From October 23 to 26 2025 in Brussels, petites singularités invite to make visible antiextractivist struggles of the majority of the world and put their actors in relation.
As part of the Congo Week, by prior registration only, two days of work and two round table days on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 of October will be dedicated to extractivist stakes that harm the world’s majority to the sole benefit of Global North.
The Zoethical gathering identify and call to the recognition of the extractivist structuration of capitalism that is based on the systematic destruction of life; extractivism and its economic benefits require the systematic destruction of the living and the people. Destruction is not a consequence, it is a need of the extractivist logic of the capitalist regime.
During the Zoethical gathering we wish to identify, altogether, the spaces of resistance and care where communities are rebuilding.
Raw Materials
Mandatory registration
The gathering is only accessible by prior registration only.
To register, please send your contact information and your reasoned request before the 20th of October 2025.
Programme
We’ll update the programme here as the activities become more precise. Thank you for your understanding: come back often to verify this page!
To deconstruct
Round Tables
Four round tables will introduce the systemic nature of the
destruction and the profit that is extracted from it, insisting on the
intentionality of the elimination of the people, social structures,
and the living.
They will highlight that extractivism is ongoing, repeating itself and
amplifying with time – as do the struggles that oppose it; they will
allow to appreciate the role of women in the organization of the
struggles; they will incite to rebuild social structures and rebuild
bonds through struggle.
The round tables will take place at the DK, rue de Danemark 70b, BE-1060 Saint-Gilles, on Friday 24th and Saturday 25th of October 2025, between 10:00 and 18:00.
The Foundations of Antiextractivist Struggle
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Fri. 24 - 10-13h | Women Hold Struggles |
| Fri. 24 - 15-18h | Struggling from Brussels |
Capitalism or Life
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Sat. 25 - 10-13h | From Goma to Gaza: Extract and Exterminate |
| Sat. 25 - 15-18h | Resistance and Reliance of Peoples |
Concert
Ben Kamuntu will slam for us on Saturday October 25th from 20:00.
(Translated from French)
‘VIS’ is a polysemic word referring to the metal rod used to assemble elements, but it also refers to the present imperative form of the verb ‘to live’ in the second person singular. This powerful and mystical word alone conveys the creative desire to seize the luxury of dreaming in an environment where fatalism takes hold of everyone’s imagination. Living is necessarily reduced to the struggle for survival, to surviving! Echoing the ambiguous meaning of the word, the different tracks on this album aim to revive the desire to live. Living imperatively boils down to the struggle for survival, to survive! Echoing the ambiguous meaning of the word, the different tracks on this album seek to revive the higher utopias that unite efforts. Channelling transformative energies towards learning: screwing and unscrewing with force and vigour in order to learn, but also to unlearn.
A call to face our collective and individual responsibilities in the face of the multiple challenges (climatic, migratory, wars, economic, cultural…) of the contemporary world. It also presents a panorama of the artist’s country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, shaken by socio-political, economic and cultural crises. This album is an ode to openness towards others while remaining true to oneself in a world where humans build more bridges than walls. ‘VIS’ is a call to resist manipulated hopes. It is a manifesto that proclaims the imperative to simply live! To live with dignity!
Exhibitions
From Thursday 23 to Sunday 26 of October 2025, public exhibitions will be installed at the DK.
Arpentages
The Mauvaises Mines collective will organize arpentages on Thursday and Sunday. Arpentage is a collective reading method destined to facilitate access to a book and to discuss its ideas.
The Arka library and the Antenne Noire will host these arpentages:
| When | Where | What |
|---|---|---|
| Thu. 23 (15:00) | Arka library | Congo Éteint |
| Sun. 26 (17:00) | Antenne Noire | Le fond de la terre est rouge |
Amplify the Movement
On Thursday 23 and Sunday 26 of October, a joint work will be conducted with the round table participants with the aim to deepen bonds between resistance networks to the planetary ransacking.
Caring for the Living, Remembering the Dead
The Zoethical gathering is part of the Congo Week. The aim is to highlight the concepts conveyed by Congolese activists, such as the Genocost that links directly genocidal practices and the pursuit of profit.
Rituals
Rituals of care and remembrance will be accomplished during the public sessions to reclaim justice and dignity for the people, to acknowledge and honor the dead.
Participants
Justine Masika BIRHAMBA
Justine Masika Bihamba is an activist from North Kivu in the DRC. A founder of Synergie des Femmes pour les Victimes de Violence Sexuelle, she works to improve the life of rural women and to support the victims of war, in particular sexual violence. She published in 2024 a book with Éditions de l’Aube titled Femme debout face à la guerre (Women facing war) in which she exposes rape as a weapon of war that became today a matrix for the disruption of the world. Despite several distinctions and an important internationl recognition for her successes, her life remains subject to regular threats.
