ABSTRACT
The Third World today is facing Europe as one colossal mass whose project must be to try and solve the problems this Europe was incapable of finding the answers to.
(Fanon 2004: 238)
At a time of economic and political crisis in Europe, it may appear odd to turn to the era of decolonization for ideas about reforming, renewing or even revolutionizing ideas about ‘Europe’ and ‘European cosmopolitanism’. After all, decolonization caused nothing less than a systemic crisis of European power, economy, and identity. This not only saw the demise of European colonial empires, which through military and economic means had come to dominate vast swathes of humanity for over 400 years, but also signalled a crisis of Eurocentrism and its belief that Europe was the home of democracy, freedom and progress. Decolonization thus not only sought to evict occupying colonial powers from non-European land but also to shatter the myth, once and for all, that Europe was the cultural centre of the earth.
