On 23.04.2025, the political philosopher Nikita Dhawan gave a presentation about her new book “Die Aufklärung vor Europa retten: Kritische Theorien der Kolonialisierung”, published by Campus Verlag, as part of the book launch organized by the CGC. In her lecture, Dhawan explained three common criticisms in the context of the backlash against postcolonial theory before naming possible strategies of postcolonial resistance against the delegitimization of emancipatory struggles. Drawing on Jean Améry and Frantz Fanon, Dhawan countered the three accusations of normative nihilism, postcolonial Eurocentrism (on the part of decolonial theories) and postcolonial anti-Semitism with a plea, namely to recognize the shared suffering of two groups in joint mourning work instead of playing them off against each other. In doing so, it is necessary to accept the achievements of the Enlightenment, such as human rights and secularism, while at the same time reflecting critically on the racist, colonialist and sexist ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers. In Dhawan's words, it is about being better Kantians than Kant himself was. With this positioning, Dhawan opposes the radical epistemic decoupling from the western intellectual canon proposed by decolonial thinkers. After Dhawan's closing words "it is worth saving the Enlightenment", moderator Johanna Leinius led the way to a stimulating discussion with the audience. After the book presentation, there was the opportunity to purchase the book.