Mama Avelina ROGEL
Avelina Rogel (Mama Ave – « Bird Mother ») is a spiritual authority for the peoples on the Kitu-Kara territory, she’s a membre of CONAIE, and holds a master in medecine from the Free Faculty of Natural Medecines and Ethnomedecine of Paris.
Brenda ODIMBA
Brenda Odimba is a belgian engineer, and a decolonial activist anchoring her actions with organizations rooted in the society of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Brenda founded the Mwasi ASBL (New Sorority) association, a single-sex afrofeminist collective that is part of struggles of – revolutionary – liberation and demands the full right of Black women to existence, freedom, happiness and self-determination; her objective: to abolish negrophobia, hetero-patriarchy, and capitalism. She’s been at the heart of the organization of the Free Congo and Black Lives Matter movements in Belgium.
Jean-Jacques LUMUMBA
Jean-Jacques Lumumba is a congolese banker and whistleblower born on February 19, 1986 in Kinshasa. In 2016, he accused the BGFIBank banking group, his former employer, of covering public fund embezzlement by the entourage of then president Joseph Kabila (the “Lumumba Papers”, see Congo Hold Up). He continues today to defend his country against corruption, notably with the Congo n’est pas à vendre coalition and the RAF Collective, born from the will to end all impunity and defend the public interest, that he presides.
Leonidas IZA SALAZAR
Born around 1982, Leonidas Iza Salazar is a kichwa panzaleo militant for the peoples’ rights. He was the president of Confédération de nationalités indigènes de l’Équateur (Confederation of the Indigenous Nations of Ecuador, CONAIE) until July 2025, and coordinates the Movimiento indígena y Campesino de Cotopaxi (Indigenous and Peasant Movement of Cotopaxi, MICC).
Alexandra GAVILANO
Alexandra Gavilano is the coordinator of Resistencia Activa Ya! As a Peruvian-Swiss citizen, she has dedicated her life to decolonial struggle and social and environmental justice. After seeing that the methods of global and local mobilisation against multinationals, to which she has dedicated herself in both her countries of origin, are failing to stop the murderous destruction of territories, and that neither Glencore nor the states will take responsibility for supporting and caring for communities, she decided to propose to the communities with which she already had a foundation of trust a new attempt to fight against one of the world’s largest extractive multinationals and private creditors - Glencore.
In addition, she is a member of the advisory committee of the UNPO (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation) and is dedicated to working on her solidarity network project ‘Resistance and Resilience,’ which, together with communities and organisations, creates projects based on the pillars of supporting resistance struggles (training, campaign support, network mobilisation, creating necessary materials for struggles) or creating more resilience (disaster risk management, seeking funds for projects proposed by communities, participatory processes, etc.).
Erika ESCORZA CAMACHO
Sinchi1 of the Frente Antiminero de Ecuador (Anti-mining Front of Ecuador), Erika Escorza Camacho, a lawyer specialized in human rights and strategic requirements at the Andean University Simon Bolívar, the Kichwa nation’s solicitor in the province of Pastaza, Pakkiru, she contributes to the conception of a law on free and informed consent in Pakkiru. The Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonia Ecuatoriana’s solicitor (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorean Amazon, Confeniae) until December 2024, defender of collective and peasant rights with the Frente Nacional Antiminero (Anti-mining National Front), she accompanies national constitutional lawsuits against multinational mining companies.
Juan Pablo GUTIERREZ
Juan Pablo is a fierce defender of Mother Earth, social justice and a dignified life for the Yukpa people, an indigenous community classified as being at imminent risk of extinction by the Colombian Constitutional Court due to the loss of their ancestral territory. He is also a professor of decolonial studies known for his intellectual approaches aimed at deconstructing and criticising patterns of thought, cultural norms and social practices that perpetuate the legacy of colonialism, imperialism and racism.
Due to his relentless advocacy to expose the tragic situation of indigenous peoples in Colombia resulting from the destruction of their lands by the colonial apparatus and modern policies, he was forced to flee his country and community, accompanied by his young daughter, following two assassination attempts between 2015 and 2017. Since 2018, he has been living in political exile in Europe, advocating tirelessly from across the Atlantic.
