Introduction: Literature as a Response to Genocide

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
The Decolonizing Potential of Local and Metropolitan Literature
of the Rwandan Genocide
by
Kate O'Neill
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
CALGARY, ALBERTA
September, 2012
© Kate O'Neill 2012
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ABSTRACT
Rwanda has been well-defined on the international stage. However, international
understandings of the genocide do not sufficiently represent the perspectives of Rwandan
citizens. The popular construction of Rwanda as a nation over the past eighteen years has used
the Rwandan Genocide as a defining feature of Rwandan national identity. Governed by
colonial rule from 1884-1962, Rwanda continues to be defined by neocolonial forces.
In response to this problematic reality, literary representations of the genocide are
beginning to provide a forum for Rwandan voices to assert authority over the cultivation of
Rwandan identity for Western citizens. This dissertation considers seven diverse literary texts
about the Rwandan Genocide which attempt to bridge the socio-political distance between
Rwandan and Western citizens.
Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our
Families and Gil Courtemanche’s A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali offer a detailed consideration
of Rwandan history and culture to challenge the colonial rhetoric used to explain the genocide to
Western citizens. Élisabeth Combres’ Broken Memory, Jean-Philippe Stassen’s Deogratias, and
Tierno Monénembo’s The Oldest Orphan explore the lived experience of genocide and the
impact of violence on individuals and communities, affectively conveying the complexity of
genocidal suffering in order to escape the media binary of victims and perpetrators. Véronique
Tadjo’s The Shadow of Imana and Sonja Linden’s play I Have Before Me a Remarkable
Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda demonstrate the significant post-genocide
recovery achieved within Rwanda, and consider the value of cross-cultural interaction in further
affirming this recovery.
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This study draws on the insights of postcolonial theory, trauma theory, and scholarship in
the area of national identity to parse the role of these texts in recovering a productive sense of
Rwandan identity for Western readers. This dissertation argues that these texts provide Western
citizens with an understanding of national Rwandan identity that allows critical recognition of
the superstructure of Western neocolonialism. As such, these narratives have the potential to
enable Western citizens to recognize and challenge the role of the superstructure in shaping
public discourse about the Rwandan Genocide.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
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Table of Contents
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Chapter One
Literature as a Response to Genocide
1
Chapter Two
Tracing the Rwandan Genocide as an International Event
25
Chapter Three
Contextualizing Rwandan History and Culture through Literature
69
Chapter Four
Exploring Rwandan Identity and Experiences of Genocide through Literature
Chapter Five
Affirming Recovery and Demonstrating Cross-Cultural Activism through
Literature
122
199
Chapter Six
Decolonizing the Western Mind through Western Literary Engagement
262
Chapter Seven
Conclusion
304
Bibliography
311
Appendix A: Chronology of Events
326
Appendix B: Map of Rwanda
333
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Chapter One: Literature as a Response to Genocide
Crimes against humanity require new means of redress, a mechanism that records
hidden histories of atrocity, didactically promotes collective memory, and gives
victims a place of respect, dignity, and agency in the process.
Catherine Cole, “Performance, Transitional Justice, and the Law: South
Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” 171.
The writer of fiction can be and must be the pathfinder.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind, 85.
As one aspect of the public discourse concerning genocide, literature demonstrates a
great deal about the perceived social and political importance of violent conflict. The public
discourse on the Rwandan Genocide, in which almost one million people were killed between
April and July 1994, demonstrates this observation. Literature is a powerful social tool because
it instigates consideration of another’s lived experience among a broad potential readership.
Literary expression allows personal resistance to be shared within a community, enabling
collective action. As bell hooks states, “speaking is not solely an expression of creative power; it
is an act of resistance, a political gesture that challenges politics of domination that would render
us nameless and voiceless…[it] can be healing, can protect us from dehumanization and despair”
(8). Writing has addressed a range of human injustices; representing lived experiences of
inequality has helped to establish new limits to private and public behaviours. Literary
depictions of gender and racial oppression throughout the twentieth-century have channelled
individual dissatisfaction with the social order into powerful socio-political movements.
Literature similarly undercuts the efficacy of large-scale systems of oppression, such as
European colonization, by allowing local victims to enunciate their rejection of authoritarian rule
and reclaim their cultural and political identities. Even during the 2011 Arab Spring, it was the
written word which empowered individuals to collectively initiate social change in the face of
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authoritarian regimes. Western and Rwandan writings about the Rwandan Genocide and the
post-genocide era evoke the horror of genocide, but many authors have recognized the
decolonizing potential of such writing. Tracing the state of the nation through its history, its
citizens, and its post-genocide recovery, these texts lay the groundwork for a strong Western
understanding of emergent Rwandan national identity. Rejecting imposed identity constructions
and drawing attention to the external political structures of neocolonial control, this discourse
functions as a fragile but potentially powerful rewriting of Rwandan identity which has the
potential to instigate important socio-political change.
As a literature of resistance, genocide literature at large explores a subject that is as
personal as it is political. The Rwandan Genocide writings examined in this dissertation identify
genocide as a localized event, targeting a specific group of people and permitted by the particular
socio-political realities of a given community or nation. However, genocide is also an
international concern. Genocidal violence rejects the concept of human rights and invokes
hierarchies to re-imagine a new social order. Because genocide destroys lives and undercuts the
rhetoric of equality at the very root of modern international interactions, this crime demands
responses from the international community. These responses demonstrate the socio-political
factors which inform specific international relationships and interactions. Media responses tend
to focus on the statements and actions of those perpetrating violence, as well as the demonstrable
victims of violence. Political and militaristic responses can be both rhetorical and active; when
the content of these messages diverge, they demonstrate the intersection of ideological and
practiced international politics. While these responses are at times productive, neither
emphasizes the lived experience of genocide in a way that is comprehensible and comprehensive.
However, by merging the personal and the political, genocide literature explores the impact of
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mass-violence on the individual victim and the distanced observer, permitting an informed
engagement with the politics of genocide in the modern era.
The Western response to the Rwandan genocide demonstrates the influence of colonial
and neocolonial ideology on Rwanda’s identity within the international community. The
underwhelming Western engagement in Rwanda’s genocide and post-genocide recovery
suggests a continued neocolonial dismissal of Rwandan national identity within the Western
community of nations. By framing the genocide in colonial terms and explaining the mass
killings as indicative of innate African chaos, media and political responses demonstrate that
Rwanda continues to be defined by the limiting racial hierarchy which enabled the colonial
encounter. This neocolonialism has been a serious impediment to Rwanda’s recovery from
colonialism, as well as from the genocide of 1994. While Rwanda has instituted internal
recovery measures, Rwanda’s recovery must also address the external prejudices which allowed
the genocide to occur without significant Western response. It is here that the literature of the
Rwandan Genocide becomes potentially productive as an agent of collective recovery as well as
an agent of international social and political change.
Despite the fact that the Rwandan Genocide took place in full view of global audiences,
there are a surprisingly limited number of literary texts which explore the event. Literary
representations of the genocide within Rwanda are limited by a number of factors, notably that
the novel, a popular and accessible Western genre, is not a form of writing native to Rwanda and
that Kinyarwanda, the local language of Rwanda, is not commonly a language of publication 1.
1
Rwanda has no alphabet and no written language, and so all cultural production is linked to performative efforts
(Adekunle 47). While Rwanda has a rich oral tradition which is comprised of music, dance, and narrative, there are
three accepted forms of oral tales: predynastic stories, royal literature, and popular tales (Adekunle 48). Chrétien
notes that these oral narratives can vary greatly; the Rwandan poem “Ubucurabwenge,” which translates as “The
Source of Wisdom,” is a formal and stable oral narrative which recounts Rwanda’s successive sovereigns.
However, narratives with casual themes or based on information passed down through generations are more likely to
change over time (31). As Chrétien observes, “the older the traditions are, the more delicate their interpretations
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Many of the literary texts concerning the Rwandan genocide are written in French, a language
introduced into Rwanda with the arrival of the Belgian colonial authorities in 1916 which
remained a primary language of instruction until 2010, when English was adopted for
educational purposes. There have been some texts written and published in English, although
translating earlier French publications into English has also been very common, particularly
because English increasingly functions as a sort of international language for many nations.
English texts are widely disseminated throughout global Western audiences, making the use of
English an important consideration for these texts. English texts mark out a broad potential
audience but in the case of the literature of the Rwandan Genocide, this choice also reflects a
desire to ensure that Western readers have access to texts that are intended to develop Western
understandings of the genocide outside of media representations.
As a group, these English publications utilize a variety of literary forms in representing
the genocide. Memoirs and travelogues, as employed by American writer Philip Gourevitch and
Franco-African writer Véronique Tadjo, frame individual experiences of genocide through
memory and emotion; children’s literature, used by French author Élisabeth Combres and the
graphic novel, employed by Belgian author Jean-Philippe Stassen, explore the impact of the
Rwandan Genocide on children who observe and engage in violence. Canadian journalist Gil
Courtemanche and Guinean novelist Tierno Monénembo use the novel and novella form,
respectively, to explore lived experiences of the genocide, while British playwright Sonja Linden
prioritizes her message of cross-cultural discourse by writing a play. These seven texts have
points of similarity and difference. Each text uses a distinct literary form to convey the event of
must be. More often than not, old narratives reveal more about ancient culture than about factual data, but that
contribution is hardly negligible” (32). Rwandan stories are narrated through dance, originally performed centuries
ago for the Royal Court by the Intore Dance Troupe (“Traditions of Rwanda”). This tradition of dance continues to
form an important part of Rwandan culture today.
