Charlotte Mertens

#Unimelb racesexgender, violence, de/anti colonialism, sexual politics of empire, genocide, humanitarianism, archives #DRC #CongoBelge #CongoFreeState

[Charlotte Mertens @Charlomertens]

With @sperazzone we wrote a paper @RISjnl on the emancipatory potential of the colonial archives for knowing and seeing violence in #DRC. https://t.co/TvT7ktaYby Striving towards an anti-colonial ‘living’ archive, we take up Lila Abu-Lughod’s call who, in relation to Palestine,

[The Funambulist @TheFunambulist_]

📌 NEW: ANTICOLONIAL BUNDLE

We have put together three of our recent issues, which we consider to be essential reading for strengthening our readers’ understanding of and commitment to the global anticolonial struggles.

https://t.co/lFcivwU0vT

[Charlotte Mertens @Charlomertens]

My favourite book! I finally get to teach it to my students this year.

[rome @romeramreem]

This book is less than a 100 pages, lucid, and utterly perfect: “People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind—it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves…”

[Randa Abdel-Fattah @RandaAFattah]

My statement in response to the racist decision to cancel me from Adelaide Writers' Week.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

“To preserve the values of the civilized world, it is necessary to set fire to a library. To blow up a mosque. To incinerate olive trees. To dress up in the lingerie of women who fled and then take pictures. To level universities. To loot jewellery, art, banks, food. To arrest children for picking vegetables. To shoot children for throwing stones. To parade the captured in their underwear. To break a man’s teeth and shove a toilet brush in his mouth. To let combat dogs loose on a man with Down syndrome and then leave him to die. Otherwise, the uncivilized world might win.”

--Omar El Akkad, “One day, everyone will have always been against this"

[dylan saba @shaabiranks]

Reminder that over two years ago @IChotiner and @NewYorker ran a piece with this headline without presenting any evidence of systematic sexual violence. Moreover the interviewee has since walked back much of what she claimed here. The piece is still up with the same headline

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

I’m sorry to be self-righteous but it is really true what they say. When you visit the West Bank, witness the brutality of the occupation, see its inner workings, and get to know its victims, I don’t see how it’s possible to stop it from consuming you and altering the course of your life. Making it stop becomes completely urgent. I wish this experience on all of my detractors.

[Dan Sheehan @danpjsheehan]

A reminder that genocide is about more than just mass slaughter.

[Daniel Michombero /Batubenga @michombero]

#RDC 🇨🇩: le M23/RDF , sous sanctions internationales, installe une base militaire dans une ancienne position de la #MONUSCO aux portes d’Uvira

Malgré les sanctions internationales et les exigences de retrait formulées par le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU, les rebelles du M23/RDF ont installé une position militaire avancée dans l’ancienne base de la MONUSCO de Kaala, à quelques kilomètres au Nord de la ville d’Uvira, au Sud-Kivu.

Depuis le début de la semaine, plusieurs sources locales font état d’un afflux massif d’éléments RDF/M23 dans la ville d’Uvira. Le camp Kaala, autrefois occupé par la mission onusienne, servirait désormais de base arrière stratégique, alimentant les craintes d’une nouvelle escalade militaire dans la région.

Ce mercredi 24 décembre 2025, des mouvements jugés suspects ont été observés au port public de Kalundu. Des témoins signalent l’arrivée de pièces détachées en provenance du Rwanda, destinées à être assemblées sur place. Selon les mêmes sources, des ingénieurs étrangers ainsi que des marins affiliés au RDF/M23/AFC seraient impliqués dans ces opérations. La présence de vedettes armées sur le lac Tanganyika, certaines équipées de canons, est également rapportée, faisant craindre une extension des hostilités vers Kalemie, Baraka et le Maniema.

Ce revirement militaire contraste avec les efforts diplomatiques en cours et intervient alors que le M23 et ses soutiens font l’objet de sanctions sévères de la part de plusieurs puissances et institutions internationales.

L’Union européenne, les États-Unis, le Royaume-Uni, le Canada et les Nations unies ont tous pris des mesures punitives contre le M23 et des responsables rwandais accusés de soutenir ce groupe rebelle opérant dans l’est de la RDC. En mars 2025, l’Union européenne a sanctionné plusieurs hauts responsables militaires rwandais, dont le brigadier général Pascal Mizi et le commandant Een Kubito, ainsi que des cadres du M23, pour leur rôle dans l’offensive et les exactions commises contre les civils.

De leur côté, les États-Unis ont inscrit sur leur liste noire des personnalités liées à l’Alliance du fleuve Congo (AFC) et au M23, notamment Lawrence Kanyuka, porte-parole du mouvement, et l’ancien ministre rwandais James Kabarebe, pour leur implication présumée dans l’instabilité régionale. Par la résolution 2773 adoptée en février 2025, le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU a fermement condamné l’offensive du M23 et le soutien du Rwanda, exigeant le retrait immédiat des troupes et le démantèlement des structures parallèles. Le Royaume-Uni et le Canada ont également adopté des sanctions similaires.

Daniel Michombero

[Nicola Perugini @PeruginiNic]

Record levels of colonisation in the West Bank are occurring simultaneously with record levels of forced displacement. The genocide in Gaza has served as a tool for erasing the indigenous inhabitants of other parts of Palestine from their lands.

[Sophie McNeill @Sophiemcneill]

Disgraceful by the @westaustralian to link the peaceful anti-genocide movement & the bridge march with the horrific antisemitic terror attack in Bondi.

Yesterday a friend was abused in a shopping centre simply for wearing her keffiyeh.

This misleading & hateful commentary must end & must be called out at the highest level level @AlboMP

[Prof Ben Saul - UN SR Human Rights & Counterterror @profbensaul]

I condemn Israel's extremist approval of 19 new illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, which fuel violence and destroy hope for peace
https://t.co/kxah1lMq1l

[Charlotte Mertens @Charlomertens]

Wrong on so many levels. As if preventing protests will help fight antisemitism, as if people protesting Israel’s genocide is antisemitic, as if more state power, surveillance and (racist) policing will solve the problem of racism in this place. Fuck this shit.

[Nicola Perugini @PeruginiNic]

On permanent massacre mode. There is no way out of this other than full military, economic and diplomatic isolation.

[Overland Journal @OverlandJournal]

“But it’s also that this land, this beautiful Aboriginal land, was not made to hold such grief. It can, and it does, but it shouldn’t have this burden thrust upon itself.”

@jordana_s_ on the logic of violence that permeates Australia.

https://t.co/45H8KJiH20

[Duke University Press @DukePress]

In "The Violence of Protection," Lee Ann S. Wang shows how legal protections offered to immigrant and undocumented Asian American survivors of gender and sexual violence harm the communities they claim to protect. Read the intro for free: https://t.co/PqmFcI2Ejo

[Nick Riemer @NickRiemer1]

"It is obscene how quickly the right has seized on this horror to advance an Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian agenda. And it is disgusting to see Israel’s politicians almost gleeful at the opportunity to distract from their genocidal onslaught in Gaza" https://t.co/fuA6QfBowr

[Reuters Africa @ReutersAfrica]

Two hundred thousand people have fled their homes in eastern Congo in recent days, the United Nations said, as Rwanda-backed rebels march on a strategic town just days after Donald Trump hosted the Rwandan and Congolese leaders to proclaim peace. https://t.co/hfuRtGXx5d

[Dimi Reider | dimireider.substack.com @reider]

The Hague, especially