When the ceasefire in Gaza was announced, Western media called it a “historic step towards peace.” Headlines spoke of hope, timelines filled with blue-and-white infographics, and politicians congratulated themselves on a “turning point.”

Even close friends texted me:

“Why do you keep posting about Palestine? Does it really do anything?”

“Will you keep posting? Isn’t it done now?”

“Thank God it’s over”

But for Palestinians, there was no turning point. There was only rubble, hunger, trauma, and silence.

The ceasefire might have stopped the bombs temporarily, but it didn’t stop the occupation. It didn’t bring back the thousands killed, the homes erased, or the generations left to grow up under Siege. Still, for many in the West, this moment signals emotional closure. The bombs stopped, therefore we can stop caring.

This is what we mean when we speak of white innocence: the ability to disconnect from violence the moment it no longer disrupts white comfort.

A ceasefire does not mean peace. It means the West can exhale again. It means timelines return to normal, the free palestine posts turn back to selfies, and the news cycle moves on.

This desire for closure is not neutral, it is colonial. It assumes the West holds the authority to decide when a conflict begins and when it ends. The same powers that armed, funded, and justified Israel’s genocide now brand themselves as mediators of peace.

When the world applauds a ceasefire while Gaza remains an open-air prison, it performs empathy while preserving oppression.

Language reinforces this performance. Western media calls Israelis hostages and Palestinians prisoners. One word difference, and an entire moral hierarchy is established. To be a hostage is to be innocent. To be a prisoner is to be guilty. This is not reporting; it is storytelling that protects power.

Even now, major outlets warn that Hamas is “using the ceasefire to regroup.” Rarely do they question how Israel uses every pause to rebuild its military dominance, expand settlements, and rebrand its global image.

The same pattern repeats: condemn Hamas, humanize the IDF, and call it “balanced journalism.” What is truly being balanced here are the scales of moral acceptability; deciding which counts violence, and whose right to resist is deemed legitimate.

Because make no mistake: resistance has never been tidy. Revolutions have never been polite. The history of liberation, from Algeria to South Africa, from Vietnam to the Americas, has always been framed as “violent” by those invested in maintaining order. But order, in colonial logic, means obedience.

When the colonized fight back, their rage is called terrorism. When the colonizer bombs hospitals, it’s called defense. The violence of the oppressed is hyper-visible; the violence of the oppressor is structural, normalized, invisible.

To speak of peace while condemning only one side’s violence is to take a side, the side of power.

The West’s obsession with peace without justice mirrors its colonial legacy: impose solutions, celebrate itself, and ignore the people still bleeding.

A decolonial understanding of peace demands more. It demands we name the occupation. It demands we reject two-state “solutions” that erase sovereignty. It demands we center Palestinian voices, not Western saviors.

Real peace will never come from negotiations between colonizer and colonized, but from dismantling the structures that made colonization possible in the first place.

WeDecolonize exists for moments like this: to challenge selective empathy, to deconstruct how media and institutions reproduce colonial logic, and to remind our communities that justice cannot coexist with occupation.

The ceasefire is not the end of the story, it is the next chapter in a long struggle for liberation.

Let’s not mistake silence for peace.

Let’s not mistake comfort for justice.

Let’s not mistake white relief for freedom.

Because Palestinians are not finally okay.

They are still surviving, 

and the least we can do is refuse to look away.

Today, on the 115th iteration of International Women’s Day, 63 women will be martyred in Gaza. 37 of them are mothers, many leaving behind families in dire conditions, and some with no families left to remember them. 

More than 9,000 Gazan women have been martyred since the beginning of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza. These estimates are conservative; they exclude all the women dying of starvation and diseases across the strip, as well as all the victims still under the rubbles. 60,000 women in Gaza are pregnant, babies are delivered under airstrikes and c-sections performed without anaesthetics or proper sanitary conditions. 