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the genocide to readers, and this in itself is an interesting aspect to consider. As form shapes the
messages contained within each text, the diversity of form here demonstrates a degree of
authorial experimentation in representing this social, political, and historical event. As genocide
consistently challenges established representational forms, and as Rwanda’s recent history is not
generally understood by Western citizens, this diversity marks the struggle to powerfully
represent the Rwandan Genocide to Western audience. However, this dissertation, while it does
not ignore the question of form, tends to focus on the issue of theme, as these seven texts
intersect thematically in very interesting ways. The three shared themes form the basis of
chapters three, four, and five, and will explore the issues of Rwandan history and culture,
Rwandan experiences of the genocide, and Rwandan recovery. As the overall objective of this
dissertation is to clarify the emerging constructions of Rwandan national identity, post-genocide,
for Western readers, the consideration of theme proves itself productive.
These seven literary works by non-Rwandan authors form the basis of this consideration
of the role of literature in educating Western readers about the Rwandan Genocide; they have
been chosen based on their non-Rwandan authorship and their availability for Western readers.
While each author here claims a different nationality, all are ultimately observers of the
Rwandan Genocide. While there are literary considerations of the genocide by Rwandan
authors, such as Vénuste Kayimahe’s France-Rwanda, the Coulisses of the Genocide, JeanMarie Vianney Rurangwa’s The Genocide of the Tutsis explained to a Foreigner, and the play
Rwanda 94, created as a collaboration between Western and Rwandan artists, this dissertation
seeks to evaluate the efforts of non-Rwandans to understand and productively engage with the
Rwandan Genocide2. Scholarship exploring literary representations of the Rwandan Genocide
2
While using non-Rwandan representations of the genocide to inform Western citizens about Rwanda can be seen
as an acceptance of cultural appropriation, there are several very good reasons to accept non-Rwandan narratives
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has been limited in the nearly two decades since 1994, and in light of this dissertation, it would
be fruitful for future research to undertake a comparison of the representation of genocide in
Rwanda by Rwandan and non-Rwandan authors. The accessibility of each text was also a key
factor in each selection. These seven texts are broadly available for English readers and can be
easily obtained through major booksellers. While there are other texts written by non-Rwandan
authors in circulation, their availability for English readers is limited by the language of
publication and their slow adoption by major libraries and booksellers. The texts chosen here
reflect the literary representations of the Rwandan Genocide which have gained the most traction
for Western audiences. What these texts share is an interest in depicting the genocide in contrast
to the common tropes applied by the Western media onto the Rwandan experience. While news
media is currently a powerful force in shaping collective knowledge, literature also holds a place
in creating and sustaining social, political, and historical records of human events for Western
readers. Fundamentally, humans write to convey knowledge and experience. As Joan Scott
writes, “seeing is the origin of knowing. Writing is reproduction, transmission – the
communication of knowledge grained through (visual, visceral) experience” (58). Certainly, in
into the Western social and political discourse about the Rwandan Genocide. Aside from the very real barriers of
language, cultural form, and economics, Rwanda’s history of colonial rule and the continued neocolonial authority
of the West have made it hard for Rwandan narratives to gain traction with English speaking readers. Recognizing
this practical limitation, the non-Rwandan texts under consideration here draw Western attention to African history
and experience, asserting the value of Rwandan voices and perspectives in non-Rwandan texts. In so doing, the
socio-political forces which limit Western-Rwandan interactions become more understandable for Western readers.
Arnd Schneider links cultural appropriation with its wider socio-political implications, stating that appropriation
“implies a resignification of meaning against the background of a structural imbalance between what (or who) is
appropriated, and what (or who) is alienated” (225). While cultural appropriation has long been a tool used to
maintain social imbalances, drawing attention to social-political inequality can also be a productive way of
challenging imbalances between individuals and collectives. Moreover, all seven texts emerged from detailed study
of Rwandan history and society, as well as interaction with Rwandan genocide survivors and perpetrators. Each of
these texts convey Rwandan voices and Rwandan concerns to Western readers, thereby claiming a space for
Rwandan concerns in the Western imagination. These seven texts represent the Rwandan Genocide in an effort to
convey Rwandan experiences to Western readers. Their authority to do so is the result of the continued neocolonial
superstructure which limits African self-representation, but the texts themselves strike back against this
superstructure and forge the way for more significant cross-cultural interactions through their representation of
Rwandan identity.
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attempting to convey the realities of genocide, it is the lived visceral experience that one must
seek to capture, and literature, with its flexibility of form and narrative structure, offers a fruitful
space in which to create and recreate experience for a broad readership.
There has been a great deal of research completed socio-political considerations of the
Rwandan Genocide, with less attention paid to the literary explorations of this event. The works
of Jean-Pierre Chrétien, Alison Des Forges, and Gérard Prunier, and, which explore the historical
and local political contexts of the genocide, are widely accepted as definitive publications on the
topic. Other authors focus on preserving and analysing survivor testimony; the writings of Scott
Straus and Jean Hatzfeld are notable in this regard. Some scholars consider how texts respond to
social, cultural and political influences. Michael Keren’s analysis of A Sunday at the Pool in
Kigali argues that the popularity of this text in Canada reflects a residual Canadian sense of guilt
over failing to push for international intervention in Rwanda. His analysis affirms literature’s
ability to address political concerns about large-scale conflict through personal narratives,
particularly for an international readership. Madelaine Hron’s comparison between French and
Rwandan literary accounts of the genocide is enriched by an analysis of the role of French
politics in shaping French narratives. Both scholars affirm the role of literature in addressing
larger socio-political discourses. Other scholars invert this consideration, tracing the impact of
literary engagements on political discourse; Audrey Small’s analysis of the “Duty to Memory
Project,” which commissioned ten African authors to write about the Rwandan Genocide, argues
that collective literary engagement has productively incorporated the genocide to larger African
discourses of memory, identity, and exile. Chantal Kalisa analyzes Rwandan theatrical
productions, considering the potential of Rwandan theatre to initiate public discourse about the
genocide and Rwanda’s post-genocide challenges. This dissertation seeks to build on the
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intersecting interests of each of these scholars. Tracing the development of socio-political
discourses about Rwanda within the Western public imagination alongside the accepted
historical development of the Rwandan Genocide, this dissertation will use emerging postgenocide literary texts to demonstrate the potential of literature to challenge the neocolonial
framing of the Rwandan Genocide, and thus, Rwandan national identity. Like the work of Keren
and Hron, this dissertation demonstrates how literature can make the political influences of
neocolonialism more visible; like the work of Small and Kalisa, this dissertation demonstrates
how literature can establish new socio-political discourses which bolster neocolonial
decolonization.
There are seven texts examined here, divided according to the issue they explore most
directly, although there is a great deal of crossover in each text. Offering contextual discussion
of Rwanda’s precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial history and culture are Philip Gourevitch’s
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families and Gil
Courtemanche’s A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali. Three texts explore the lived experience of
genocide and the impact of genocidal violence on individuals, families, and communities:
Élisabeth Combres’ Broken Memory, Jean-Philippe Stassen’s Deogratias, and Tierno
Monénembo’s The Oldest Orphan. Finally, Véronique Tadjo’s The Shadow of Imana and Sonja
Linden’s play I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from
Rwanda consider the interaction between individuals and cultures in the wake of the genocide.
These collaboratively produced texts of the Rwandan Genocide respond to Susan Moeller’s plea
for innovations in the way that news is reported so that Western viewers can become more
meaningfully engaged in the social, cultural, and political realities of the world around them by
providing historical and cultural educating, generating rooted empathy, and demonstrating the
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value of cross-cultural interaction. Fundamentally, these texts offer coverage of the Rwandan
Genocide which was not available to Western audiences during the event, and they challenge
Western readers to critically engage in the narratives of the Rwandan Genocide that circulate in
Western socio-political discourse.
Readers of these texts are able to grasp the precolonial and colonial causes of division in
Rwanda, they can intellectually and emotionally understand the trauma of genocide, and they
recognize the need for cross-cultural interactions in order to promote recovery, specifically
outside of Rwanda. This knowledge provides readers with the ability to conceive of Rwanda as
a complex nation, rather than relying on the tropes of media reports which frame it as a small and
insignificant African country. Individually, these texts encourage understanding of the Rwandan
Genocide as an event born out of very specific causes and which had a profound impact on
Rwandan society. Collectively, these texts begin something more powerful; their shared concern
over these three thematic aspects of Rwanda’s genocide demonstrate that through education,
empathy, and cross-cultural engagements, it is possible to develop an accurate sense of Rwanda
as an independent nation, outside of the politics of continued neocolonial influence 3. Such an
emergent Rwandan national consciousness within a Western readership has the potential to
challenge the continued reliance on neocolonial politics on the international stage, effecting a
retroactive decolonization of Rwanda in the minds of informed and engaged Western readers.
3
The issue of post-genocide justice has been widely discussed in other academic works. The use of Gacaca courts
and traditional Western forms of justice in Rwanda has been discussed at length by scholars such as Phil Clark and
Paul Bornkamm. Similarly productive work has critically evaluated the role played by the ICTR in claiming justice
for the Rwandan people (Barria and Roper). As will be discussed in chapter two, the Western interest in postgenocide justice in Rwanda far outweighed their interest in helping Rwandan citizens during the genocide. This
dissertation takes as its starting point this Western preference for justice over understanding; broader Western
understanding about the colonial and neocolonial causes of the genocide, the impact of the genocide on local
populations, and the efforts towards social, cultural, and political recovery in the post-genocide era remain underdiscussed within the West.
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The use of Rwandan literature, and the literary form more generally, to explore mass
trauma offers three distinct advantages to other forms of information: texts blend factual and
emotive content, explore multiple subject positions, and reclaim personal voice to instigate social
dialogue. Genocide literature permits understanding because it engages readers intellectually
and emotionally. This literature also encourages readers to consider the realities of different
subject positions. Finally, genocide literature is vital to reclaiming voice in the aftermath of
genocide, as narrative creates community in its very telling. However, because genocide
literature relies on creative licence to explore histories that were jeopardized by the act of
genocide, concerns about the ability of literary representations to recover historical fact remain.
