The Race for Paradise

Away from erstwhile stereotypes about the middle ages as ‘an age of darkness’, or ‘medieval’ being synonymous with ‘primitive’ might have provided ample justification for the enslavement of Africans and the annihilation of millions of indigenous peoples. However, in a significant way, that did help foreground modernity and European hegemony over the rest with Orientalist discourses and power centricity anchoring a rather irascible reality of unevenness in East-West and North-South relationship. Irreverence towards intellectual developments among the Jews and Muslims during the medieval period, spawned post-colonial attacks on Eurocentricity in scholarship demanding holistic efforts for taking non-Western scholars, histories and philosophies aboard. Perhaps this may be the reason that instead of sheer objectification, we see China, India, West Asia, Africa and indigenous societies increasingly becoming equal partners—and not mere subjects—in emerging intellectual, artistic and academic contributions.