Politics
Decolonization forum challenges Western narratives, power structures
Scholars, journalists and intellectuals from across the globe gathered in Istanbul on Monday for the second day of the World Decolonization Forum, where discussions centered on the lasting influence of colonial structures in media, politics, economics and international law.
Hosted under the theme of decolonial thought and global justice, the forum brought together participants from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America to debate how colonial-era systems continue to shape modern institutions and public discourse.
Speakers throughout the sessions argued that colonialism should not be viewed merely as a historical phenomenon, but as an enduring framework that still affects global power relations, cultural hierarchies and knowledge production. Discussions highlighted how political independence in formerly colonized nations often failed to dismantle economic dependency and Western intellectual dominance.
One of the day’s main panels focused on international media and the dominance of Western narratives in global communication.
During the session titled “Decolonizing Media: Disrupting Hegemonic Narrative,” South African academic Last Moyo criticized what he described as the concentration of global media ownership in Anglo-American institutions, saying African societies are frequently represented through stereotypical and Eurocentric lenses. He added that digital platforms could create opportunities for societies in the Global South to tell their own stories and challenge dominant narratives.
Canadian journalist Adrian Harewood said marginalized communities have historically created their own media platforms to counter exclusion and distortion in mainstream reporting. Referring to Black-owned newspapers in North America, he stressed the importance of solidarity and independent storytelling in resisting dehumanizing portrayals.
Spanish journalist Rafael Vilasanjuan warned that journalism risks becoming propaganda when reporters lose independent access to conflict zones or rely too heavily on military-controlled narratives. He said journalism’s primary responsibility remains holding governments and centers of power accountable.
Journalist and human rights advocate Afua Hirsch also addressed the dual role media can play, arguing that it has historically served both as a mechanism of colonial domination and as a platform for resistance and liberation movements.
Another major session examined Palestine through the framework of settler colonialism and questioned the effectiveness of international law in addressing the conflict. Participants discussed the Oslo process, the two-state solution and the broader political structure surrounding Palestinian governance.
French legal scholar Mireille Fanon Mendès-France argued that the Palestinian issue exposes the contradictions of the modern international system, saying racism, displacement and inequality persist despite global human rights discourse.
Meanwhile, Columbia University professor Joseph Massad said many post-colonial states achieved formal political independence without gaining real economic autonomy, which he argued remained tied to Western-dominated global systems.
The forum is set to conclude with additional discussions on economic dependency, development models and coloniality, followed by a closing conversation featuring former France international footballer and activist Lilian Thuram.
Operations in 16 cities on Tuesday netted 43 Daesh suspects, authorities in Istanbul announced.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office in the city where a building housing the Israeli Consulate came under a suspected Daesh attack last month, launched an investigation into a financing network for the terrorist group, prior to Tuesday’s operations in Istanbul and elsewhere.
The probe held in cooperation with the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) uncovered evidence that crypto wallets associated with Daesh were used in collecting funds for the terrorist group via Telegram channels. The investigation found out that between 2021 and 2025, around $170,000 were collected that way and funneled to Daesh members. Simultaneous raids were launched in Istanbul, Ankara, Antalya, Bilecik, Bursa, Hatay, Izmir, Kayseri, Kilis, Konya, Malatya, Mersin, Sakarya, Şanlıurfa, Trabzon and Van to capture the suspects.
The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that suspects posted on Telegram channels called “Muslimuun11,” “Sisters of Yusuf” and “Al-Azaim” to collect funds. The statement said the suspects were also involved in propaganda for Daesh and ran a campaign to collect cash for families of Daesh members in al-Hol camp in Syria. The camp, located near the Syrian-Iraqi border in Hassakeh province, was originally established to shelter Iraqi refugees following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. It later fell under Daesh control in 2014 before being used to hold suspected members of the terror group and their families, alongside thousands of displaced Syrian and Iraqi civilians. In February, it was fully evacuated by the Syrian security forces after Damascus started taking control of areas controlled by the U.S.-backed terrorist group YPG in northeastern Syria.