Such literature has the potential to be a primary site of contact for readers; historical inaccuracy
raises concerns about the possibility of literature which propagates false representation. Also,
such literature takes as its basis the assumption that genocide recovery is aided by narrative,
which runs counter to the instincts of those genocide survivors who choose not to speak. These
benefits and reservations must be carefully considered in order to trace the value of genocide
literature in the context of the Rwandan Genocide.
Creative forms of expression can integrate historical knowledge and documents with
memories and individual narratives in order to educate the reader. It is the challenge of the
writer to balance between “a historical fidelity to truth…and an aesthetic fidelity to imaginative
veracity and credibility” (Kearney 60) in order to present truth, fictionalized to become
engaging. Prefaces are used by Courtemanche and Tadjo to identify the author’s relation to the
narrative and assure readers of the degree to which fiction shapes the narrative. Gourevitch
offers additional information, such as maps, historical records, and political documents, to
provide additional context for the reader. Sonja Linden’s play, based on her own interactions
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with Rwandan survivors in London, demonstrates how individual experiences and survivor
testimony can be conveyed affectively to large audiences. Authors often choose to provide
factual evidence in order to corroborate the horror of their fictionalized narratives, as writers
must guard against accusations of fictionalizing whole experiences of genocide in their writing.
Given the brutality implicit in genocide literature, it is possible for a reader to reject narrative
details as constructed rather than representative of survivor statements, using the literary form as
an excuse to avoid real engagement with the subject matter. Offering accepted historical
evidence within the narrative affirms the accuracy of such fiction.
It is important to note in this consideration of the literature of the Rwandan Genocide that
the genre does not impose a single reading on the reader, but rather requires the reader to engage
intellectually and emotionally with the text in order to generate meaning. As a form, literature is
“always provisional and never final” (Tierney-Tello 4), empowering readers to extract their own
messages and meanings. The binary of perpetrator and victim validates simplistic identity
categories that do not reflect the nuance of lived experience. The constructed subjectivity of
literary expression reaffirms the value of all subject positions. This flexible re-framing of factual
events demonstrates Berel Lang’s concept of literature as “representation-as” (51), whereby
literature explores the world from a specific subject position, and so reveals truths about that
subject position relative to the world. These texts represent the complex identities created in
genocide: the perpetrator fraught with guilt, the victim desperate for death, the unaffected
observer. Genocide literature explores the experience of genocide from a range of subject
positions, and raises questions about how genocide should be understood and discussed on an
individual and societal scale. Authoritarian regimes rely on singular messages and a willingness
to ascribe to a stated ideal in order to instigate genocide; the literary texts that emerge from
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genocide avoid offering collective truths and instead emphasize the collective value of individual
truths.
Genocide literature also offers social benefits; the act of reclaiming voice through
literature can affirm the value of community and create new communities through a politically
engaged readership. Genocide requires the dehumanization of the targeted group through
language, and the “narrative of desubjectification” (Haidu 277) prior to and during genocide
revoked the rights of the targeted group. During the recovery from genocide, it is essential that
the humanity of survivors be re-established. This recovery is not a neutral process, as Primo
Levi notes: “coming out of the darkness, one suffered because of the reacquired consciousness of
having been diminished” (56). This recovery of personal authority can be a daunting process.
However, the act of writing, or engaging with the writing of others, offers a means of recovery.
Annunciating one’s personal experience re-establishes the right to speak and to be heard,
challenges the victim position imposed during genocide, and creates a new subject position from
which to speak. Genocide literature narrates a search for “something truthful about the
fragmented self under siege, about memory, about trauma that may otherwise elude expression”
(Horowitz 24). The act of writing or speaking as a survivor requires an emergent sense of the
self, no matter how fraught this identity might be. More generally, reading about the experiences
of survivors can empower victims and witnesses by forming communities which may otherwise
be divided by geography and language.
However, one of the most significant hesitations over literary explorations of genocide is
the use of factual records to inform fiction, and fiction to explain records of fact. Literature
offers authors a degree of representational freedom which can allow a more succinct
representation of lived experience through which to educate the reader. While understanding is
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paramount to genocide authors, fact without human context makes genuine emotional and
intellectual engagement difficult. As Julia Alvarez, an author of historical fiction, explains, “I
sometimes took liberties by changing dates, by reconstructing events, and by collapsing
characters or incidents…A novel is not, after all, a historical document; but a way to travel
through the human heart” (342). The potential for slippage between fiction and falsity in literary
writing often imposes silence rather than encouraging discussion. The author, like the historian,
documents the genocide. However, the author has no requirement to provide empirical truth, and
so the words of the writer can be questioned. The writer’s work can be deemed flawed or even
purposefully inaccurate. Genocide literature raises these kinds of concerns more than other kinds
of writing precisely because these texts are so valuable in engaging a diverse population in a
complex social and political discussion.
Efraim Sicher warns that “there can indeed be no future without the past, but, when
remembrance relies on imagination to give it meaning, one must be aware of the risks that are
involved” (84). Indeed, this is not an idle point, and it would be dangerous to think that all
fiction can be helpful to large-scale social recovery. Recovery absolutely requires that the
genocide become part of the historical record. Accurate historical documentation of genocide
allows a better understanding of the way that genocides develop and can be prevented. There are
some who deny even well-documented genocides, refuting or reframing the most damning of
factual evidence4. For many, genocide literature casts a pale over existing historical records by
suggesting the possibility of other, unrecognized fictionalizations within the accepted historical
4
Of note in the case of Rwanda is Canadian lawyer Chris Black, who defended General Ndindiliyimana, Rwanda’s
highest ranking officer. Black has claimed that the RPF were responsible for firing on Habyarimana’s plane on
April 6th, 1994, and also contends that the RPF instigated much of the killing which has been attributed to the Hutu
militias (Black). Peter Erlinder, an American lawyer who was lead defence council for the UN International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, was arrested in Kigali in May, 2010, for propagating denial of the Rwandan
Genocide. He argues that unless individual perpetrators were engaged in planning the genocide, their actions cannot
fairly be identified as genocidal, as there is no evidence of an ultimate goal of Tutsi decimation (Hereward).
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record. However, historical accounts are similarly flawed by human authorship; all narratives
are fundamentally shaped by the subjects who narrate them, and not all experiences will
corroborate one another. Representations which stray from accepted narratives are feared
because they threaten the perceived inviolability of historical records of genocide. Without the
authenticity of truth, fiction can be unseated as a reliable source of understanding. However, this
threat of truth toppled by alternative truths cannot be allowed to silence all who would speak.
Recognizing that truth is a relatively unstable concept releases fiction from expectations of
absolute incontrovertibility (A. Levi 373), and affirms that fiction offers contextual truth from
the vantage point of a chosen character rather than as an absolute. This is beautifully illustrated
in the graphic novel Deogratias, as the main character’s view of post-genocide Rwanda diverges
from the reality of those around him; by playing with fact as an absolute, this text demonstrates
the actual impact of the genocide on Deogratias. Fiction engages creatively with historical and
experiential truth in the hopes of offering readers access to understanding of genocide as a lived
experience.
As genocide is predicated on the erasure of one specific group, efforts to recover from
genocide must accurately affirm both the identity and the value of that group within the larger
social community; in Rwanda, the categories of Hutu and Tutsi have been dissolved and replaced
by a shared national identity as Rwandans. Nation-building is a complex process and as
ethnicity alone cannot serve as a basis for national identity in post-genocide Rwanda, “statecentered nationalism” (Brass 20) has become the dominant form of collective identification.
Brown, discussing the development of national identity, states that
the ‘invented’ ideology of the nation-state resonated with the ‘imagining’ of civil
society, as the impact of industrialisation and colonialism disrupted the face-to-face
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communities of family and locality. Individuals sought imagined communities which
could mimic the kinship groups in offering a sense of identity, security and authority.
The promise of state élites to provide equitable development in the social justice nation
seemed to fulfil these societal needs (40).
A similar process of nation-building is underway in Rwanda currently, and the concept of
“imagined communities” (Anderson 3) has been fundamental to the emergence of new
definitions of Rwandan national identity. Rejecting the discourse of ethnic difference, Rwandan
citizens have been encouraged to find commonality through shared efforts towards Rwanda’s
future. One example of this is Umuganda, a pre-colonial tradition reinstated post-genocide
which requires citizens to set aside one day a month to devote to community service and
interaction (Gahindiro). Multiple artistic and dramatic community projects have been initiated in
Rwanda to help local communities recover from the genocide. Memorial sites have also become
a source of education about Rwanda’s precolonial and colonial history, allowing Rwandans a
clearer understanding of the forces which have shaped their nation. While emerging definitions
of Rwanda are forward looking, there is also a clear effort to reclaim aspects of traditional
identity in productive ways. The Rwandan government and Rwandan citizens continue to carve
out a broad national identity which draws on traditional and modern aspects of Rwandan culture.
Moreover, citizens’ collective efforts to recover from the genocide also serve to reclaim
nationality as a productive means of identification, as local communities form the basis of
national cohesion.
In the aftermath of any large-scale conflict, there is always confusion about the limits
of speech; Primo Levi, writing on the issue of genocide survival, observes that “those who
experienced imprisonment…are divided into two distinct categories, with rare intermediate
16
shadings: those who remain silent and those who speak” (121). The motivation to speak, like the
instinct to gasp air after being stifled, is immediately understandable. It is an act of affirmation
and recovery. However, for those who escape genocide and impose silence on themselves, there
is a similar act of survival taking place. In Combres’ Broken Memory, Emma, who witnesses the
murder of her mother, retreats from Rwandan society and does not speak about her experiences.
