Rwanda, post number 3 (March 23rd)

WARNING: This post contains a recap of the Rwandan genocide and I make no attempt, nor do I want to make any attempt, to soften this. It was brutal when it occurred and it is no less brutal in the retelling. It is not the entire post, but only the middle couple paragraphs. If you do not want to read that section, that is fine, but I would encourage you to read it so that you may reflect upon the history of Rwanda as a whole as well as its present accomplishments and future developments.

The genocide happened. You can't gloss over it, though people have tried. It is a part of Rwanda's history, just like the parts of our own history (or your own history, if you are not Canadian) that we (you) are ashamed of. We cannot deny those. And we cannot deny our role as the international community in having failed Rwanda to the extent that we did.

March 23, 2010; 15.24 CST

This morning we went to Gisouzi Memorial Centre, or what you might call the genocide museum.

…

Where to start.

The tour starts in the gardens, where you move through 12 sections each representing a part of the whole experience. The first garden after the fountain is the Children’s Garden, representing not only the children killed in the genocide, but those who are still Rwanda’s future.

The second garden is the Flower of Life garden, modelled on an ancient symbol for life and ringed by protective trees, representing the strength of the women of Rwanda.

The third garden represents the provinces of Rwanda, using a hexagon to enclose all 10 provinces (in 1994) and traditional symbols for each province as well as plants and trees that are only native to Rwanda.

The fourth garden represents the concept of self-protection, made up entirely of different species of cacti, which not only represent the self-protection that the Rwandese had to fall back on, but also the healing properties of these specific cacti.

The fifth garden is the Rose Garden, a three-tiered garden full of many different types of roses which represent the victims of the genocide, each rose beautiful on its own and along with the others.

The sixth garden is the Garden of Unity, with a circular fountain which shows the unity of Rwanda before the genocide.

From the Garden of Unity, the water flows down a waterfall symbolizing brokenness into the seventh garden, where the water flows in a star-shaped pattern and elephants are placed around the sides to symbolize memory.

The second-last garden is the Garden of Reconciliation, where the water returns to a circle with a large stone structure in the centre, each rock representing a different part of Rwandese culture which together form a whole. There is an elephant statue in this garden which is holding a mobile phone, telling the world of what occurred.

From the Garden of Reconciliation, you move into the section of the mass graves which give the genocide victims, many unnamed and unknown, a dignified resting place. There are approximately 250 000 victims there at the moment and more continue to be unearthed and reburied at Gisouzi. There is one wall which is the Wall of Names, where every known victim of the genocide is inscribed on the plaques. The list is by no means complete, and yet you see entire families … two dozen people with the same last name, all killed. Surrounding the centre is the Forest of Memory, trees planted which will grow around the centre and remind those who visit of its meaning.

Once you have finished the tour of the gardens, you move inside the building and down the stairs into a subterranean area. The tour starts with the history of Rwanda before colonization, where the people living in the area were divided into 18 different somewhat-tribal groups, and the socio-economic divisions of Hutu (farmers), Tutsi (livestock farmers) and Twa (hunters) were loosely there and could change depending on a Rwandan’s circumstances.

Continuing on, you move into the colonization period, beginning with the Germans and moving to the Belgians. The Germans and the Belgians reinforced the ideology of Hutu and Tutsi and codified it, making anyone who had more than 10 cows a Tutsi and anyone who had 10 or less a Hutu. This meant that about 85% of the population were Hutu and 15% were Tutsi (with about 1% Twa in there too). They also brought in racial ideology, where the Tutsi were considered superior because they resembled Caucasians more than the Hutu did.

In the beginning, the Tutsi minority was given power over the Hutus through the Belgians so that the Belgians could rule indirectly, and this evidently caused dissent and malcontent through the population. Eventually, the Belgians would reverse this ideology and give the Hutu majority power over the Tutsi minority, claiming to be righting past wrongs. With the Hutu majority, already disliking the Tutsi minority, now in power, it was very easy to spread racial-based propaganda that the Tutsi were inferior to the Hutu. The Tutsi were called inyenzi – cockroaches – and it was considered the duty of the Hutu to not marry a Tutsi, not employ a Tutsi, not be friends with a Tutsi, not do business with a Tutsi, and so on and so forth.

Hutu extremism developed through the 1900s and when the country gained independence in 1962, the laws were officially equal between the two groups, but in reality all the power, all the positions, all of anything went to the Hutu. By 1962, Rwanda had already experienced organized pogroms against the Tutsi, massacres on a relatively small scale that were put up mostly to racial tension. Over the thirty years following independence, Hutu extremism was overt, public and extremely cruel, and it was no secret that eventually something would be done.

The genocide was planned. The death lists were written. The propaganda had turned friends against friends, colleagues against colleagues, families against themselves. In Rwanda, touch is incredibly important. When you meet someone, you hug them, or you hold their hand, and you give them three kisses on the cheek. Physical connection is extraordinarily important because everyone is family. In Rwanda, before the genocide, there were very few orphans in the literal sense of the term, because if a child lost their parents, they had an aunt or an uncle, or a grandparent, or a cousin, or a brother or a sister – and they would be their parents. The genocide broke that link, that ubuntu, that humanity. The genocide killed entire families: out of one family of 60, five were left, for example. People were entirely lost. Bodies were strewn in the street. Churches were burned or bulldozed with people inside trying to seek refuge. Children were killed mercilessly – sometimes made to watch their parents die first, or the other way around. Women were raped, often by men known to be HIV-positive, because if they possibly stayed alive, Tutsi women and children were seen as a threat to the Hutu ‘race’. Death was not seen as something to be dealt quickly: torture was the point, and death was meant to be slow and painful. People were thrown into septic tanks or latrines and pelted with rocks; people were chained together and buried alive; people were shot, left for several days, then shot again to kill them; people were starved … the list of atrocities is endless.

But the important thing to remember in all of this horror is that it did not end there. The Rwandan Patriotic Front liberated the country 100 days later, before any international aid came at all (but very little would have come anyway: only the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders stayed in the country during the genocide, and Romeo Dallaire’s difficulties with the UN are well-documented), and installed a government. As I have already mentioned, from 1994 until 2001 the country was unstable, still trying to get back on its feet as it lost so much of its infrastructure along with almost two-thirds of its population (nearly a million killed, and about the same number had fled the country). But from 2001 on, the country is booming. Rwanda is growing and Rwanda is advancing. The population, more than half under 21 as I have already stated, is taking the initiative and growing their country.

Tonight, to illustrate that joie de vivre that the youth of Rwanda have, we visited with Rodrigue Pageau’s group, the Visionaries. This is a rather large group of Rwandan youth which take different initiatives to advance their country. We talked with them, debated a bit about Romeo Dallaire, and we showed them a video about life in Winnipeg. These are youths who went through the genocide – most of them are 16 years old or more. They have so much joy and love for life. I am glad to have met them.

In walking the halls of the memorial centre, I wanted so badly to be with John, with my sisters, my brother, my parents … the people I love the most are 12 000 kilometres away and I miss them so terribly. It is impossible to describe the pain you feel when you look at three full 2-square-meter displays of human skulls, many of them cracked or missing pieces. I went to bed last night feeling desperately worried about my loved ones at home, and left the inn here feeling vaguely worried still. The genocide museum hit me so hard and made me want to hold my family close to me. I am so, so very blessed to have them, and I wish I could be with them. I felt so, so very alone, facing all the horror and the pain. And then something my mother said just before I left Winnipeg came back and made me weep all the more:

You are never alone.