Covid-19 destabilized a number of my implicitly-held assumptions. I have had glimpses of these insights before, but the onset of the crisis have made them clearer. One is a kind of clear-cut division between what 'Europe' and 'the West' mean as imagined objects, or discursive entities. 'Europe' has always been exceptional - the end-point of a linear march of history, and therefore a model to be emulated. Surely being better means knowing better. And knowing better presumably entails seeing better. Europe's ways of seeing - its theories, models, concepts, methods - give clarity, illuminating the world as it exists, giving hints to how it should be. I'm amazed of course at how I have held these implicit assumptions, even after having aced a course on postcolonial theory in the in-between space of postcolonial Singapore. So yes, after having moved and lived in Europe for nearly two years, I have become well and truly decolonized. Who knew that I needed to move here to accomplish that?
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