Similarly, Faustin in Monénembo’s The Oldest Orphan, only admits to his memories of the
massacre at Nyamata in the final lines of the text. His dedication to silence ultimately costs him
his life. This silence can mark a space for the silence of those who did not survive the genocide
and so cannot speak for themselves. In remaining silent, these people stand as a living reminder
that the cost of human hatred and suffering is silence. There are some who argue that the act of
speaking can itself be violent; Elie Wiesel writes that “in the beginning there was silence – no
words. The word itself is a breaking out. The word itself is an act of violence; it breaks the
silence” (119). However, when silence is imposed on any group, an act of violence is required to
escape it. In such cases, this act of speaking resists the violent imposition of silence enacted
during genocide and serves as a means of reclaiming identity for the collective as a whole. The
dead, past any aid, can have their stories told, and perhaps their voices heard, through the speech
acts of those who survived. Holding silence marks loss and shows respect, but silence is not an
effective educational tool and offers no path forward towards collective recovery. In the case of
Rwanda, this is particularly true. Because Rwandan voices have been silenced through the
colonial and neocolonial encounter, Western citizens are under-informed about Rwandan citizens
and Rwandan identity. Similarly, direct socio-cultural exchanges across the Western-African
social, economic, and political divide remain limited. As Rwandan narratives have the potential
to educate Western readers about Rwanda, as well as about the structural divisions which
17
maintain socio-political inequality, it is imperative that Rwandan survivors make their voices
heard globally.
While literature, as a form of communication, is not infallible, it does not need to be
infallible in order to be effective. As Albert Levi argues, literary truth is “a concept which
belongs not to the humanistic complex but to the scientific chain of meaning…[literary truth is]
not meant even by its most loyal defenders as a compendium of true proportions but rather as
‘truth in some sense’” (373). Authors who have written falsified memoirs and narratives have
been summarily shamed for offering fiction in the guise of fact. Readers can protect themselves
from such writing only by becoming knowledgeable. Protection from false narratives requires
that readers are informed and willing to engage in the social and political discourse surrounding
genocide. Ultimately, genocide fiction asks readers to accept that there is a connection between
their world and the world of the text. As a genre, it requires that readers be willing to react
empathetically and intellectually with the characters of the narrative. While the texts often invite
complex exploration, they are fundamentally driven by the question: how do we understand
genocide in this world? Upon closing the novel, the informed reader can then move past
understanding to ask: how can we challenge this reality?
A central aspect underscored by the Rwandan writings is that recovery after genocide is a
complex process, and in Rwanda, recovery efforts have addressed practical, political, and social
concerns. However, as an international event, the Rwandan Genocide also plays an important
role in shaping the discourse about Rwanda among the international community. As the
genocide was a media spectacle informed by colonial and neocolonial ideology, allowing this
mis-construed moment of Rwandan experience to stand as representative of Rwandan identity in
the Western imagination is to further legitimate racial hierarchies within emerging cultural,
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social, political, and historical discourses. However, some literary explorations of the Rwandan
Genocide have the potential to refute the neocolonial undertones which shaped the media
coverage of Rwandan identity during the genocide. These texts, taken as a collective, share three
important interests: educating readers about Rwanda’s history and culture from the precolonial to
post-genocidal period, connecting readers emotionally to the experiences, fears, and desires of
Rwandan citizens, and exploring Rwanda’s recovery through cross-cultural interactions. While
all of the texts under consideration here take on these interests in different ways, what they
reveal as a collective is the power of literature to convey contextual identity, fostering
understanding and empathy which have political potential.
In examining these texts in light of my contention that they not only evoke the horrors of
the genocide but also facilitate the recuperation of national identity and concomitantly aid in
Rwanda’s decolonization, I have structured my dissertation into five primary chapters, supported
by an introduction and conclusion. Chapter two offers a detailed, contextual review of the
Rwandan Genocide as a historical and political event. This information establishes the available
historical records detailing precolonial Rwanda, as well as the impact of German and Belgian
influences once the colonial endeavour began. The development of ethnic tensions between
Rwandan Tutsis and Hutus is traced within the social and political context, as is the slow
destruction of collective Rwandan heritage throughout the later years of colonial rule. Rwanda’s
failed decolonization, a topic of particular note during chapter six, is detailed. The early days of
the genocide are considered, with particular attention to the initial Western responses and the
interest demonstrated by civilian observers. In order to provide a sense of the shift that occurred
as the genocide became public knowledge, the UN response to the genocide and the
accompanying narrative of the genocide in the media are also explored. This chapter combines
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historical research with analysis of the political and social discourses about Rwanda that
developed in the West prior to, during, and after the Rwandan Genocide. This popular narrative
of the Rwandan Genocide is then challenged by the texts explored in chapters three, four, and
five, as they offer additional context for Western readers and establish a more complete and less
politically manipulated understanding of Rwandan national identity.
The texts evaluated in chapter three are perhaps the best known texts concerning the
Rwandan Genocide. Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be
Killed With Our Families is one of the definitive contextual texts on the genocide, a non-fiction
travelogue tracing the development of the genocide from the earliest records of Rwandan history
to the post-genocide era. Gil Courtemanche’s novel A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is a powerful
fictional novel informed by the experiences of the author during his time in Rwanda. In the
novel, a Québécois journalist named Valcourt comes to find his own identity in Rwanda, even as
the genocide tears the country apart. Both of these texts juxtapose historical fact with the
narrators’ emotions and experiences of Rwanda. The authors offer strong criticism of the
colonial history of Rwanda, and examine the powerful role of colonial and neocolonial politics in
modern Rwandan politics.
Genocide literature can serve as a bridge for readers who are historically, geographically,
culturally, or politically removed from the violence under discussion. This literature is
educational, supplementing the reader’s understanding of violent conflicts by providing accurate
socio-political and historical context. By tracing the social and cultural shifts which predated the
genocide, this violence is rendered understandable. In the case of Rwanda, such
contextualization refutes the common narrative of the genocide as a civil war supported by
endemic African violence; both Gourevitch and Courtemanche identify the machinations of the
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colonial regime as a primary cause of the ethnic division which enabled the genocide. As
Rwandan voices were not well represented in the media coverage of the event, these texts also
trace individual responses to pre-genocidal and genocidal actions in the Rwandan community in
order to provide local understandings of events to readers around the world. This kind of
education helps to ensure that Western readers recognize the larger political forces which shaped
the Rwandan Genocide, and gain a productive understanding of post-genocide Rwandan national
identity.
Chapter four examines the genocide from the Rwandan perspective, providing distanced
readers with a means of understanding the chaos that was so frequently referenced in news
reports about the genocide. There are three texts under consideration, each from a different
genre of literary production. Élisabeth Combres’ Broken Memory is a young-adult novel which
traces the recovery experiences of a young Tutsi survivor in post-genocide Rwanda. JeanPhilippe’s Deogratias is a graphic novel which deals with the complex realities of genocide
recovery as a perpetrator. This extremely compelling book makes powerful use of the graphic
novel format and addresses internal and international political tensions to great effect. Finally,
Tierno Monénembo’s The Oldest Orphan is a novella which traces the failed recovery of a
young Tutsi boy who survives the Nyamata massacre but cannot survive the realities of postgenocide Rwanda. Interestingly, each of these texts focuses on a child-narrator, which nuances
the readers’ understanding of the simple binary of victim and perpetrator very effectively.
Genocide challenges the limits of human comprehension but such a definition does little
to help individuals come to terms with the implications of mass violence for humanity. For the
removed reader, the emotional exploration of distant events is a particularly valuable aspect of
genocide literature. Survivors often struggle to make meaning out of their experiences, but the
21
distant observer also needs to develop understanding; literature offers that opportunity. By
focusing on a specific community of people, Combres, Stassen, and Monénembo shrink the scale
of the Rwandan Genocide to an understandable size. These authors explore characters who
challenge the presumed binary of victim and perpetrator, reminding readers of the dangers of
such simplifications as a counterpoint to the pervasive binaries employed throughout Western
coverage of the event. Ultimately, these texts engage the imaginative empathy of the reader,
creating “a narrating consciousness who makes sense of the confusion of history and makes the
reader imagine being there” (Sicher 66). Narrating the lived experience of genocide, the
complex sufferings and reactions of protagonists can form the basis of an empathic
understanding of genocide. Such literature allows the victims of genocide to be heard, affirming
the value of Rwandan experiences and creating a space for Rwandan citizens in the Western
imagination.
In chapter five, both The Shadow of Imana and I have Before Me a Remarkable
Document Given to Me by a Young Lady From Rwanda consider the role of and value of crosscultural exchanges in aiding recovery from the genocide, both for Rwandan and non-Rwandan
actors. Véronique Tadjo’s free-form travel narrative The Shadow of Imana traces her movement
through post-genocide Rwanda while encouraging the reader to imaginatively engage with the
characters and sites of the text. Sonja Linden’s play I have Before Me a Remarkable Document
Given to Me by a Young Lady From Rwanda is set in London, and follows the developing
relationship between Simon, a local English writer, and Juliette, a Rwandan refugee who wishes
to write a book about the genocide in order to educate an international readership. Both texts
demonstrate the act of interaction, and suggest to the reader that while fraught with potential
pitfalls, such moments of connection can foster powerful change in local communities by
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instigating public awareness and discussion about genocide and, more than incidentally, about
decolonization.
These texts encourage readers to recognize that despite distance and difference,
interactions across racial, cultural, political, and national boundaries can be profoundly valuable
for Western actors. By demonstrating positive and productive interactions, these texts remind
readers that international politics depend on the acceptance of citizens, and that citizens can
begin to challenge political ideology in their own lives. Seeing Rwandan citizens as more than
the victims and perpetrators of genocide allows readers to realize the value which Rwandan
citizens have to offer the international community. Fundamentally, Tadjo and Linden ask
readers to reconsider their commitment to the Western political ideology that consistently
devalues African voices. In doing so, these texts challenge political superstructures which
legitimate racial hierarchies within political discourse and action.
