Eastern DRC‘s academic articles
Streaming Hate: Exploring the Harm of Anti-Banyamulenge and Anti-Tutsi Hate Speech on Congolese Social Media
Mediatized hate speech fuelled the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda nearly three decades ago, yet anti-Tutsi rhetoric is still circulating in the Great Lakes region, albeit under a radically changed media and political landscape. Social media and online platforms facilitate the proliferation of inflammatory and discriminatory discourses whose impact on violent conflict remains uncertain.
Hate Speech and Genocide in Minembwe, D.R. Congo
Hate speech is one of the early stages of persecution and genocide. Genocide Watch uses the model of the Ten Stages of Genocide to predict whether groups of people risk facing Extermination, which is Stage 9 of Genocide Watch’s model. Hate speech usually occurs at Stage 4: Dehumanization, following the first three stages of Classification, Symbolization, and Discrimination.
Under the shadow of violence: are the Banyamulenge experiencing a slow genocide?
Colonialism, racial categorization, abolishment of local chiefdoms, and the reified post-colonial autochthony have left the Banyamulenge identified as “immigrants, foreigners, and invaders”. The Banyamulenge are specifically targeted by the Congolese state, non-state armed actors, and militias. Killings and massacres are often preceded by demonizing and dehumanizing campaigns.
Expressive violence and the slow genocide of the Banyamulenge of South Kivu
Following Autesserre, we show that one-dimensional narratives – in this case of ‘race’ – tend to over-simplify the dynamics of political violence. Anti-Hamitic racism is derived from colonial ideas around race hierarchies, and has resulted in systematic killings of Banyamulenge civilians in what resembles a ‘slow genocide’. Expressive violence has, in turn, produced a lack of concern for the plight of Banyamulenge civilians among the military, humanitarians, media, scholars and NGOs.