Decolonisation does not threaten science or academic freedom

"Why don’t we translate journal papers in every other language into global English?" - Great. And vice versa!

“.... ecology of knowledges ....” As with everything else within ecologies, each ecological enclave...epistemic and otherwise.. in the different swathes of nature , will have to learn to ‘ brawn up ‘ within a Darwinian model of survival to outcompete other enclaves . It is asking too much of human nature to have the more currently advanced enclaves ( angoamerican ) to help the less advanced climb the greasy pole or create new or blended poles by some sort of pluralization of resources that may have hegemonic implications. Aspiring “ecologies“ should continue to till preferably without having to be parted with indigenous epistemic competences ( as compromise ) and without necessarily hoping the more established western units will become so generous or so eccletic in their approach they will elasticize current coordinates just to broaden the tent or enrich the calculus. Nice if it were to happen ( as prof Marginson seems to wish and argue ) but in the real world, who wants to ‘dilute’ his or her own stardom either as cultural individuals or collective. The march of time will eventually catapult the more serious and the more best to the front row inside the “ecologies of knowledges”. Will be nicer if the time can be made shorter by embracing Prof magison views. Basil jide fadipe

>>While speaking on behalf of “the West”, my colleagues do not mention the extinction of French, German and Russian as world scientific languages.<< Point taken - however, these countries are certainly part of the European civilisation (ill named as "Western"). And usually run by old, white men (and women, e.g., still Angela Merkel, etc.) - so what? >> Local indigenous communities have unique insights into land management and sustainable agriculture. << Insights maybe, however often ot as successful (measured in tons per sqare acre) as the "Western" green revolutional insights.

Done properly, a diversification of the curriculum enriches it for all of us, irrespective of our ethnicity or where in the world we live and work. I dislike the term 'decolonisation': it is too one-sided and negative. Do we want to continue wallowing in the sterile and unproductive view of white/west as oppressor and non-white/elsewhere as victim? Worse white=bad, non-white=good? Or do we want to work together to share of our best with each other as equal partners?

Some good points but also omission. To say that 'great traditions like China, India and Iran were suppressed, not extinguished' [by the West is the implication] ignores the fact that for China and Iran at least, a lot of the suppression was done by their own leaders, i.e. the Cultural Revolution, which most definitely was not headed by the 'West'. Communism and theocracy are profoundly anti-intellectual and pro-censorship, the Academy should be against these tenets.