Chapter six contends that literature has the potential to instigate political change within
the Western world. The shared concerns of these writers demonstrate a specific focus on
rebuilding national identity, rejecting the ethnic discourse of the colonial era in favour of a
collective Rwandan identity. This emerging nationalism is indicative of decolonization as
imagined by Fanon, and suggests that Rwanda’s incomplete independence, begun in 1962, is
finally being realized. Considering this development in light of the emerging literature of the
Rwandan Genocide, it becomes clear that these collaborative texts offer a similar means of
spurring the decolonization of Western ideology by politicizing readers. By recognizing that the
Western response to the genocide is indicative of a continued neocolonial framing, it becomes
clear that a complete recovery for Rwanda requires the decolonization of Western discourse and
politics. By establishing a clear vision of Rwandan national identity based on contextual
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historical fact, diverse emotional representations, and cross-cultural interactions, the texts under
consideration here assert a new Rwandan identity for Western readers. Inverting Fanon’s
concept of national consciousness as the basis of an emergent nation during decolonization, I
propose that these texts develop reflexive national consciousness, an internally generated
understanding of national identity which is then made available to the citizens of another nation,
as a means of decolonizing the Western world for Rwandan citizens. In the wake of Rwanda’s
history of colonialism, limited decolonization, and genocide, the value of asserting a new identity
in the Western imagination cannot be underestimated. As Stuart Hall reminds us, “the world
begins to be decolonized at that moment” (184) when the voices lost to the colonial regime are
recovered. For Rwanda, a nation which was denied true independence even as colonial forces
left Rwanda, these genocide texts, which reflect a collaboration between Western and African
writers and Rwandan citizens, offer the opportunity to forge a new national identity that is
reflective of, but not defined by, the genocide. Furthermore, these texts can forge new
international communities of people who recognize and reject the superstructures of
neocolonialism that so powerfully impact the role of former colonies on the international stage.
Collectively, these texts demonstrate knowledge and respect for Rwandan culture and are
written with awareness of the lived history of Rwanda. They empower Rwandan voices and
explore Rwandan concerns. Most importantly, they provide an alternative to the silence of a unidirectional cultural interaction. The one-way dissemination of culture and history privileges one
set of cultural ideals over all others and relegates difference into silence. Genocide fiction
cannot offer justice for genocide, but as a genre of writing, it establishes a discourse about
genocide that is emotionally, intellectually, and socially productive. This is particularly
important because the established systems of justice in response to genocide are often remote and
24
inaccessible, particularly for observers. Through literature, these pressing issues can be
discussed and debated, and it is these small debates that ultimately influence social and political
authorities to reject neocolonial power structures which deny full humanity to all global citizens.
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Chapter Two: Tracing the Rwandan Genocide as an International Event
Making visible the experience of a different group exposes the existence of repressive
mechanisms, but not their inner workings or logics; we know that difference exists,
but we don’t understand it as constituted relationally. For that we need to attend to
the historical processes that, through discourse, position subjects and produce their
experiences.
Joan Scott, “Experience,” 59-60.
The genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994 is a fact of history. However, as local
and internationally-based writers make known, it is not a neutral fact. Rwanda, as a real and
imagined space, has been shaped by large-scale and invasive socio-political forces for one
hundred and twenty years. As an African country, Rwanda suffered the Western degradation of
African identity and the collective African experience of the slave trade. More directly, Rwanda
has been shaped by colonial rule, which lasted in Rwanda for 78 years. German authorities
arrived in 1884 and the Belgians assumed control from the Germans in 1916. Buoyed by the
trend towards national independence in colonial spaces after WWII, Rwanda claimed self-rule in
1962. However, the arrival and the exit of European forces had profound effects on Rwanda’s
social, cultural, and political identity, both internally and externally. As a result of the colonial
era, Rwanda’s social and cultural history, the country’s experience of colonialism, and the
challenges of independence have consistently been narrated by non-Rwandans who naturalize
Western perceptions of Rwanda. The colonial conquerors elided African culture and social
organization with violence and disorder, a perspective which remains present in international
engagements in the form of neocolonialism. The overarching superstructures of colonial and
neocolonial control have profoundly influenced Western understandings of Rwanda’s recent
history, specifically the Rwandan Genocide. In order to understand the dangers of this
neocolonial influence on Rwanda’s national identity and international interactions, underlined by
26
the writers considered here, it is necessary to map the socio-political interactions between
Rwandan and Western forces from the beginning of the colonial enterprise to the post-genocide
era.
Each of the writers examined here were born during the colonial period and their work
demonstrates their awareness of Rwanda’s colonial history. As imperialism proved an
economically viable means of expanding empire, national leaders began the “scramble for
Africa” in the 1880s. The Berlin Conference of 1884 marked the beginning of the organized
division of the African continent between several Western powers. This conference affirmed late
Victorian constructions of Africa in the public imagination. Major European countries were
already in Africa, working diligently to extract wealth from the land and the people. The Berlin
Conference legitimated the pillage of the African continent, and sought to avoid conflict between
European nations seeking profit through African loss. The concern here was never the right of
European countries to divide Africa, but only how best to do so. The European colonizers
agreed that colonies must be effectively governed by representatives of the nation; failure to do
so was tantamount to an invitation for other European colonizers to claim the space. This logic
motivated the Germans to stake out their territory in Rwanda. During World War One, taking
advantage of tactical German weakness, and perhaps motivated by the German attack of France
through Belgium, the Belgians invaded Germany’s African territory of Rwanda, and claimed it
as their own. Since the beginning of colonial rule in Rwanda, this country has been a battle
ground for the concerns and affairs of distant governments, with little regard for the impact of
such actions on local identity and politics.
The European mission to dominate Africa reveals the intensity of colonial aspirations;
European leaders wished to extract economic value out of African soil and free labour from
27
African populations. However, as Gourevitch reminds readers in We Wish To Inform You That
Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, the push for African land was also a means of
asserting authority in Europe, as imperialism required the expansion of Empire. Cultural
influence over colonial spaces was an important mandate of the imperial ideal, and while the
Germans did not markedly change Rwanda’s established social order, the Belgians were active in
their supervision of Rwanda. The political structure of the nation changed as local leadership
was nullified in favour of central governance (Chrétien 270), but the Belgians also imported new
agricultural techniques to improve Rwanda’s farming culture, and mandated their own projects
to improve living conditions (Chrétien 276-77). Mary Louise Pratt notes that when two cultures
intersect, they “grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of dominance and
subordination” (4). These “contact zones” (4) are spaces in which aspects of distinct cultural and
political structures are negotiated until one dominant model of social organization is enforced.
As with most European-African negotiations, the Belgians privileged their own cultural and
political models over the systems of the Rwandan people, and sought to make changes to the
social balance of Rwanda.
The Rwandan population of the early twentieth-century was made up of three groups: the
Tutsi, the Hutu, and the Twa. The nature of early social interactions between these groups
remains in contention as surviving records are limited, although it is clear that prior to the arrival
of European in Rwanda, these were flexible categories determined by economic and social power
rather than by any clear sense of ethnic difference (Gourevitch 56-57). The Tutsi,
characteristically tall, lean, and lighter-skinned, were cattle herders, an occupation that gave
them access to wealth and social authority. The Hutu, characteristically shorter and darkerskinned, traditionally worked as farmers in Rwanda, generally holding less social power as a
28
result. The Twa, a pygmy population comprising only 1% of Rwanda’s citizenry, have been
largely ignored in recent Rwandan history but were the only group in precolonial Rwanda
defined solely by their physical attributes. By contrast, Tutsi and the Hutu identifiers were
flexible identity categories. An individual’s identity was determined by the number of cattle
held, and that identity could change as economic fortunes improved or waned. Intermarriage
between Tutsis and Hutus was common and socially accepted. Prior to the arrival of the
Europeans, tensions between these two categories reflected economic and political frustrations
rather than ethnic biases. The nation was controlled by a line of Tutsi kings and a secondary,
local authority in the form of local Tutsi chiefs (Chrétien 160). This Tutsi rule was a cause of
resentment among various groups in Rwanda, and a social weakness ready to be manipulated by
the colonizers. The Belgians were strong supporters of Rwanda’s Tutsi leaders and put an end to
the flexible system of identification with the introduction of identity cards in 1935. These two
actions had a massive impact on the cultural politics of Rwanda because the economic signifiers
of the past became the ethnic signifiers of the present and future.
The decision to standardize identity categories in Rwanda is precisely in line with the
standard colonial approach to the “other.” As Pratt argues, the colonial gaze “homogenizes the
people to be subjected, that is, produced as subjects, into a collective they, which distils down
even further into an iconic he. This abstracted he/they is the subject of verbs in a timeless
present tense [Emphasis in the original]” (63-64). The Belgian authorities required an ally in
Rwandan society in order to maintain colonial rule, and essentialising Rwandan identity into two
distinct ethnic groups, in which the Hutu majority were marginalized while the Tutsi minority
were empowered, created a clear hierarchy. This change destabilized the social and political
29
structure of Rwanda; the absolute determination of identity created fractures in Rwanda’s social
order. Indeed, this chaos was destined to arise, as
the intensity and the disruptive consequences of conflict are reduced and cohesion
enhanced in societies where individuals belong to a multiplicity of groups that criss-cross
each other in such a way as to reduce the homogeneity of groups. On the other hand,
where individuals belong to relatively homogeneous groups and where group
membership in different types of functional and religious or ethnic groups are
reinforcing, the potential for conflict is high. (Brass 265)
The sense of rivalry between citizens of Rwanda distracted from the reality that Belgium had
taken control of the nation by validating Tutsis and then disguising colonial authority behind the
newly empowered Tutsi rule.
