayed in the call is this —
At some level, I still don’t value myself and my work enough to be disciplined in avoiding relationships defined and dominated by coloniality.
I still give the wolf in sheep’s clothing the benefit of the doubt, simply because they claim to “be Global South”, even if I can see exactly where they retain their colonial perspectives, power and privilege, i.e. that they are indeed obviously wolf-like.

I’m still too nice.

These moments are where I can see my own learning edge most clearly.

And yet, what power do I have, apart from the power to abstain, reject and document?
Side note: I am collecting contributions to build the global decolonial movement’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Donate here.

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POSSIBLE FUTURES
POSSIBLE FUTURES

Published in POSSIBLE FUTURES

a global south decolonial collective disarming colonial narratives

Samantha Suppiah
Samantha Suppiah

Written by Samantha Suppiah

Southeast Asian trickster. Design strategist for decolonial sustainability & regeneration. www.possiblefutures.earth/crew#samantha

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