The Glossy Image of Rwanda

14 April 2010

The week of mourning has ended. 16 years after the atrocities of 1994, the Rwandan experience of the genocide and its remembrance is all the more poignant, saddening, and in my mind, singularly memorialized. At least within the Rwandan context, and as far as I’ve seen in the international realm of memory (which mainly consists of a few made for TV movies) there is no room for historic pluralism. The story of the Rwandan genocide is the story of “the genocide against the Tutsis.” This telling of the story leaves no room for the other events that have, in fact, led to much more pertinent, lasting, and, above all, current international crises such as that in the DRC and the mass amounts of internally displaced people and refugees. These events, however, are left out of the national memory as they deviate from the politically and socially useful state-sanctioned memory promoted by the Kagame administration.

Being in Kigali for the week of mourning was an eerie experience. The experience of living in Kigali is in general an eerie one- the all-too-well-kempt gardens at the imperious Ministry of Defense, the freshly mown grass and well-shaped shrubbery that line the boulevards (the ones that people get fined for walking on), it’s all far too… perfect. The lawfully enforced week of mourning is in my experience a week of unified obedience to the government’s version of history- fines for loud music, restaurants close early, people displaying a general air of sadness and grief (and expecting even expatriates to exhibit the same). It seems, in fact, that the process of grieving has been universalized. Control of the press is control of the people, and free speech and freedom of the press have never been Rwanda’s strong suit, especially when it comes to the genocide.

This weekend I visited one of the first, and perhaps one of the most blunt, genocide memorials. Located in the southern province near Butare, Murambi Genocide Memorial is in the most beautiful area of the country. During the genocide in late June, this area served as Zone Turquoise for the French Operation Turquoise. To the international community, Operation Turquoise was sold as a way to stop the killing, to end the genocide. In reality, Operation Turquoise was a green zone for high-level Hutu orchestrators of the genocide to escape to neighboring countries, and effectively evade justice. Even though the French had secured the southwest region, acts of genocide continued to take place within Zone Turquoise. The only protection given by the French military was that given to the Rwandan government responsible for the failure of the Arusha Accords and the perpetration of state-sanctioned genocide. The school in Murambi was a Tutsi stronghold, with over 50,000 unarmed civilians living within the compound. From the compound you can see the rolling hills of Rwanda, some terraced with cassava and maize, others covered with banana trees that sway lackadaisically in the cool April breeze. It was there that 50,000 people were isolated without food or water for weeks on end and subsequently slaughtered. Mass graves spot the campus.

In 1995, one of these mass graves was dug up in an attempt to bring justice to the dead. Apparently, the means by which they had been buried actually worked to preserve the bodies. Therefore, instead of reburying the victims of such an atrocity, survivors and the creators of this memorial decided to go another direction. Now, when you visit Murambi, you walk through room after room after building after building full of the 850 chemically preserved bodies of the victims. Covered in white, lime-like preservative, the rotted flesh resulting from 16 years of decomposition fills the compound air with a thick stench of death. In each room, several tables display the horrors of genocide in a similarly horrific manner. Because the skin is still intact, along with some bits of hair and teeth, you can almost discern the facial expressions of these victims. The bodies are mangled and flattened from the months they spent thrown into a mass grave. Arms cover faces, as if shielding their eyes from imminent death. One room contained only children, their smalls bodies placed into rows. The body of an infant laid by itself on a table in the middle of the room next to a vase filled with wilting flowers. Broken skulls and machete wounds were blatantly apparent. There's something universal about the human experience that promotes a respect for the dead. That this memorial would find it necessary to be so blunt poses many questions about propriety, decency, and human justice. It is often difficult to understand the genocide, and it is even more difficult to empathize with the grief experienced by its victims. In my opinion, this memorial crosses the line of decency and moves into the realm of aggressive memory, memory that gains some sort of cryptic retribution on those who attempt to turn away from attrocity. But, then again, who am I to judge the ways in which the survivors relate their experience?

Our guide, a survivor of the genocide at Murambi, was thoroughly convinced of French complicity on a scale that I had yet to see before visited Murambi. As I have acknowledged previously, the French government and military were nothing but complicit in supporting the conditions that precipitated the genocide. And while it was occurring, the French government thoroughly supported the genocidal government of Rwanda with material and technical assistance. The Murambi memorial, however, seemed to insinuate a level of complicity that exceeded reality. One of the main focuses of our tour was a spot on the compound where they say the French military set up a volleyball court on top of a mass grave.

This is a part of Rwanda’s story; it’s a part of “the genocide against the Tutsis.” However, the residual anger toward to the French is waning. Diplomatic ties have been restored after a two-year hiatus. Sarkozy recently visited to offer an “all-but-sorry” statement of “French mistakes.” Most of the Rwandans that I’ve talked to support the French football club Arsenal (I find this expression to be particularly entertaining as more and more fans leave Man U and Chelsea). Despite the recent switch to English language education, schools continue to teach French and many Rwandans are either conversational or fluent. My point with all of this is that diplomacy and international relations have dictated a change in the national memory, and it has been effective. The Francophone influence is revitalizing after years of imposed forgetfulness and anger because it makes good political sense now. Kagame, an Anglophone, continues to refuse to speak in French, probably because he can’t. I can’t help thinking that it has a symbolic meaning. Yesterday, as I walked out of the RDB, I saw a broadcast of one of his speeches. The subtitles were in French.