The colonial enterprise required constructed distinctions between African and European
identity, and in this regard, the introduction of identity cards into Rwandan society was an
effective tool5. As JanMohamed observes, colonial authority requires a “flexible positional
superiority, which puts the Westerner in a whole series of possible relationships with the Orient
without ever losing him the relative upper hand [Emphasis in the original]” (64). Indeed, this
Manichean allegory was an essential aspect of most colonial interactions. Colonial authority was
maintained through the construction of an impervious European authority which brooked no
refusal from the colonial subject. In Rwanda, the establishment of an ethnic class structure
caused a great deal of tension between Tutsi and Hutu citizens who formerly identified as
5
Europeans have been constructing Africa in the Western cultural imagination for hundreds of years, and English
narratives of the ‘other’ are particularly consistent, despite the large scale and diversity of Britain’s colonial
endeavours. From casual travel-writers and scientists to military men and explorers, “whether confident or doubtful,
the writers describe Africa in the same conventions. The image of Africa remains the negative reflection, the
shadow, of the British self-image” (Hammond and Jablow 197). Euro-narrations of Africa affirmed European
superiority, and dismissed whole aspects of African identity and culture as simply not applicable to European
systems of knowledge.
30
Rwandans. However, public dissatisfaction was directed at the Tutsis who held local power,
rather than the colonial authority who legitimated that power. Tutsis became a reliable class of
allies who supported colonial authority so long as their own local power was supported by the
colonists. This is an excellent example of the flexible positionality of the Belgians in Rwanda;
playing king-maker to the Tutsis in exchange for support, and disempowering a massive Hutu
working-class who were too fixated on Tutsi gain to see the true architects of this social
manipulation. By introducing the discourse of difference, formalized through the identity cards,
Rwandans ceased to speak with one voice or identify as a homogenous group. By introducing
ethnicity as indicative of social authority, the subtle fractures of precolonial Rwandan society
were magnified and manipulated by the Belgian colonizers.
It is well known that despite the technological power of the Europeans in Africa, colonial
authority was not established with weapons and military prowess alone. The ideals of
colonialism were affirmed and transmitted through the written word. As Homi Bhabha notes, the
colonial mission “seeks authorization for its strategies by the production of knowledges of
colonizer and colonized which are stereotypical but antithetically evaluated…to justify conquest
and to establish systems of administration and instruction” (101). The greatest weapon in the
colonial arsenal was the perception of European superiority. Colonized populations were
encouraged to see Europeans as members of far more developed nations, whose
accomplishments were proof of an implicit superiority. African identity was developed as a
counterpoint to European identity, and African characters in European writing were caricatures
constructed in deference to the project of Western literary self-aggrandization. In dehumanizing
Africans to claim dominion over them, Europeans silenced African resistance and invalidated
African knowledge on the basis of its origin. Writings about Africa from the colonial period
31
normalized the European imperative to dominate Africans under the guise of necessary
oversight. As the colonial era demonstrates, given sufficient authority, literary and historical
narratives such as King Solomon’s Mines and Heart of Darkness have the power to shape public
opinion regarding a range of political interactions across the globe.
In the process of colonization, the colonizer’s role and influence in the invaded society is
naturalized. Narrative is once again an ally to the colonizer. In Rwanda, empowered Tutsi
leaders and European authorities naturalized historical narratives about Rwanda so as to further
legitimate their mutual authority. Alison Des Forges, a leading expert on the Rwandan genocide,
observes that
mutually supportive historians created a mythic history to buttress a colonial
order…The joint product was shaped in Rwanda and packaged in Europe, and then
delivered back into the school-rooms of Rwanda by Europeans or European-educated
teachers. In addition, the results of the collaborative enterprise were accepted by
intellectuals in the circles around the court, even those without European-style
schooling – and integrated into their oral histories. It was not surprising that Tutsi were
pleased with this version of history. But even the majority of Hutu swallowed this
distorted account of the past, so great was their respect for European-style education.
(“The Ideology of Genocide” 45)
By constructing the convincing spectre of an all-powerful Europe, the Belgians were able to
convince Rwandan civilians to accept European versions of Rwandan history. Moreover, the
sheer length of colonial rule in Rwanda meant that these constructed narratives took root over
generations and became part of the fabric of national identity. In a study of contemporary
nationalism in Rwanda, David Brown observes that
32
the subordination of the Hutu majority under colonial rule had meant that their
identity developed reactively against the state and emerged in an ethnocultural
nationalist form. The Hutu perception saw Hutus and Tutsis as two distinct racially
based nations, locked in a zero-sum conflict within the same state and territory. Tutsi
perceptions of identity, on the other hand, developed when their pre-colonial status as
patrons was transformed into a cemented-power monopoly over Hutus by Belgian
colonial rule, so that when Tutsi nationalism developed, it was associated with the
Rwandan state, and took on a civic nationalist complexion. This means that from the
Tutsi perspective, the terms Hutu and Tutsi were used to refer to distinct class or caste
communities within a (potential or emergent) Rwandan nation. (161)
This division between the citizens of Rwanda, instituted to facilitate colonial control, became a
fundamental part of Rwanda’s national identity; citizens were empowered or alienated on the
basis of identity groupings that had become politically relevant only in the context of colonial
rule. As Brown further observes, “by the time of the late 1950s, when these tensions first
erupted into violence, an understanding of Rwandan politics in terms of rivalry between a Hutu
majority (about 85 percent) and a Tutsi minority (less than 14 percent) had achieved hegemony”
(161).
The European rule of Rwanda was a certainty only so long as the discourse of
colonialism could sustain itself. However, the Second World War and the Holocaust lent human
rights a new level of importance in the global discourse. The United Nations adopted the
“Universal Declaration of Human Rights” on December 10, 1948, and instructed all member
states “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and
other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or
33
territories” (“History of the Document”). This document represented a fundamental shift in the
perception of race and culture on the global stage. The discursive dehumanization of the
nineteenth and early twentieth century was curbed by an emergent recognition of the dangers
implicit in large-scale racial generalizations. This document prohibited slavery and torture,
addressed important aspects of social life, such as marriage and employment, and generally
represented the ideals of a liberal society. Of primary importance to colonized spaces was the
first article of the declaration, which stated that “all human beings are born free and equal in
dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in a spirit of brotherhood” (“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”). Affirming
the equality of all people, this document struck down one of the principle narratives of
colonialism, which framed colonial subjects as incapable of governing themselves and colonial
masters as bearing the burden of ward-nations. In the spirit of the age, colonial resistance gained
traction and nations began to liberate themselves from former colonial leaders. Moreover, this
mid-century period marked the beginning of large-scale social discussions about how equality
might take shape in specific societies.
With this assertion of the rights of all people, colonial subjects began to test their strength
against European rule, and the Rwandans were no exception. These efforts attempted to address
the myriad ways that colonialism had maintained itself. As colonial narratives had normalized
European involvement in the far-flung corners of the earth, decolonization needed to address the
subtle ways in which colonial influence had inserted itself into local cultures. The politically
loaded discourses of African savagery and Indian subservience, examples from two of Europe’s
largest colonial spaces, could no longer maintain themselves alongside the assertion of universal
human equality. However, these discourses were not struck down and eradicated; rather, they
34
were replaced with less pointedly biased narratives of local identity over time. The racism
inherent in the colonial mission shifted under the social pressures of the 1950s and 1960s, giving
way to new discourses that reflected both colonial and postcolonial ideology.
*
Decolonization, poignantly defined by Fanon, one of the earliest proponents of national
independence, is “truly the creation of new men” (2). Fanon, a leading theorist of decolonization
and an architect of postcolonial nation building, maintains that former colonial subjects claim
identity by reclaiming their nation through active cultural and political engagements. However,
decolonization has not enabled nations to claim equality on the global political stage; former
colonies enter into new political and social relationships with global powers, but the social and
political narratives that empowered the colonial endeavour continue to influence the perception
of former colonial spaces, both internally and internationally. This neocolonialism is a nuanced
form of colonial control, as the discourse of inequality becomes more subtle but the former
colonial space remains devalued. JanMohamed observes that in the neocolonial exchange,
former colonial spaces often take on the colonizer’s culture, values, morality, institutions, and
modes of production (62). While this may seem innocuous, the influence of a colonizing culture
in a newly independent space can propagate other, more direct forms of control and hinder the
development of new forms of local expression and self-representation. Cultural expressions
simultaneously define and reflect a nation, and in a newly independent space, such expressions
are particularly valuable. Edward Said observes that the framing of the colonial subject through
Western cultural productions is itself a “strategy of containment…that reproduces a relation of
domination” (Orientalism 46). Throughout the colonial enterprise, cultural representations of the
‘other’ provided a means of legitimating European dominance; when such representations are
35
imported into former colonial spaces, effects are heightened because while a narrative of equality
is asserted, it is not reflected in the practical relationship between former colonial master and
subject.
As Gourevitch and Courtemanche convincingly show in their writing about Rwanda,
colonial spaces that claim independence are not awarded the complex social, cultural, and
political tools required for a strong sense of nationhood during decolonization, despite the fact
that colonizing forces generally disrupt productive internal social structures during colonization.
The power structures in place during the colonial period are largely removed as colonial forces
exit, commonly leaving a deficit of the formal processes and social forums needed to govern
effectively. Such postcolonial spaces must develop internal structures or call upon past
structures in order to articulate a coherent collective identity, rebalance the social order, and
provide a scaffold for future developments which reflect the aspirations of the nation. Clear
shared goals are essential to the recovery of neocolonial spaces. Fanon argues that at such
pivotal moments, former colonial spaces must prioritize the development of a national culture.
He defines national culture as “the collective thought process of a people to describe, justify, and
extol the actions whereby they have joined forces and remained strong. National culture in the
underdeveloped countries, therefore, must lie at the very heart of the liberation struggle these
countries are waging” (168). This position demonstrates Fanon’s awareness that the strength of
the colonial endeavour resulted from the use of culture to naturalize politics. In response, Fanon
urges the use of culture to assert a new internal and international identity, thereby challenging the
political and economic superstructures which maintained the colonial empire for so long.