Modern expressions of Women’s Day, and by extension the broader feminist movement, often present a fractal mirror of the broader liberal-washing of feminist action and rights movements. Not only drawn from euro-centric and colonial foundations but also often are watered down by modern corporatism and racism. The struggle to decolonize Women’s Day is built upon the universality of the colonial experience and intersectionality between liberation movements. In this effort, it is vital to contextualize this history, and to step past the western-dominated and primarily American narrative. Decolonial and feminist scholars have repeatedly iterated the necessity for peeling back the layers of a conventional and simplified narrative in order to understand and correctly utilize the power of the womens movement for global reform. 

Critically, countless black and brown women and non-conforming people have shaped the landscape of gender identity, sexual rights, and bodily integrity. In decolonizing IWD it’s not only crucial to highlight the euro-centricity of contemporary feminism, but more critically, to deconstruct the narrative that women’s rights movements originate in the west and spilled over onto the rest of the world. Colonial histories only concede to western definitions of social struggle, thus colonial histories of feminism can only take into account the battle against western forms of patriarchy which were exported to the global south through colonial exploitation. Feminist and women’s rights movements in the third world have a long history of battling their indigenous patriarchal norms long before being forced to face the imported white patriarchies alongside.

The genocide in Congo rages on. Since the beginning of the 90’s eastern Congo has been a region plagued by violence due to the mineral wealth of the territory. Approximately 70% of the world’s Cobalt supply is mined in east Congo, alongside huge amounts of copper and lithium. Cartellized terrorist groups, financed by western corporations and governments, maintain the instability of the region and the steady cheap supply of mined raw material. These minerals are widely used for electronics and particularly for batteries in the growing electric car industry, with an impending explosion in global demand and no limitation on violent extractionism the crisis only threatens to worsen. Vicious extractionism threatens the contuguity of local communities and encircles them with massive resource extraction projects, many are forced to take manual jobs in mines and in brutal conditions, effectively enslaving the population. Massive criminal extraction schemes have created a wound which only threatens to worsen without intervention, and the silence of the world speaks volumes. Join WeDecolonizeVUB in breaking this silence on the 29th of February at the Flemish African House for our ‘Congo is Bleeding’ event.

Leading up to the event, BRUZZ radio hosted an interview with Patricia Da Costa, the host of WDVUB’s panel next thursday. The interview discussed the contemporary characteristics of the crisis as well as exploring some of the broader contexts, Patricia also expanded on the event and its purpose. You can listen to this enlightening interview here, and read the English transcript below, to get cued in before attending our panel discussion.

Robbe Petitjean: Good morning Patricia da Costa, you’re a student at the UGent and part of wedecolonizevub. Next Thursday on the 29th, you guys hold a debate. What is the purpose?

Patricia Da Costa: The purpose is to come together. It will take the form of a panel talk, where our main goal is to inform people about what exactly is happening in East Congo because there is aswell a lot of fake news but also to explain the historical context because this could be complex  but also to support the Congolese diaspora in Belgium and see what we can do here.

Robbe: Is it also the goal to reach them because it’s located in Kuumba the African house?

Patricia: It’s also the goal to reach them so we are hoping that people could feel supported.

Robbe: That conflict, I know it is very complex but can you briefly explain what is happening over there, is that possible?

Patricia: Yes of course, currently there is genocide going on in Congo. Since the beginning of the 90s in East-Congo, this because this location is rich with minerals mostly the mineral cobalt that gets used in smartphones, batteries en electric cars. It’s everywhere. Approximately 70% of the worlds Cobalt comes from East-Congo. So what is happening in Congo right now, is that the West is financing terrorist groups to destabilize Congo. So this cobalt could be took over for a cheaper price and easier can get smuggled outside the country. Because this cobalt is under authority of these terrorist groups do Congolese people have to cultivate these minerals manually, that makes them slaves in their own country. 

Robbe: That cobalt is in the smartphones we use everyday, is everyone to blame?

Patricia: No because it’s very difficult to know which companies or even which countries support this genocide in Congo. This causes it to be very hard to boycot something.