Prosecutors said 19 crypto wallets linked to Daesh were identified, and authorities worked for six months to expose cash flow in the wallets. They added that some suspects converted U.S. dollars in the crypto wallets to Turkish lira and later transferred them to bank accounts.
A leading Turkish community organization in Germany warned Tuesday that growing anti-immigrant rhetoric and increasing far-right violence are fueling anxiety among migrant communities, particularly in eastern Germany, as support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party continues to rise.
Gökay Sofuoğlu, chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD), said the deteriorating environment has moved beyond political discourse into physical threats and violence, as right-wing extremists feel encouraged by the AfD’s high polling numbers in the eastern states.
“For us, the security situation in eastern Germany is not an abstract debate-it is a matter of very real fears,” Sofuoğlu said in a statement. He called on the politicians and authorities to take appropriate measures to restore a sense of safety for immigrant groups that feel increasingly targeted.
The warning comes as the AfD seeks to convert its strong poll numbers into governing power in several regions for the first time. The party is making a major push ahead of September’s state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt – two eastern states where xenophobic incidents have risen disproportionately.
Sofuoğlu noted that while the national average for right-wing violent crimes stands at 51 per 100,000 inhabitants, the figures nearly triple in the east. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the rate is 145 per 100,000, while Saxony-Anhalt follows closely at 142.
“Relative to its population size, the risk of becoming a victim of right-wing violence is particularly high in eastern Germany,” Sofuoğlu said.
The community leader highlighted a recent incident in the eastern state of Brandenburg as an example of a growing culture of impunity and public indifference. Almost a week ago, two men on a regional train reportedly shouted racist slurs at two women wearing headscarves, telling them to “go to Auschwitz.” According to Sofuoğlu, no passengers intervened, and the train conductor allegedly refused to call the police to avoid travel delays.
Sofuoğlu said they are receiving information about an increase in similar incidents, which often go unreported in official statistics.
“Eastern Germany is becoming an increasingly serious security issue for people who look like me, and I am truly deeply concerned for the people living there,” Sofuoglu said, adding that the state authorities should live up to their “paramount duty” to ensure that all residents can live in freedom and safety.
“If we can no longer do so, then I can no longer place my trust in this state,” he said. “This is currently how millions of people in Germany feel.”
Prominent scholars, intellectuals and public figures gathered in Istanbul on Monday at the World Decolonization Forum, where speakers called for dismantling Western dominance in academia, culture and global knowledge systems, arguing that colonial-era power structures continue to shape modern institutions.
Held at the Atatürk Cultural Center under the theme “Decolonizing the Production and Circulation of Knowledge,” the forum brought together thinkers from South America, Africa, Asia and Europe to examine how colonial influence persists in education, media, economics and intellectual life.
Participants included decolonial theorist Walter Mignolo, sociologist Salman Sayyid, political scientist Anne Norton, Palestinian thinker Munir Fasheh, historian Halil Berktay and British singer-songwriter Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens.
Discussions focused on how Eurocentric models continue to dominate universities and social sciences through claims of objectivity and universality, while sidelining indigenous and non-Western knowledge traditions.
Psychiatrist and author Dr. Kemal Sayar argued that the universalist approach of Western psychiatry imposes a secular and individualist worldview on non-Western societies, describing it as a form of “epistemic violence.”
Yusuf Islam reflected on his experience in the global music industry, saying cultural production is often shaped by systems of control similar to colonial structures and emphasizing the importance of intellectual and artistic independence.
The forum also featured academic sessions on decolonial education, economics, ecology, feminist knowledge systems and Islamic epistemologies, with researchers from 40 countries presenting their work.
Organizers said Tuesday’s sessions will focus on media narratives, settler colonialism in Palestine, economic sovereignty and racism in sports.
A news conference in Ankara on Tuesday focusing on Türkiye’s maritime jurisdiction led to confirmation of a rumored draft bill on the matter, which will reportedly authorize the president to declare “bodies of water with special status.”
Ankara University’s National Center for the Sea and Maritime Law (DEHUKAM) hosted the news conference, which was attended by its director, Mustafa Başkara, and professor Çağrı Erhan, acting chair of the Turkish Presidency’s Board of Security and Foreign Policies. DEHUKAM is the main body that prepares maritime maps to support Türkiye’s maritime jurisdiction policies.