In the case of Rwanda’s decolonization, early efforts to form a united national identity
which could assert itself in opposition to colonial identification were complicated by the form in
36
which independence arrived. Rwanda became a UN trust territory after the League of Nations
ceased to exist in 1946, although still officially under Belgian control. This spectre of
independence divided Rwandans along the ethnic lines established by the colonial powers; Tutsis
pushed for immediate independence, which caused tensions for many Hutus who resented the
Tutsi claim to power under colonial rule. These two groups, generally perceived as politically
distinct after almost seventy years of colonial control, sought to differentiate themselves from
one another through the imminent claim to self-rule. This period of violence became known as
the Rwandan Revolution, and signalled the end of the monarchy system which had affirmed
Tutsis authority throughout the period of colonial rule (“Rwanda – UNAMIR Background”).
With the promise of independence, Hutu activists began to see empowered Tutsis as a threat to
Hutu liberation after the exit of the colonial forces, and began to target Tutsis with violence and
death. The earliest civilian clashes left hundreds of Tutsis dead, and between November 1959
and late 1961, approximately 160,000 Tutsis left Rwanda to find ethnic acceptance in
surrounding African countries (“Background Note: Rwanda”). This political uprising, known in
Rwanda as the “wind of destruction” (Gourevitch 59), demonstrates the complex reality of
Rwanda’s first taste of independence from Belgium. The ethnic identities asserted during
colonial rule, divisive throughout the first half of the twentieth-century, became the basis of
violence during the run-up to decolonization. It was at this point that Rwandans received a
belated gift from their colonizers. Rather than exit Rwanda with colonial structures in place,
Belgian officials chose to disrupt the carefully cultivated ethnic hierarchy established for their
own benefit. The Belgians supported the Hutu resistance of Tutsi power, and legitimated the
rejection of the monarchy by holding an election in 1962 to determine new leadership
37
(“Background Note: Rwanda”). The massive Hutu majority took control of the country just as
Rwanda separated from Burundi and became an independent nation on July 1 st, 1962.
As a majority group disempowered throughout colonial rule, Hutus were anxious to
assert themselves in their newly independent nation, and earlier displays of ethnic violence were
absorbed into the rhetoric of the emerging nation. As Fanon points out, national development is
strengthened by the collective engagement of the citizens, and requires clear and unified goals to
succeed (168). However, Rwanda had no chance for such an experience of decolonization.
Instead, the ethnic divide asserted by the colonists hampered any sense of collective unity
between these Rwandan citizens. These two groups understood their relationship to national
identity in fundamentally different ways. Tutsi identity was ideologically linked to the Rwandan
nation because of their empowered position within the nation under colonial rule. Hutu identity,
on the other hand, had been disempowered during the colonial rule of Rwanda, and so Hutu
identity was ideologically connected to ethnic, rather than nationalistic, discourse. Because these
two groups conceived of their relationship to the state differently, they could not collaboratively
develop a new concept of Rwandan citizenry. As David Brown observes of Rwandan
postcolonial politics,
an emergent Rwandan civic nationalism was never able to accommodate an
emergent Hutu ethnocultural nationalism. The intensity of economic, status and power
disparities, and the physical and emotional insecurities which these disparities
engendered, have ensured the susceptibility of Rwandans to the two antithetical
nationalist ideologies which insecure élites have propagated. The structural basis for the
conflict is thus no longer the rivalries for state power and resources themselves, but the
mutual distrust, misunderstanding and fear, which is embedded in the two constructed
38
ideologies. The inability of the decolonising state to intertwine civic and ethnocultural
identities so as to generate a sense of security, led those subject to the uncertainties of
deprivation, to seek security in simple formulas of countervailing Hutu and Tutsi rights,
enemies and destinies. (164)
Given these distinct modes of relating to the nation, as well as the history of ethnic division and
the substantial disparity in the ethnic demographics of Rwanda, it is little wonder that Hutu
representatives aggressively claimed power in the new Rwandan state. Their rule legitimated by
the retreating Belgian forces, Hutus began to assert a national identity informed by ethnicity, one
which would not accommodate the Tutsi minority. Thus, Rwanda’s national rhetoric, always a
key element of national identity formation, reflected and inspired ethnic division in aggressive
terms. Tutsis were excluded from emerging discussions of Rwandan identity, and tensions
transformed into violence as the nation developed through the neocolonial period.
In Rwanda, the process of colonization and decolonization significantly changed the
meaning of Tutsi and Hutu identity, as well as the understanding of collective identity that was in
place prior to 1884. Decolonization empowered a massive population who had been kept from
power as a result of arbitrary ethnic distinctions, and simultaneously disempowered a very small
population who had alienated themselves by serving as a comprador class to the Belgian
officials. Most importantly, the Belgians, in supporting the Hutus in the last stages of colonial
rule, had validated the Hutu perception that it was the Tutsis, and not the Belgians, who were the
enemy. The victimization of the Tutsis became a desirable line of action; their smaller numbers
and the colonial belief that Tutsis were not indigenous to Rwanda, instigated widespread
pressure on the Tutsis to leave Rwanda. Public discourse and representation of Tutsi identity at
this time became politically loaded, as the Tutsi “were increasingly portrayed not merely as
39
immigrants but as foreign occupants and oppressors – not unlike the colonialists” (BuckleyZistel 104). The shared culture and collective memory of the citizens of Rwanda could not
sustain the fractures of colonial influence, and Rwanda began independence mired by the
political divisions of the colonial era.
In national spaces, collective memory “shapes the story that groups of people tell about
themselves, linking past, present and future in a simplified narrative” (Duncan Bell 2), and the
fragmentation of this narrative self-creation endangers national coherence. The colonial powers
fragmented precolonial narratives of Rwandan identity by massaging class structures into
fundamental ethnic differences. In a postcolonial society, such distinctions take on particular
significance because the “important distinctions among peoples are cultural. People define
themselves in terms of ancestry, religion, languages, history, values, customs and institutions.
They identify with cultural groups, tribes, ethnic groups, religions, communities, nations and, at
the broadest level, civilizations” (Rohne, Arsovska and Aertsen 9). However, Rwanda’s culture
had been so manipulated by the colonial presence that Rwanda claimed independence as a
country fundamentally divided. Moreover, the rhetoric of violence which shaped this emerging
nation quickly took up a permanent place in Rwanda’s national discourse.
Rwandan postcolonial national discourse was predicated on the rejection of Tutsi identity
and the privileging of Hutu identity. The first government, headed by Gregoire Kayibanda of the
PARMEHUTU Party, “promoted a Hutu-supremacist ideology” (“Background Note: Rwanda”),
prompting more Tutsis to flee Rwanda’s borders. This party was abolished by force in 1973,
when Major General Habyarimana dissolved the National Assembly and claimed the presidency
himself after elections held in 1978. Habyarimana’s rule lasted until his plane was shot down in
April of 1994, sparking the Rwandan Genocide. However, throughout his leadership, he
40
exacerbated ethnic tensions and maintained a consistent rhetoric of violence towards Tutsi
citizens. The aggressively anti-Tutsi public discourse propagated through the Rwandan
government and Hutu leaders destabilized the nation by inciting violence and normalizing the
vilification of Tutsi citizens. Moreover, he did nothing to quell the small, sustained attacks on
Tutsis, which have now been recognized as massacres testing the local, national, and
international responses to such violence (“Background Note: Rwanda”). The Rwandan Patriotic
Front, or RPF, was created in 1990 by exiled Tutsis determined to return and claim a place in
Rwandan society. Clashes between this force and the military troops under the command of the
president occurred with some frequency between 1990 and 1992, until international pressures in
the form of the Organization for African Unity instigated a cease-fire.
The Arusha Accords were signed by the Rwandan government and the leaders of the RPF
on August 4th, 1993 in an attempt to end the violence publicly known as the Rwandan Civil War.
These discussions emphasized the need for all citizens of Rwanda to be repatriated and outlined
an expectation that the government and the rebel forces merge into a united national force. The
fundamental error in the discourse of the Arusha Accords was a belief that politics divided these
two groups. As shown, the ethnic divide within Rwanda may have taken the guise of politics,
but was rooted in the cultural rhetoric of an emergent postcolonial Rwandan identity. As such,
unity could not be created politically. Rather, Rwandan negotiations needed to reaffirm the
precolonial fluidity between Tutsi and Hutu identifications. Instead, the UN formed the United
Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), which was to provide security and
“contribute to the establishment and maintenance of a climate conducive to the secure
installation and subsequent operation of the transitional Government” (“Rwanda – UNAMIR
Background”). The UNAMIR forces, lead by Brigadier-General Dallaire and comprised
41
primarily of Belgian soldiers, arrived in Kigali on October 22, 1993 and began functioning as a
peace-keeping force, in accordance with the UN mandate.
The Rwandan genocide began on April 6th, 1994, when President Habyarimana’s plane
was shot down near Kigali airport. Early reports suggested that the RPF were trying to
undermine the political aspirations of the Arusha Accords, but the evidence has not conclusively
shown who shot down the plane, although the speed of the military and Hutu militia response
suggests their involvement or prior knowledge (“Rwanda – UNAMIR Background”). This
particular moment is depicted in several of the texts under consideration here; while Gourevitch
details it factually, Courtemanche and Stassen powerfully depict Rwandan responses to the news
of this event. The first action for the génocidaires was to murder the senior members of the
government, an objective that was completed within hours of the President’s death. This
implemented military rule in the country for the duration of the genocide, and incited civilian
aggression on a national scale. This violence was normalized through the propaganda of the
national radio station, which came under Hutu control in the months prior to the genocide. The
Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) urged Hutus to “exterminate the Tutsi from
the globe [and] make them disappear once and for all” (Kiernan 28) prior to and throughout the
three months of genocide. The genocide was well organized, channelling the frustrations of the
Hutu population into action by recruiting citizens into local militias. Hutus who were unwilling
to engage in violence were themselves threatened, and Hutus who expressed sympathy for Tutsis
were killed. The discourse of this genocide was strictly ethnic, and the military propagated a
nationalistic fervour on the basis of collective national slaughter.