Robbe: Yes, that indeed really looks very complex for me. Wedecolonizevub is going to give extra attention to it, how is the situation over there right now? A lot of people are on the run.

Patricia: Yes that is true, the situation over there is really bad. Until now more than 6 million people have died and there is totally not a lot of media coverage going towards the issue that causes to situation to be happening in silent.

Robbe: Why do you think there is not a lot of media coverage about the situation?

Patricia:  I think there is little coverage about this because the whole problem is so complex and it has been going on for very long but it is also very difficult to say which companies have a role in this genocide and which one specifically can we boycott because we do not know which companies finance this genocide. I also think that in the media it gets seen less as a priority, maybe because it is from far away.

Robbe:  Yes maybe because it feels like that, what do you think of important people such as a Romelu Lukaku posts about this?

Patricia: If an important person such as Romelu Lukaka posts about this then you know It is very urgent to talk about this. We cannot be silence anymore.

Robbe:  And next Thursday that is going to happen, Wedecolonizevub is going to have a sort of debat, on the intercalary day in Kuumba the Flemish-African house. Are you yourself going to participate?

Patricia: Yes, I actually moderate the panel talk. I’m going in conversation with Kabeya and Sephora Wondo.

Robbe: How many people do you expect?

Patricia: We hope approximately to welcome 50 people but we are not sure yet.

Robbe:  Perhaps this is a call, you can go to Kuumba the Flemish African house, if you wanna know more about it is between 19-22h, the intercalary day, there is going to be talked about the problems in Congo. It is maybe weird to say but I wish you good luck, Patricia.

Patricia: Thank you

While the clock is tocking the heart of Congo still beat yet bleeds. Our goal in having this panel talk is to discuss and highlight the events the events that have occured in the heart of Africa during the past decades. Join us the 29th of February at the Flemish African House to show support and compassion for the people of Congo.

Join us on for a panel talk with guest speakers February 29th from 7-10PM at Kuumba to listen, learn, and love as we make space to discuss the wounds of Congo. The conversation will span the historical and political context of Congo, the current events and how the media portrays it as well as discussing the future impacts. Followed by a Q & A with the audience.

Don’t forget to register here for the event and we hope to see you there!

Today, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will be delivering its ruling on the provisional measures requested by South Africa in Section I Article 6 of the Application Instituting Proceedings against Israel. While the conclusive ruling of the court on this case may not come for years, optimists point to the potential provisional measures as a realistic means to pressure Israel into de-escalation if not a ceasefire. The court’s announcement today is bound to alter the course of the conflict, but examining it more closely, the trial also seems bound to redefine the world altogether. 

Getting a ruling from the court which would indicate provisional measures could have the potential to halt bombardment and alleviate some of the looming crisis awaiting Gaza, and would be a monumental leap on the march to freedom and recognition. But peeling back some of the wrapping around this trial, and examining some of its broader implications, it appears that as the world holds its breath while the ICJ judges are deliberating their indication, underlying the trial, the legitimacy of the contemporary international order is under extreme scrutiny. The ICJ ruling today, whichever way the court’s decision is made, will have implications that are bound to reform, if not overhaul, the way our global political structures work. Ultimately, the world we will go to sleep in tonight will be fundamentally different to the one we woke up in this morning. 

The confirmed death-toll from Gaza’s Ministry of Health is above 25,700 since October 7th, these figures are certainly conservative as the MOH confirms casualty numbers through positive verification only. Projections by Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimate real deaths in the Gaza Strip surpassed 30,000 before the beginning of 2024. While unbelievably large, we should expect these numbers to be dwarfed by the ongoing and future casualties of secondary effects of the bombardment and invasion. 

