Rwanda

salaam

a couple of weeks ago - i think - I visited rwanda. I wrote a piece 
abuot it when I got back. However, I wasn't subscribed to PMN at 
the time - changed email addies - and so didn't post it here. Since 
I've been resubscribd now, I thought I'd post it.

Please note, there has been a criticism (from 2 of my students, no 
less) which I completely agree with. However, I dont have the time 
to amend it now. So let me just say what it is. They argued that I 
was too kind to Kagame. That his undemocratic practices, etc, give 
a different impression from what I give in the article. They are right! 
My only defence is that I wrote this the day after I returned and so 
was still a tad overcome with emotion. (Not that its a good defence, 
but I can try.)

Below is the article. Ignore the Kagame bits and enjoy

    
    
    We should all weep and feel ashamed
    
    BLURB: Na'eem Jeenah reflects on a journey through 
    Rwanda's Kigali Memorial Centre, and calls for us to be 
    thankful to the people of that traumatised nation
    
    I walked out of the building numbed; looking back now I 
    am surprised that my legs were even able to carry me. My 
    eyes were glazed; my arms limp at my sides. I wasn't the 
    only one. Young, brave men tried desperately to hold 
    back their tears, and failed miserably. Adult experienced 
    men broke down and wept; one broke out in a sweat 
    minutes after we had entered and twitched nervously as it 
    dripped off his face.
    
    Chief muftis of a number of African countries shook their 
    heads in mourning and invoked Allah's Mercy. The 
    former Libyan ambassador to Rwanda, who had 
    witnessed the 1994 genocide, cried as the memories 
    flooded back.
    
    We had just walked out of the Kigali Memorial Centre, 
    established this year, ten years after the holocaust that 
    had devastated Rwanda, in memory of the 1000000 lives 
    lost in 100 days of slaughter.
    
    Perhaps it was the last room in the Centre, the Children's 
    Memorial, that had done it for many of us. Happy 
    pictures after happy pictures of children that had been 
    murdered, with five or six line biographies. Fabrice, 15 
    months old, 'killed in Muhoro Church'. Yves, 3 years old, 
    'hacked by machete'. Ariane, 4 years old, 'stabbed in the 
    eyes and head'. Two-year-olds, 'smashed against a wall'.
    
    The Centre is a powerful reminder of what had happened 
    in this city and in this country; and of what has happened 
    elsewhere - to Bosnians as victims of Serb supremacism, 
    to Armenians as victims of Turkish arrogance, to Jews as 
    victims of Nazi herrenvolkism; to Native Americans as 
    victims of European colonisation; and of what continues 
    to happen today - to Kashmiris as victims of Indian 
    nationalism, to Palestinians as victims of Zionist 
    fundamentalism.
    
    Set up with the assistance of a British trust, the memorial 
    is located in the Gisozi district of Kigali, the site chosen 
    for the mass burial of 250000 victims. It is a 
    sophisticated and sterile memorial, with multimedia 
    presentations of the genocide - unlike some memorials in 
    other towns whose raw power is in their featuring of piles 
    of skulls and skeletons.
    
    Rwanda is a beautiful land of rolling green hills and 
    mountains highlighted by forests and lakes, intersected by 
    rivers and punctuated by earth-coloured buildings. 
    Despite the red that coloured the landscape in 1994, it 
    remains mesmerisingly attractive. It is the stuff of artists' 
    inspirations.
    
    Its people go about their business with diligence, and 
    even though the poverty is stark, crime is virtually non-
    existent - a fact that might be a little difficult to appreciate 
    when one remembers that not long ago Rwandans killed 
    more than a million of their own people in three months.
    
    We five South Africans that visited the Memorial were 
    attending a conference of the Union of Muslim Councils 
    (UMC), with Muslim community leaders - mostly national 
    muftis - from 27 African countries.
    
    Having been fed for years on the notion of African tribal 
    rivalries, we were shocked to discover that there is 
    actually only one 'tribe' in Rwanda. One tribe, one 
    language - Kinyarwanda, one history. So what about the 
    Hutu and Tutsi 'tribes'? There are no such things! The 
    Hutu-Tutsi identities as they existed in the 20th Century 
    were creations of Belgian colonial authorities.
    
    The land was colonised by the Germans in 1895 and 
    handed over to Belgian occupation in 1916, after the First 
    World War (or the First European Tribal War as Malcolm 
    X preferred to call it), by the League of Nations.
    
    By the turn of the 20th Century, the terms 'Hutu', 'Tutsi' 
    and 'Twa' were class classifications which could change 
    with circumstances. The Belgians converted these into 
    'racial' categories and reflected these in identity cards they 
    issued. The arbitrariness of this 'racial' categorisation is 
    reflected in the policy that anyone with 10 or more cows 
    in 1932 - and his descendants - was regarded as Tutsi; 
    anyone with less than 10 was a Hutu. A minority of the 
    new Tutsis were then favoured by the Belgians with jobs 
    and status, resulting in a great deal of resentment among 
    the rest.
    
    From before independence in 1962, there was already a 
    backlash against Tutsis, with organised massacres taking 
    place from 1959. Some 700000 Rwandans were forced 
    into exile - including to South Africa - between 1959 and 
    1973 because of the Belgian-encouraged ethnic cleansing. 
    After independence, Hutus dominated politics and 
    successive post-independence governments - mostly 
    fascist in a single-party state - entrenched the divisions 
    and the persecution of Tutsis. With the corporate-
    engineered collapse of coffee prices in the 1980s, the 
    economy deteriorated and Hutus tightened their 
    economic control.
    