Josh Ruxin, the director of Rwanda Works and a prominent expatriate within the Kigali community recently authored an article that appeared in the New York Times. The article is a tribute to the 16^th anniversary of the genocide, and the progress that Rwanda has made in the years since. It is an optimistic, but still pragmatic view of Rwanda’s progress and hope for the future. The focus of the article is the development of a thoroughly Western capital city and infrastructure throughout the country that has been built with the massive influx of foreign aid that poured in after the genocide. In the face of the crippling poverty that affects over 40% of the population, massive overpopulation, and a severely lopsided age distribution (around 60% of Rwandans are under 25), Ruxin sees hope for 2020, the deadline of Rwanda’s Vision 2020, a set of goals to bring Rwanda into the international economic spectrum on par with countries like Brazil and other recent economic powerhouses. Ruxin commends the progress that Rwanda has made in the past 16 years as a viable model for the next 10. In my opinion, the past 16 years do not provide viable social, political, or economic models with which Rwanda can continue to function. In the years since the genocide, particularly the years after Kagame took power in 2000, Rwanda has undergone what I like to refer to as Western globalization shock therapy. Suddenly within the past 16 years Rwanda is an attractive tourist destination as well as an enticing model for all types of development work. The influx of foreign aid has given the government, whose outward appearance of democracy and Western predilections attracts the eager donors in the West, the ability to impose massive changes within Rwanda. Ruxin’s article highlights these improvements. The article, however, seems to forget something about history and context. Like many people, Ruxin seems to view Rwanda as the “one-in-a-million” country, unaffected by power struggle, the vulnerabilities of greed, and the failings that accompany widespread poverty. The facts and popular opinions point in another direction. The election in August will unquestionably reelect Kagame. Any opposition party that has attempted to thrust itself into the national spectrum has had it’s leaders harassed and been labeled as “ethnic,” therefore becoming legally excluded from participation in the political realm. In response to this repression, it is my opinion that the recent grenade attacks were an act of rebellion against Kagame’s administration and the international praise that it receives for Rwanda’s high-level of security. With regard to economic viability, 90% of Rwandans still rely on subsistence agriculture. In the most densely populated country in Rwanda where the average mother has 6 children, the move into local industry, urbanization, or mono cropping, the only solutions the international community seems to be aware of have had disastrous results. The entrepreneurship that proved so effective in places like South Africa has been promoted here to a certain extent. However, the limitations of the fact that less than 10% of the population has legal property rights severely restraint the entrepreneurship model with regard to gaining capital. Regardless of this, too, the average Rwandan has less than .9 hectares of land to use as collateral. To reference De Soto, the dead capital that is untitled land in Rwanda, will most likely be somewhere along the lines of “zombie capital” even if it is titled. And if land were lost in the market, Rwandans would effectively lose the one reliable source of income that they have come to know over the past 1,000 years.

Rwanda has made serious progress in the past 16 years. From the devastation of the genocide until today, the country has become somewhat of a beacon of hope for development. But the progress that Rwanda has made is unsustainable, especially over the course of the next 10 years. First of all, the progress of the past relies on the Kagame administration. To keep developing like Rwanda has been means keeping Kagame in power for far more than 10 more years, which becomes completely antithetical with reference to the idea of real social and political development. To make viable progress over the next 10 years, especially if Rwanda is to meet the goals set by Vision 2020, the leadership in the country, both in the government and in civil society, needs to diversify its means. There is no universal model for development, one that is functional at least, especially not one that can be imposed onto an entire country over the course of 10 years. Western shock therapy cannot function in Rwanda as the government policy for another 10 or 15 years. Rwandans are not Americans. Ideas here are different, solutions, work ethic, efficiency, problem solving efforts- no matter how much this country has been able to appeal to Western sensibilities, it is important that Rwandans begin to employ development efforts that aren’t hopelessly attached to the Western standards set forth by the past 10 years and by Kigali. Solutions to Rwanda’s problems have to start focusing on the long-term issues that affect the majority of Rwandans, not simply the economic and political elite of Kigali.

The shock therapy has given Rwanda a firm foundation on which to build real change. The number of university graduates has quadrupled in the past 10 years. The government now pays for all of primary school and two years of secondary. The hurtles of the recent emphasis on English are being confronted, and on a large scale it is working. Healthcare (Mutuel) has been largely successful and costs less than $2 per year. Technological advances have increased communication in Rwanda on a large scale. The real problems still linger though. Many of the problems that precipitated the “ethnic” tensions of the past 60 years are still just as unresolved as they were in the era of independence. If Rwanda is to continue along the same road, the road of development, of improvement, and positive change, then the relationships between the international community, the state of Rwanda, civil society, and the population must undergo severe changes.

Like the process of memory and memorialization, there must be room for pluralism. There must be room for the truth from different perspectives about the past, the present, and the future. And I know that this is not what anyone wants to hear about his or her favorite African country, but the glossy image of Rwanda needed to be soiled at some point and I’m kind of a messy person.