Since the imposition of the blockade in 2006, living conditions in Gaza have been strategically engineered to teeter at the edge of collapse primarily to serve the purposes of the Israeli security apparatus and its stakeholders. Gaza’s residents have been strategically kept on a calorie-counted “diet” living under the debilitating siege on movement of people and goods through an almost 20 year blockade. Regular Israeli airstrikes and military incursions, dubbed “mowing the grass” by Israeli policy-makers, were aimed at demoralizing Palestinian resistance through intermittent intensive bombing campaigns like Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009) and Operation Protective Edge (2014). The calculated, drawn out, deprivation of Gaza has kept its population perpetually on the brink of collapse and starvation.

It’s no surprise that South Africa, considering their historic struggle against apartheid, has stepped in to defend Palestine on the world stage. The experiences that define Palestinians’ lives under occupation are all too familiar to South Africans who can remember the apartheid regime; separation of public spaces and facilities, differentiation between identification (from passports and ID cards to vehicle license plates), brutal policing and violent oppression, and most certainly the notions of dehumanization and racial supremacy. South Africa’s long march has seared the right to resist for liberty and equality in the memories of South Africans, and in the hopes of Palestinians. Palestinian liberation movements across the spectrum learned and drew inspiration from their contemporaries in South Africa, from the non-violent cultural activism and boycott movements all the way to hard-line guerilla insurgencies. Having endured this same uphill battle to liberation, with few international allies along the way, the urgent parallels will not escape South Africa. “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians” Nelson Mandela famously said. 

South Africa’s formal application to the ICJ instituting proceedings against Israel and request for the indication of provisional measures was submitted on the 29th of December 2023 and published alongside a formal press release from the court. The application accuses Israel of violations of its obligations under the 1949 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide with regards to its 2023-24 assault on the Gaza Strip. 

The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, was established by the 1945 UN Charter as one of the six principal organs that form the United Nations. Constituted and regulated by the Statute of the International Court of Justice, as specified by Chapter XIV of the UN charter, the ICJ is the only international court which adjudicates general disputes between nations and is as such considered to be the world’s highest legal authority. As the primary legal arm of the United Nations, the ICJ is deeply integrated into the fabric of the UN superstructure.

The court’s definitive ruling on whether or not Israel’s actions constitute a breach of the Genocide Convention is expected to take years. ICJ cases can drag under normal circumstances as the court is weighed down by the massive bureaucracy required to maintain it. Cases like this one have been exceptionally debilitating for international organizations in the past, and discussions regarding Palestine are prone to choke the mechanisms of these institutions.

The Hague approved South Africa’s request for an expedited case on 3 January. The prosecution was granted its hearing on 11 January to make its case for the indication of provisional measures. Israel’s defense would be scheduled for the next day and both hearings were extended by an hour at the request of the Israeli delegation.

Article 144 of the application instituting proceedings lays out the 9 provisional measures South Africa requested from the court. Broadly, the measures effectively call for a halt of military operations and demand an end to (and prosecution of) inciting violence and genocidal rhetoric, a weekly submission of reports from Israel to the court on all measures taken to comply with the measures and that the state desist from the extermination, displacement, and deprivation of Palestinians.

South Africa’s prosecution has effectively leveraged the legitimacy of the UN superstructure against itself; by primarily sourcing evidence from UN agencies and staff, as well as direct quotes from the Israeli leadership and military, SA binds the ICJ. If the court were to delegitimize the sources, this means that the court finds that UN agency data is not reliable. Similarly, the General Assembly has reaffirmed UNGA resolution 194 every year since its adoption in December 1948, most notably enshrining the Palestinian people’s right to return to their homelands in Article 11. Israel’s continued immunity from this violation has only been reinforced after their inclusion into the International community on the promise of the now failed Oslo Accords. This effectively dispels the foundational principle of a more cohesive international order framed around institutional integration, upon which this court and the broader UN structure was legitimized. The Court must take into account that if it provides a precedent for factual distrust within the UN structure it is directly sowing the seeds for a future legitimacy crisis.