    The Belgians' divide-and-rule strategy didn't manifest only 
    with the Hutu-Tutsi divide. Muslims were identified as a 
    separate group - whether Hutu or Tutsi. Swahili Camp in 
    Kigali bears testimony to this. It was created to intern 
    Muslims. Camp residents were only allowed out with 
    written permission and no non-Muslims were allowed in. 
    It remained a poverty-stricken ghetto until after 1994.
    
    In 1990, President Juv=E9nal Habyarimana formed the 
    notorious Interahamwe, the Hutu youth militia which, 
    four years later, was to lead the anti-Tutsi genocide, 
    together with the extremist media and the church 
    hierarchy - both Hutu-controlled. Between then and the 
    1994 genocide, eight major anti-Tutsi massacres took 
    place.
    
    The Arusha Peace Accords in 1993 between the 
    government and the liberation movement, the Rwanda 
    Patriotic Front (RPF), was to lead to a democratically-
    elected government. But the government and the Hutu 
    elite were not interested in peace. Plans were put into 
    place by the Interahamwe for the final extermination of 
    Tutsis. Death lists were drawn up in advance; 1000 
    Tutsis must be killed every 20 minutes.
    
    And all through this, the western world supported the 
    government with aid - including a huge arms package 
    from the French in 1993. By 1994, despite numerous 
    warning signs and appeals from UN forces on the ground, 
    the UN refused to respond to the genocide waiting to 
    happen. The US prevented a resolution for UN forces to 
    be sent in; Kofi Annan instructed that no action be taken.
    
    On 6 April 1994, as South Africa prepared for our first 
    democratic elections, the Rwandan holocaust began. For 
    100 days, 10000 people were killed every day, 400 every 
    hour.
    
    And the world watched, complicit in our silence. We 
    watched as one million people were massacred. As many 
    more were raped, tortured, mutilated, orphaned. As 
    neighbours killed neighbours. As 20000 people were 
    slaughtered in the Nyarubuye church. As Tutsi women 
    were systematically raped as a weapon of genocide. As 
    children were forced to kill their friends and neighbours. 
    As the country's infrastructure was devastated. As, 
    suddenly, 85000 children became heads of households. 
    As the humanity of us all: the victims, the survivors, the 
    perpetrators and the witnesses from afar, diminished.
    
    But there were many Rwandans who endangered their 
    lives in order to restore our humanity. People who hid, 
    protected, saved others at risk, often giving up their own 
    lives in the process.
    
    And foremost among these were the Muslims of Rwanda.
    
    Today, when Muslims are maligned all over the world as 
    terrorists, when Muslims fight to save their lives and their 
    honour, we can take pride in the struggles of the Muslim 
    community of Rwanda 10 years ago.
    
    Shaikh Hassan, an 'alim that I met in Kigali, told me how 
    his mother had hidden 10 Tutsi families in her home, 
    saving their lives.
    
    Yahaya Nsengiyumva saved the lives of over 30 people 
    by hiding them in his outhouse. One survivor recalls being 
    chased by Interahamwe, knowing she would die 'any 
    second', banging on Yahaya's door and being given 
    sanctuary because, she remembers, he said the Qur'an 
    says: 'If you save one life, it is like saving the whole 
    world'.
    
    When, in Nyange, Father Seromba gave the order to 
    bulldoze his own church on top of his own congregation 
    of 2000 people, Muslim 'ulama in Rwanda were 
    encouraging unity and protecting Tutsis, trying to stem 
    the terrible tide of the genocide.
    
    It is no surprise, then, that entire villages have been, over 
    the past few years, converting to Islam and leaving the 
    Catholicism brought by the Belgians, the same Belgians 
    who divided the Rwandan nation and set the scene for 
    1994.
    
    And, it is no surprise that the new transitional 
    government, headed by former RPF guerrilla leader Paul 
    Kagame, appointed a Muslim woman to head the 
    country's Unity and Reconciliation Commission.
    
    A tall, gentle man, Kagame has worked tirelessly for the 
    past decade to create national unity, to create a Rwandan 
    identity. He, like many other Rwandans, gets particularly 
    irritated when asked whether he is Hutu or Tutsi and 
    refuses to answer.
    
    This year, as the world celebrates 10 years of South 
    African democracy, some attention should also be paid to 
    10 years of Rwandan reconstruction under Kagame. Ten 
    years of building homes, trying to develop the economy, 
    addressing the poverty problem. As we remember 10 
    years after the Rwanda genocide, we should also 
    celebrate Rwanda over the past 10 years - something 
    Africa can be proud of.
    
    When we walked out of the Memorial Centre and Saleh 
    Habib, Mufti of Rwanda and now chairperson of the 
    UMC, told me to read a statement to the media, I felt 
    foolish. What could I say, no matter how well crafted a 
    statement, that could sincerely express our response to 
    what we had just witnessed? And so, as I nervously 
    wiped the sweat from my brow, it was a hollow, dull 
    reading, an inadequate attempt to articulate to a 
    brutalised people how deeply their brutalisation had 
    affected us and how very significant their experiences are 
    to all of us that call ourselves human.
    
    There were no smiles on the faces of the muftis as we 
    boarded the buses. Our future journeys would be 
    profoundly influenced by this mass grave, this memorial 
    to the worse-than-animal in all our breasts, ready to 
    emerge if we allow it to.