Ben KAMUNTU
With his powerful and authentic pen and his unique vocal tone, Ben Kamuntu explores the multicoloured sounds buried in the beauty of languages. He blends his poetic jousts with the rhythms and melodies he has been immersed in since childhood. It was in prison that Kamuntu stoked the fire of poetry that sparkled in his eyes and burned ardently in his chest. In his tiny cell, his notebooks were filled with his verses and prose. He no longer wrote solely out of desire, but out of a need to resist the endless hours of prison; he wrote day and night so that the blue of his felt-tip pen would reinvigorate his commitment to peace and justice in his country; he wrote to regain calm and serenity; he wrote and continues to write to continue to exist. The texts and performances of this poet-slammer from Goma (DR Congo), exiled in Belgium, give vibrant meaning to every word, every verse, every emotion. His first album, ‘VIS’, is a solemn invitation to the public to take an intimate journey into his world: that of a young man from the 1990s, born in the war-torn Kivu region, who has never known peace. ‘VIS’ is a cocktail of emotions, feelings of rebellion and hope, transporting the artist’s local reality to the universal. The lyrics from his album were published in a book by Academia in March 2024, under the title ‘VIS’. ‘When the flames of Lake Kivu quench the volcano’s thirst’, in his Ethno-poetik collection.
Winner of the ‘European Prize for Congolese Literature, MAKOMI, 2021 edition’; He performs slam concerts at events such as the Esepranzah Festival in Belgium, at the Delta de Namur, the Aubergem cultural centre, the Biereau farm, and on several stages in Africa and Europe. Ben Kamuntu has been leading slam poetry workshops in schools and associations in Belgium since 2021.
Even in exile, this artivist devotes his pen and his voice to promoting human rights. He is an active member of Lucha, a citizen movement for social justice and human dignity in the DRC, his country.
Jona LUNA
A territorial defender and cultural worker, member of the Beehive design collective and the Seres del Río (Beings of the River) association. He has a extensive experience in the coordination of research processes, cultural training and actions in the defense of territories and working with communities impacted by extractivist projects. He’s an executive producer of the documentary Buscando las marcas del Asho’ojushi (Searching for the Marks of the Asho’ojushi).
Partner Venues
The Zoethical gathering will take place in the following venues.
Arka Library
https://inventaire.io/users/arkabibli
Avenue Wielemans Ceuppens 52, BE-1190 Forest
Congo Éteint. Variations minérales autour de Kasulo
First volume of the Maroon notebooks collection of Éditions petites singularités (lcm-001), published in October 2024, Congo Éteint is a collection of short stories written by seven authors from Lubumbashi during a writing residency held by petites singularités following an invitation by the Ateliers Picha (DRC) in November 2023. Mineral variations around Kasulo, they stage the difficulties of daily life in the mining region of Katanga where metals (notably copper and cobalt) critical to our technologies come from, and highlight the resulting struggles for dignity. These original stories, written by inhabitants (writers, journalists, scientists and artists) engage with colonization and its pursuit by other means, the danger and ruthless exploitation, but also the traditions and hopes of the struggle in solidarity for self-determination and the respect of workers.
Literature escaped from the “black” and “white” genres aiming to untie tongues to relate the struggles, the Maroon notebooks collection, open to authors beyond the Global North, connect imaginaries holding futures. These short texts are gathered into small and beautifully crafted books that can be carried in the pocket, anywhere where by chance thoughts and bodies interfere.
L’Antenne Noire
https://www.infolibertaire.net/bienvenu-e-s-a-lantenne-noire/
L’Antenne Noire, Centre Social autogéré, rue du Marais 1, BE-1000 Bruxelles.
“Antenne noire” means Black Antenna.
Le fond de la terre est rouge
This fanzine was collectively written and made at the beginning of the year 2025 by Mauvaises Mines. It is dedicated to “the war of the Congo’s underground”.
Born out of a desire to highlight the links between the horrors of the Congo and the global capitalist economy, “Le fond de la terre est rouge” (the bottom of the soil is red) plunges us into the bloody extraction machine that produces war, exploitation and destruction. More than just a piece of counter-information, this fanzine is a call for solidarity and struggle alongside the exploited in Congo and elsewhere. Because the Congo’s misfortune concerns us directly. Denouncing and transforming the Congolese reality means shaking up the current global reality.
Le DK
Rue de Danemark 70b, BE-1060 Saint-Gilles
Le DK will welcome round tables on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 October and an exhibition over the course of the Zoethical gathering.
The Foundations of Antiextractivist Struggle
Women Hold Struggles
Friday 24, 10-13h
Struggling from Brussels
Friday 24, 15-18h
Capitalism or Life
From Goma to Gaza: Extract and Exterminate
Satuday 25, 10-13h
Resistance and Reliance of Peoples
Saturday 25, 15-18h
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Sinchi is a Kichwa word meaning « strong, vigorous » ↩