The same lever mechanism is employed more broadly, outside the walls of the court. It’s very likely that this is the first time that the public has witnessed the crime scene before hearing the courts verdict on a genocide case. SA prosecutor Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh took the moment to subtly remind the court’s Judges that the whole world has watched already in horror “This is the first genocide in history, where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time, in the desperate, so far vain hope, that the world might do something”. Global public opinion, and particularly that in western countries, is dramatically skewing against the regimes defending Israel’s actions. In the United States, for example, organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine have rallied thousands of protestors and carried out real civil disobedience as a means of activism. It’s impossible to ignore how much of a role modern communication plays in this shift; global audiences have witnessed an endless stream of content from the source documenting the death and destruction. In past cases, the public would have been waiting for the ICJ’s legal ruling to inform themselves about whether or not the crimes constituted genocide, but it would be reasonable to assume that much of the world is now waiting on the court’s verdict to inform themselves on whether or not the court carried out their stated duty. This means, effectively, that the court’s integrity is on trial and we are all the jury.

Questions surrounding the court’s capacity to enforce its potential ruling also promise to pile on to the legitimacy crisis facing the broader UN. Israeli figures including prime minister Netanyahu have already made it clear the country does not intend to slow its campaign even if the court were to indicate provisional measures.  All UN member states are automatically parties to the ICJ’s Statute as per Article 93 of the UN Charter, thus legally bound to the court’s rulings, and this is a primary factor in the optimism surrounding this case in contrast to cynicism regarding the many cold cases on the shelves of the International Criminal Court. The ICC operates on the Rome Statute and is not binding on non-signatories like the United States and Israel, whereas the ICJ’s integration in the UN’s structure makes its jurisdiction more universal. This presents a double edge; while the court’s rulings may be binding, the ICJ primarily depends on the Security Council for enforcement, where it is almost certain that serious efforts will be subject to veto. This would certainly sow doubt over the coherence of the UN superstructure, and considering the world is watching closely, the impotence of the court and the selective application of rule-of-law would not go unnoticed.

Despite the bleak outlook on a concrete ceasefire and the continued horror and suffering for the people of Gaza, it’s important to view the broader impact that this case promises to make in the international system. There are potential victories to be made at every stage of this case.

It’s notable that even just compelling the court to discuss the possibility of provisional measures would set several important precedents which will be relevant in any future international legal discussion on the conflict.  The bar for the court to make a prima facie (preliminary or ‘at first sight’) conclusion affirming the courts jurisdiction does not require certainty to be met, but only “plausibility”. South Africa’s legal team made compelling use of the evidence to safely presume that the court won’t deny it. The jurisdiction would be granted to the court based on Article 9 of the Genocide Convention as invoked by SA. A decision from the court to entertain SA’s case for provisional measures would imply the courts legal affirmation of:

1. The right of SA to invoke the case and its claim that this is obliged as a signatory of the convention, and by extent, the right and duty of all signatories to do so as well. 
2. SA’s claim that Palestinians as a whole, as well specifically the Palestinians in Gaza, constitute a “distinct national, ethnic, racial or religious group” and are, as such, protected by the Genocide Convention.

These affirmations are significant milestones for the Palestinian battle in international courts, and promise to set legal precedents which will not be easy to overlook in any future ICJ cases regarding genocide.

Further, the potential indication of provisional measures, even watered down measures, promises to place the court at odds with the Security Council. Israel is likely to ignore the measures based on the dismissive rhetoric that has been piling out of the political leadership since the initiation of the trial. The UNSC’s historic paralysis regarding Israel promises to resurface, with France, the UK, and particularly the US, likely to step in and veto any efforts for concrete pressure on Israel. A failure of the Security Council to enforce the potential provisional measures would be devastating to the effectiveness of the ruling, but also promises to open some doors for productive reform. General Assembly resolution 377 (V), passed in 1950, gives the General Assembly the power to bypass UNSC deadlocks in cases where it “fails to exercise its primary responsibility of maintenance of international peace and security”. Invoking the resolution, through a majority vote by member states, grants the UNGA the right to form an emergency special session. Growing criticism towards the exceptionalism and hypocrisy of the UNSC hints that a majority is quite likely in the General Assembly. Additionally, many western nations who are conventionally allied with Israel have indicated that they will concede to the court’s decision regardless of the outcome, Belgium, Spain, and Slovenia making concrete guarantees.