Turkish media outlets recently reported that the country was preparing a draft bill for the “Blue Homeland,” the name given to bodies of water, from parts of the Mediterranean to Black Sea, over which Türkiye has sovereignty.
Erhan told the news conference that the bill was the outcome of the work on preserving the Turkish nation’s rights and interests stemming from international law.
Başkara said that their work complied with Türkiye’s maritime policies, and the center was the first institution accredited by the U.N. Environment Programme. He noted that the maritime spatial planning of the European Union sided with the claims of Greece (a member of the bloc) and Türkiye opposed this. He pointed out that Türkiye established its maritime jurisdiction areas in the Black Sea recently, as well as off the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and Libya.
“For us, the Blue Homeland is wherever a ship flying the Turkish flag reaches,” he said.
He noted that the draft bill would define special entities as to determine maritime jurisdiction, maritime borders and scope of any activities within these borders and those entities would be valid under verdicts by international courts and international laws.
Professor Yücel Acer, board member of DEHUKAM, said Türkiye was surrounded by seas, but it did not have a comprehensive legal regulation regarding maritime jurisdiction.
“Blue Homeland” is the name of a doctrine conceived by two former Turkish naval officers. The doctrine encompasses Türkiye’s maritime jurisdictions, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in line with United Nations resolutions. These connected issues have been a source of dispute between Türkiye and Greece for decades. Ankara and Athens seek to improve relations after years of hostilities, but maritime jurisdictions remain a thorny issue. The countries, which came close to an all-out war in the 1990s over the Aegean Sea, remain vigilant, with Türkiye concentrating on developing a domestic defense industry. Greece relies on foreign partners to boost its defenses. Embracing the doctrine of being effective and powerful at sea as its predecessor, the Ottomans, were once, Türkiye in the past two decades has developed an independent defense industry capable of operating in open waters, thereby shifting geopolitical balances in its favor. The navy plays a critical role in ensuring the security of maritime trade routes in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, promoting regional stability.
Acer said that Türkiye had deals with “some neighbors,” but a law was needed. He said the “Blue Homeland” doctrine highlighted the issue, adding that some countries acted slowly in the process, fueling problems on maritime jurisdiction. On a question whether such a bill would contravene the Montreaux Convention, an international treaty, Acer said it won’t, and it would only endorse Türkiye’s legal thesis that the Çanakkale Strait, the Marmara Sea and the Bosporus are Türkiye’s bodies of water, he said.
Signed on July 20, 1936, at the Montreaux Palace in Switzerland, the treaty gives Türkiye permission to remilitarize the Bosporus and Çanakkale Strait. It came into effect on Nov. 9, 1936, and was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series on Dec. 11, 1936. It gives Türkiye control over the Bosporus and Çanakkale Strait and regulates the transit of naval warships. The convention guarantees free passage to civilian vessels in times of peace and restricts the passage of naval ships that do not belong to littoral Black Sea states.
Erhan told the news conference that maritime laws have been dynamic and Türkiye needed to follow developments in the laws. He said the draft bill was not specifically aimed at any country.
“We are talking about a text based on the rights and interests of the Turkish nation. Other countries may believe that the world belongs to them only. We do not heed what they are worried about,” he said, in thinly veiled remarks against Greece.
The World Decolonization Forum concluded on Tuesday after two days of discussions in Istanbul.
At Tuesday’s sessions, participants held debates on decolonizing media, decolonizing knowledge production and technocolonialism, among other topics.
“Why must we keep proving that our ideas are as good as ideas that come from the West? Many Muslims fear that what they have is only secondary. That fear is itself a product of coloniality. Decolonization is to reimagine. To reconstruct and redefine futures that exist beyond the artificial constraints of colonial modernity,” Khairudin Aljunied, a professor of Islam in Southeast Asia at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, told the forum’s “Decolonial Voice” session.
