Metaphysical Empire, Linguicides and Cultural Imperialism

Decoloniality names the decolonization of the twenty-first century that is ranged against the ‘metaphysical empire’, compared to the decolonization of the twentieth century that targeted the ‘physical empire’. The ‘metaphysical empire’ co-exists with the ‘commercial- non-territorial-military empire’ with its insatiable appetite for strategic economic resources. The ‘metaphysical empire’ operates and subsists on invasion of the mental universe of the world. Consequently, it unleashes epistemicides, linguicides and cultural imperialism. Mental dislocation, cascades from the invasion of the mental universe. The introduction of imperial languages and the displacement of indigenous languages were deliberate interventions of the ‘metaphysical empire’ on colonized spaces. Inevitably, it provoked epistemological decolonization, which is predicated on the demands for cognitive justice as an essential pre- requisite for re-humanization/re-membering of the dehumanized and dismembered.