The GA’s invocation of resolution 377 could give teeth to the ICJ’s potential ruling and would set the stage for possible sanctions and even national criminal cases against Israeli officials. Beyond this, an international dialogue has already been initiated about the reform of the UNSC throughout recent years, and the possible unification of the GA in calling for an emergency special session to address the situation in Palestine is only likely to spark further support for structural changes. These deliberations and their aftermath promise to significantly snowball the existing questions about the “outdatedness” of the Security Council mechanisms, and their hindrance in manifesting equitable international representation. These questions are bound to accelerate the dwindling, if not collapsing, legitimacy of the contemporary order. Now is a critical moment in deciding how we will restructure it from the rubble.

The current assault on Gaza has spared no one. Deaths have averaged 250-300 every day due to Israeli aggression alone, 1.5 in every hundred people have been martyred. Everybody has lost someone, some are mourning whole families, and some whole families have been lost without anyone left to mourn them. More than a hundred days of destruction and deprivation promise to leave behind unlivable conditions that will dwarf the current humanitarian crisis. Entire cities have been flattened in the north, leaving nothing for many survivors to return to. With virtually the entire population of Gaza displaced, famine and disease are rapidly overrunning the dangerously congested South. The world cannot bear to watch. Will the international community choose to turn their gaze, or will we rise to the occasion?  

Today’s ruling by the court will be critical, not only for Palestine but for the whole of the colonized world. South Africa has not only stepped up to the plate as a protector of the morality and universal human rights which the international rules-based liberal order has touted for decades, but done so as a survivor of colonial genocide and apartheid and in the face of the western liberal democracies who are betraying their claimed values.  

On Thursday evening we got together to say goodbye to the We Decolonize VUB library that hosted us for three years. For one last time, flooded with the aromas of spiced rice and fresh baked goods, the library filled with chatter and warmth. We traded recipes and book suggestions, shared and talked about our experiences of systemic inequality, and complained about the cold and upcoming exam period. It felt like a home.

The WDVUB library has been the organization’s home for over three years, not only hosting countless events and get-togethers, but also being a safe and engaging setting for the day-to-day activities of our members and for the student body as a whole. Since its launch in October of 2020, the library has been central to WDVUB’s mission, it was the project’s first real endeavor. 

“Eventually someone got the idea to also organize study spaces, and then also we provided designated spaces for religious students to come and pray, so it became very multifunctional.” Aïsha, a key board member, told me when we spoke. She has been involved with the library since the beginning and described to me how naturally the space came to take on its current form, “the library was very much a place where people could come to just unload, to study, to pray, to read… it wasnt restricted to being simply a library where you strictly come to consume and reproduce knowledge. No, it became a lot more than that.”

In 2021 the library made the move from the yellow buildings of the former P dorms to the current location in the F building. That year also saw the establishment of the WDVUB student board, overhauling the way the organization functioned. Although the library had hosted events since its launch, it was previously seen as the venue for these events, after this overhaul the library itself became the dedicated setting for a variety of activities. 

With the growth of the organization’s popularity on campus, the roles that the library took on would only expand. “People would come to ask us questions about colonialism and discuss their thoughts, or sometimes to discuss incidents of racism or structural aggression in the university” Aïsha told me, “the library became what I would call a zone of comfort for racialized students.” Student’s growing reliance and trust in WDVUB and our mission hinged on the critical role of the library as the organization’s home, and the flexibility and adaptability that it brings has been instrumental for the realization of the organization’s image. The library has since hosted countless planned events ranging from talks and seminars to book clubs and open mics, while our members continue to run into ever more creative ways to make the space bloom.