Idriss Jebari, Leaping Decolonization: North Africa in the Global 1960s and 1970s

The impact of colonisation did not end with the retreat of armies.Instead, it persists through language, thought, and economy.Thus, the dilemma of decolonisation has overwhelmed postcolonial intellectuals.Scholars like Edward Said (1994) and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1992) argue that the ex-colonies are left with a legacy of humiliation and degradation of their histories.Jebari's book, Leaping Decolonization, exhumes the intellectual archive of the formative decades (1960s and 1970s) following independence.These two critical decades impart meaning to the modern history of the Maghreb.Another crucial matter related to the interpretation of the title, Leaping Decolonization, serves as a complementary component of this review.Titles operate as a constitutive device bridging the gap between readers and the reading materials.In this regard, deconstructing the phrasing of the title reveals the multilayered connotations, suggesting an urgent movement forward and transcending a historical and cultural phase of decolonization.This title implies that Maghrebi intellectual endeavors should not remain imprisoned by the cultural, political, and epistemic shackles inherited from colonialism.Instead, there should be a leap over this critical historical phase; otherwise, Arab civilization will not thrive.This book argues that decolonization is not merely a retreat of armies or a transfer of political sovereignty into the hands of indigenous nationalists.Instead, genuine decolonization is a long intellectual journey and a series of scholarly debates through which engaged thinkers endure decolonizing epistemological, cultural, and psychological colonial legacies.Put otherwise, intellectuals articulate their dissatisfaction with post-independence governments because, despite indigenous leadership, colonial traditions and practices persisted.Independence remains incomplete without decolonizing captivated minds.Therefore, the postcolonial North African intelligentsia overcomes the sense of inferiority and historical regression inculcated by the French colonial power.Jebari underscores the role of postcolonial Maghrebi intellectuals who burden transition or leap, transcending Western epistemic violence, as Spivak puts it.This