From Minneapolis to Here and There: One Empire, Many Graves
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 12 Jan 2026
Raïs Neza Boneza – TRANSCEND Media Service
The Crime of Wanting to Be Free
9 Jan 2026 – Let us be clear. Let us not be deceived—again. The murder of Rene Good, a mother and a poet, in Minneapolis, was not an isolated incident. It was not a “tragic anomaly,” not a “failure of procedure,” not a footnote gone wrong in an otherwise noble system.
This is not about one murder, one massacre, one “tragic incident,” one regrettable “mistake” explained away by a press release and a blue-ribbon commission. This is about a system that perfects cruelty, routinizes violence, and then asks us to admire its efficiency.
It was the system doing what it does best: enforcing order by erasing the inconvenient. A poet killed in a city that still sells diversity as a brand.
Let recall or connect the dot, from Haiti—punished for abolishing slavery—to Palestine—asked to disappear quietly—to Congo—mined to death so the world can feel “connected”—this is one long crime scene with different weather reports.
The empire calls it security. The empire calls it stability. The empire calls it unfortunate but necessary. But intriguing, how necessity never knocks on the doors of the powerful.
This is not just American-style fascism—though the symptoms are textbook: rule by big money, worship of the military, obscene inequality, and a permanent search for scapegoats—Black people, brown immigrants, queer lives, workers who still believe unions are not a crime. No, this goes deeper. It’s metaphysical. It’s the theology of domination. And it does not spare anyone.
It’s the belief that might makes right. That power absolves sin.
That morality is a luxury item for those not holding the gun. And it assumes—adorably—that everyday people will get tired. That organized people will fold. That despair will do the empire’s work for it.
Bad bet. Because there is a counter-invasion. Not with tanks, but with memory. Not with sanctions, but with solidarity. A healing force inside us and among us—annoyingly persistent. The same force that animated Malcolm X when he named the disease without apologizing for the diagnosis; that carried Nelson Mandela through decades designed to break him; that sharpened the moral weapon of Mahatma Gandhi against an empire that preferred bullets to mirrors. In reality, empires hate mirrors. They reflect badly on quarterly earnings.
So yes, we respond with love—for people—and with ruthless clarity toward systems that monetize death. We respond with justice in the face of terror, with freedom in the face of trauma so normalized it barely trends. We respond by bearing witness and paying a cost, because neutrality has become the empire’s most efficient ally.
Ask Patrice Lumumba—silenced so Congo could remain “investor-friendly.” Ask Steve Biko—killed because dignity is contagious. Ask the growing roll call of names that policy prefers to forget.
The empire insists each death is separate. Local. Complicated. Too messy for moral conclusions. But as Arundhati Roy keeps reminding us, there are moments when silence becomes architecture—load-bearing, intentional, lethal.
Listen to the threats dressed as forecasts: If we don’t act today, maybe tomorrow there will be no Iran. If not tomorrow, then Venezuela. Then Cuba. Then whoever is next on the spreadsheet. This is imperialism’s bedtime story—told softly, with charts.
But people who are crushed, sanctioned, occupied, racialized, erased—they have another option. Unite. Not as a hashtag, but as infrastructure. Not as charity, but as shared survival. Build a world free of domination and hegemony, where poets don’t die for breathing, and mothers aren’t collateral damage to someone else’s “order.”
Because the empire thrives on isolation. And it panics when we connect the dots. So let us be clear. Let us not be deceived. Rene Nicole Good was not an exception. She was evidence.
And the verdict is global.
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Raïs Neza Boneza is the author of fiction as well as non-fiction, poetry books and articles. He was born in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Former Zaïre). He is also an activist and peace practitioner. Raïs is a member of the TRANSCEND Media Service Editorial Committee and a convener of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment for Central and African Great Lakes. He uses his work to promote artistic expressions as a means to deal with conflicts and maintaining mental wellbeing, spiritual growth and healing. Raïs has travelled extensively in Africa and around the world as a lecturer, educator and consultant for various NGOs and institutions. His work is premised on art, healing, solidarity, peace, conflict transformation and human dignity issues and works also as freelance journalist. You can reach him at rais.boneza@gmail.com – http://www.raisnezaboneza.no
Tags: Anti-immigration, Evil empire, ICE, USA
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