Fırat Oruç, associate professor of culture and politics and director of the Arab and Regional Studies Certificate Program at Georgetown University in Qatar, addressed the “Voices of Liberation” session and noted the importance of “energy justice.”
“Oil from the Middle East, lithium from Latin America, cobalt from Africa. These are not abstract commodities. They are linked relationships. If humans are interconnected through invisible fibers, then exploitation anywhere reverberates everywhere. Energy justice requires ethical responsibility across borders,” Oruç said.
“When translations come from the Global North, they spread widely, but as those working in the Global South, we must now prioritize works that have remained on dusty shelves. They are treasures of genuine knowledge within them. We want to decolonize, but when someone who speaks Indonesian or someone who says they’ll translate a book from the Arab world approaches publishers, there’s no response. Yet books from the North are published immediately,” Mahmoud Alhirthani, associate professor of translation and intercultural studies at Alaqsa University in Gaza, told a session entitled “Decolonizing the Canon: Translation and the Field of English Literature.”
Held at the Atatürk Cultural Center under the theme “Decolonizing the Production and Circulation of Knowledge,” the forum brought together thinkers from South America, Africa, Asia and Europe to examine how colonial influence persists in education, media, economics and intellectual life.
Participants included professor Şule Albayrak, a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Marmara University, decolonial theorist Walter Mignolo, sociologist Salman Sayyid, political scientist Anne Norton, Palestinian thinker Munir Fasheh, historian Halil Berktay and British singer-songwriter Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens.
Discussions focused on how Eurocentric models continue to dominate universities and social sciences through claims of objectivity and universality, while sidelining indigenous and non-Western knowledge traditions.
Psychiatrist and author Dr. Kemal Sayar argued that the universalist approach of Western psychiatry imposes a secular and individualist worldview on non-Western societies, describing it as a form of “epistemic violence.”
Yusuf Islam reflected on his experience in the global music industry, saying cultural production is often shaped by systems of control similar to colonial structures and emphasizing the importance of intellectual and artistic independence.
The forum also featured academic sessions on decolonial education, economics, ecology, feminist knowledge systems and Islamic epistemologies, with researchers from 40 countries presenting their work.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan spoke over the phone on Sunday with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, Foreign Ministry sources said. The two top diplomats discussed the latest developments in peace talks between Iran and the United States, sources added.
Ankara is an active and major actor working for a peaceful resolution to the U.S.-Israel-Iran war. Fidan has been at the forefront of the diplomatic blitz to achieve this, along with Pakistan, a major ally of Türkiye, which hosted the last round of U.S.-Iran talks.
Iran has sent its response to a U.S. proposal aimed at ending the more than two-month war to the mediator, Pakistan, Iran’s IRNA news agency said Sunday.
According to Iran’s proposal, the current phase of negotiations will focus exclusively on the cessation of hostilities in the region, a source familiar with the matter told IRNA.
Sources in both camps have told Reuters the latest peace efforts are aimed at a temporary memorandum of understanding to halt the war and allow traffic through the Strait of Hormuz while they discuss a fuller deal, which would have to address intractable disputes such as Iran’s nuclear program.
Talks with the United States aim to defend Iran’s rights, “not surrender,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday.
“If there is any talk of dialogue or negotiation, it does not mean surrender or backing down, but rather the goal is to secure the rights of the Iranian nation and powerfully defend national interests,” Pezeshkian said in a statement carried by IRNA.
Iran “will never bow before the enemy,” he vowed during a meeting of the task force for reconstruction of damage caused during the U.S.-Israeli war.
Regional tensions have escalated since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, triggering retaliation from Tehran against Israel as well as U.S. allies in the Gulf, along with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
A cease-fire took effect on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, but talks in Islamabad failed to produce a lasting agreement. The truce was later extended by U.S. President Donald Trump without a set deadline, paving the way for diplomacy toward a permanent solution to the war.
With the instructions of Minister Gürlek, 70 unsolved cases were taken off the dusty shelves.
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With the instructions of Minister Gürlek, 70 unsolved cases were taken off the dusty shelves.
Last Minute | New good news for farmers from President Erdoğan! “We do not have a food supply security problem”
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