Repression and Political Disqualification: Resilience and Resistance in Pro-Palestinian Youth Activism in Brussels (Belgium)

Since October 2023, the intensification of Israeli colonial violence in Palestine has generated a global wave of solidarity mobilisations. Brussels (Belgium), as the political capital of the European Union and a central site for the production of political and media norms, constitutes a particularly revealing terrain for examining these dynamics in the context of the contemporary rise of authoritarian practices within formally democratic states. The city has witnessed a proliferation of pro-Palestinian mobilisations—including national demonstrations, daily gatherings, artistic actions and direct interventions—largely driven by civil society actors, and in particular by young activists, including members of the Palestinian diaspora. These mobilisations have, however, been met with recurrent forms of repression and political disqualification, combining police interventions, administrative restrictions, institutional censorship and media delegitimisation. In a political context that continues to present itself as democratic and as a defender of freedom of expression and the right to protest, such practices reveal a tightening of authoritarian modes of governance, especially when mobilisations challenge imperial, colonial and geopolitical interests. This paper proposes to analyse these processes of disqualification as constitutive mechanisms of power structures inherited from coloniality, contributing both to the maintenance of a political status quo and to the asymmetry of power relations surrounding the Palestinian question. Particular attention is paid to the role—and responsibility—of the media in the construction of a racialised collective imaginary grounded in deeply entrenched colonial frameworks. The analysis shows how stereotypical figures—most notably that of the “violent Arab man”—are mobilised to criminalise mobilisations, delegitimise their participants and neutralise Palestinian solidarity as a legitimate political cause. By combining media discourse analysis with ethnographic observation of practices on the ground, this article examines how young activists, and especially young activists from the Palestinian diaspora in Brussels, are compelled to continuously rethink their forms of engagement in response to repression. These processes of adaptation are analysed as practices of resilience, through which activists seek to sustain mobilisation, protect themselves from institutional violence, and preserve spaces for political expression. At the same time, these reconfigured practices constitute forms of resistance to imperialism, coloniality and the normalisation of authoritarian governance within the European context itself. The analysis further explores the concrete effects of political disqualification on activist trajectories, internal movement dynamics, and the possibility for racialised actors—particularly individuals from migrant backgrounds and Arab and Muslim diasporas—to be recognised as legitimate political interlocutors. A gendered perspective highlights the differentiated exposure to repression, visibility and credibility within both media representations and policing practices. This research draws on two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted within pro-Palestinian activist circles in Brussels, combining participant observation, in-depth interviews and analysis of media and institutional outputs. By foregrounding the interplay between repression, resilience and resistance, this paper contributes to a critical reflection on the contemporary authoritarian turn in Europe and on the conditions of possibility—or impossibility—of a Palestinian political voice being recognised as legitimate within the European public sphere.