> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://proyekdekolonial.gitbook.io/docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://proyekdekolonial.gitbook.io/docs/salah-kaprah-dekol/readme.md).

# Salah Kaprah Dekol

*Salah kaprah* is an Indonesian term for an error so widespread and repeated that it starts to feel correct—the wrong understanding has become the common understanding. *Salah kaprah dekol* is what happens when decolonization becomes a trend: absorbed, packaged, and redistributed in forms that reproduce exactly what they claim to oppose.

### The misunderstanding is not a side effect of the trend. <mark style="color:$primary;">It is the trend.</mark>

**"Kita harus decolonize kurikulum kita"** — said at a seminar. Slide deck updated. Nothing structurally changes. Decolonization as performance.

**Diversity and inclusion rebranded as dekolonisasi** — put local faces at the front, keep the same extractive structure behind. Representation mistaken for transformation.

**Dekolonisasi sebagai estetika** — batik on the slide deck, Pramoedya quote in the caption. The aesthetic of critique without its practice.

**NGO dan donor program menyebut diri "decolonial"** — but still top-down, still extractive, still designed for funder legibility rather than community control.

**Academics writing about dekolonisasi** — for other academics, in English, behind a paywall, using Western frameworks to critique Western frameworks.

**Nasionalisme diklaim sebagai dekolonisasi** — swapping the face of the colonizer while keeping the colonial structure intact. The proyek of the nation-state as liberation.

**The most dangerous one:** people who already understand salah kaprah forming exclusive groups that believe they are the most correct about dekol—creating new hierarchies in the name of refusing hierarchy.

ProyekDekolonial is not immune to any of these. We name them not to position ourselves above them, but because naming is the beginning of accountability. We have made these mistakes. We will make them again. The practice is in the noticing and the returning.


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