On October 25th, 2009 Sandew Hira entered into a debate with Prof. Dr. Gert Oostindie of Leiden University on the history of colonialism. The debate was organized by Vereniging Ons Suriname in Amsterdam. Hira argued that Oostindie was part of a movement, which he describes in this book as scientific colonialism. Scientific colonialism attempts to use scientific to substantiate the claim that colonialism was not a system of oppression and exploitation and that there were good sides to colonialism.

The decolonization process in the world is almost complete. This process has three phases: the political decolonization, economic colonization and decolonization of the mind. We are currently in the third and final stage of the decolonization process: Decolonizing the mind. The critique on scientific colonialism is part of the process of Decolonizing the mind.

This book consists of three parts. The first part provides a fundamental critique on the theses of the scientific colonialism. The second part analyzes the mechanisms by which this movement maintains its dominance in the Dutch academic world. The final part discusses some strategic issues for policy makers of organizations active in the field of Decolonizing the mind. This book is only available in Dutch.