Honte / Schande

Boulevard Leopold II,
renamed to Rue de la Honte/Schandestraat

(Following is translated from this webpage:
https://3z5gorm1zxf7vqm2a0w6.oasis.sandstorm.io/index.html

“In the night of Thursday, December 22, names of Brussels streets with colonial connotations were renamed to “Rue de la Honte / Straat van de Schaamte”: Street of Shame. This action aims at breaking with the glorification of the Belgian colonial heritage and denouncing the Israeli colonial system in Palestinian territory.”

“The omnipresence of colonial references in the Brussels landscape and the events of recent weeks – namely the process of legalization of the colonization of Palestine by the State of Israel and the election of US President Donald Trump openly supporting Israeli colonialism – worries activists. For this reason, a group decided to line the street signs of Rue des Colonies and Boulevard Léopold II. These militants see in these arteries not only the reproduction of a bloody memory, but also the profound mark of a historical normalization of the colonial experience.

One of the “Décolonis’Acteurs” writes: “Even when we did not witness the Belgian colonization of Congo during our life, we do know its shameful history and we want to denounce its contemporary extensions! Similarly, we refuse to be the silent collaborators of the Israeli colonial system, which is sometimes suported but hardly ever condemned … “.

“This action is called “Roof Knocking”, re-appropriating the name of the technique of the Israeli army which warns Palestinian civilians a few minutes before the bombing of their area of ​​residence (first by a Phone call, then a rocket). The group of activists announces that it marks the beginning of a series of other “Decolonis’Actions” that will occur during the year 2017.

The year 2017 will mark:

– The 70th anniversary of the division of Palestine into two states by the United Nations on 29 November 1947 (which the action is not intended to call into question); Premises the exile of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees driven from their lands by the Israeli armed forces (15 May 1948).

– The 50th anniversary of the end of the Six-Day War (5-10 June 1967), in which Israel forcibly occupied the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

– The 40th anniversary of Likud’s arrival in power; Synonymous with the intensification and radicalization of the settlement policy of Palestine.
“