Over the period of three months, from April 6th to July 4th, approximately 800,000 Tutsi
and Tutsi-sympathizers were brutally and laboriously murdered by their fellow citizens of
42
Rwanda, using domestic tools and machetes. These murders were protracted and individuals
were targeted with extreme prejudice. While the machetes used in the genocide were imported
by the Hutu militias partly because they were common to Rwanda and would not raise the
concerns that a similar cache of guns might, the machete was also chosen because of the style of
death conferred on the victim. Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers were purposefully humiliated in
death in order to further assert Hutu supremacy. In exploring the issue of dignity in large scale
violence, Lindner comments that
genocide is about humiliating the personal dignity of the victims, denigrating their
group to a subhuman level. The Rwandan genocide of 1994 provides a gruesome
catalogue of practices designed to bring down the victims’ dignity. The most literate
way of achieving this debasement as I heard described many times was cutting off the
legs of tall Tutsis to shorten not only their bodies but ‘bring down their alleged
arrogance.’ (9)
This conscious effort to humiliate Tutsi citizens reflects the passion of Hutu ideology in this
conflict, and warned surviving Tutsis that they were not welcome to remain in or return to
Rwanda.
The Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi, Hutu paramilitary organizations in charge of
civilian murder, were made up of average citizens and used local knowledge to create lists of
Tutsis to be killed in each area of Rwanda. The names of these groups affirm the communal
nature of their work; “Interahamwe” means “those who stand / work / fight together” while
“Impuzamugambi” means “those who have a shared goal” (“Impuzamugambi”). This discourse
of a common Hutu objective to rid Rwanda of Tutsis was rampant throughout the genocide and
shows how fundamental ethnicity was to the construction of genocidal enactment. Bartov
43
observes that victims of genocide are created when they are forced to “conform to a definition
that they might not share, based on categories imposed on them by a larger community or
political regime” (772), and certainly, the definition of Tutsi propagated by Hutu militants did
not reflect the self-definition of Tutsi citizens. The Tutsi threat constructed through the rhetoric
of the genocide was disproportionate with any actual threat posed by the Tutsis, demonstrating
the same “synchronic essentialism” (Said, Orientalism 240) that the colonial forces employed
when they arrived in Rwanda. By constructing Tutsis as antithetical to a strong Rwanda, Hutu
authorities translated postcolonial aspirations of independence into colonial-style dominance
over Tutsis.
As each of these texts demonstrates, with varying degrees of intensity, the genocide
created the problems associated with genocide: the cessation of governmental and civil activities,
massive physical and mental trauma across the population, and widespread terror and confusion.
However, there were other concerns as well: huge refugee populations were created as Tutsis
flooded across the Rwandan border in all directions, and security for citizens within the
Rwandan border became near non-existent. While international aid was delayed until near the
end of the genocide, RPF forces attempted to regain ground from the Hutu military forces and
local killing squads. Preparing their forces on the borders of Rwanda, the RPF challenged the
Rwandan government and the militias by creating safe pockets in the hills of Rwanda, working
from the north down into central Rwanda throughout the months of the genocide, and arriving in
Kigali on July 4th, 1994. The RPF defeated the final governmental stronghold on July 18 th
(“What happened between April and July 1994?”). The role of the RPF in the cessation of the
Rwandan genocide is complex; many Tutsis fleeing Rwanda were aided by the RPF, but there
have also been reports of retribution-style killings of Hutu citizens without evidence of their
44
complicity in the genocide. The issue is beyond the scope of this discussion, but it is important
to note that there were individuals on both sides who stepped outside of their official mandate,
whether to aid a purported enemy, or to kill an unidentified victim of the chaos. Certainly, both
the militias and the RPF relied on the essentialising discourse of ethnicity to distinguish between
victims and the aggressors, despite the danger of such categorizations. Regardless of
oppositional forces, between April and July, 1994, Tutsis were murdered at a rate five times that
of the Nazi death camps (Prunier 261), a figure which fails convey the profound horror of this
event, and which raises serious concerns about the lack of international response to reports of
these events.
There were many actors who should have responded to the early warnings of the
genocide in Rwanda, and who could have acted when presented with clear evidence of mass
atrocities. These governing bodies should have been compelled by the fact that the violence in
Rwanda, from its inception, was a demonstrable effort to eliminate the Tutsi population, and
therefore met the accepted definition of genocide within the international community. Since the
Holocaust, there have been political mandates in place to address large-scale violence. The
“Universal Declaration of Human Rights” established human equality as a fundamental tenant of
the bourgeoning modern world; the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
of Genocide” laid out a collective political and militaristic response to threats of genocide.
Without a doubt, there were lives lost in the translation of theory to praxis, but these declarations
instigated massive social changes and supported the voices of oppressed minorities within public
discourse. These documents, aside from asserting individual equality, sought to guide the
actions of nations in line with the professed ideals of the UN.
45
The UN created “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide” establishes clear national and international responses to mass-violence. This
document establishes genocide as “a crime under international law [to which] “international cooperation is required” (“Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide”). This collective investment in global security was supported by the allied nations
involved in WWII, particularly in light of the Holocaust, an event which demonstrated the
dangers of ethnic, racial, and religious persecution. With the shock of the Nazi death camps still
fresh and new measures in place to prevent a reoccurrence, the phrase ‘Never Again’ became an
emblem of public determination to be vigilant in the face of threats to human liberty. Rhoda
Howard-Hassmann observes that this post-WWII shift towards a defined “global ethics” (488)
enabled, and required, a great deal of change in the global order. In asserting a clearer vision of
ideal human interaction, citizens began to accept that all people deserved the protection of basic
human rights. However, as Howard-Hassmann notes, “this increase in empathy [was] not in
itself sufficient to promote a political responsibility to protect” (507). The aspirational politics of
the post-WWII era could not mobilize sufficient political and social interest in this African
genocide. The second half of the twentieth-century has witnessed many large-scale conflicts in
which individual liberties were quashed, specific ethnic or racial groups targeted, and corrupt
governments hid behind confusion and a global unwillingness to challenge such behaviour. In
Rwanda, the UN, numerous powerful countries, and the Western public provided Rwanda with
virtually no military, governmental, or public support during the one hundred days of the
genocide.
The internal debates and discussions over how best to avoid substantial commitments in
Rwanda by the UN, Western governments, and the Western public cannot be detailed at length
46
here6. However, there was a systematic effort to legitimate this moral and political delinquency.
Considering the role of the United Nations first, the UN received a report from B. W. Ndiaye, the
Special Rapporteur on Summary, Arbitrary, and Extrajudicial Executions, in August 1993,
detailing the small-scale massacres of Tutsis taking place in the Rwandan countryside (Ndaiye
23). Furthermore, General Dallaire, leading the UNAMIR mission, offered multiple warnings to
his superiors regarding the threat of genocide in Rwanda. General Dallaire repeatedly requested
permission to expand the mandate of the UNAMIR mission, recognizing that despite the
compromises promised by the Arusha Accords, the situation in Rwanda was explosive. In an
attempt to stem the potential for violence, he found a local informant to provide information
about the plans of the Hutu militias, and tracked the mass importation of machetes into Rwanda
for use during the coming genocide. Despite this, and his insistent use of the word ‘genocide’
when discussing the social and political reality of Rwanda’s internal tensions, he was ignored by
UN officials (Melvern 202). Worse, he was told to submit his intelligence to officials within the
Rwandan government, some of whom were involved in the planning of the genocide. Both
Gourevitch and Courtemanche emphasize in their writing the fact that there were significant
opportunities to preclude the violence of the genocide, all of which were ignored by Western
officials at the highest levels.
It should be notes for contextual relevance to our texts that once the genocide began and
the threat to civilians was evident, the UN did act. However, that action was not representative
of the UN mandate to act against genocide. When the UNAMIR headquarters were hit on April
6
The United Nations webpage offers notes and a timeline regarding the development of genocide in Rwanda, and
details the various discussions and resolutions which determined the UNAMIR mission’s scope in Rwanda,
particularly in the pre-genocide period and in the early days of the violence. Furthermore, Nigel Eltringham offers a
comprehensive overview of the UN and governmental responses to the genocide between April 6 th – June 28th, 1994,
in his text Accounting for Horror: Post-Genocide Debates in Rwanda, published by Pluto Press in London, 2004.
Linda Melvern’s A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide is also an excellent and extremely
thorough text.
47
19th, the Security Council agreed to reduce the UNAMIR’s numbers from 2,165 military
personnel to 270, stating that this number represented the maximum number of bodies necessary
to act as an intermediary force between the Rwandan militias and the RPF, as well as overseeing
humanitarian relief when possible (“Rwanda – UNAMIR Background”). The Security Council
considered bringing in several thousand additional troops in order to get the militias under
control, but did not elect to undertake this approach. The limited scope of their response defies
the aspiration nature of the official UN position on genocide, and demonstrates the ease with
which action can be dismissed and inaction encouraged. As Amanda Grzyb notes in her study
on Western perceptions of the civil war in Darfur, “the lack of response to the Rwanda genocide
demonstrates that the UN Security Council – particularly the five permanent members (P5) with
veto power: the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China – has little interest in initiating
meaningful forms of intervention” (“Introduction” 13). The UN did not publicly acknowledge
the genocide until May 4th, and even this was done in an effort to stay ahead of increasing reports
of violence in Rwanda (“Rwanda – UNAMIR Background”) through the Western media.
On May 31st, 1994, the Secretary-General admitted to the Security Council that 1.5
million Rwandans had been displaced, and 400,000 were living as temporary refugees along the
external borders of Rwanda, challenging the stability of neighbouring countries. Despite the
Security Council’s resolution to send 5,500 troops to Rwanda on May 17 th, a four-to-six week
delay in preparing troops was announced on May 31 st, meaning that troops would not arrive in
Rwanda before July, a full three months after the genocide began (“Rwanda – UNAMIR
Background”). The UN Security Council reserved its condemnation of Rwanda’s genocide until
July 1st, 1994, when it released a statement of concern at reports of violations of the international
laws of genocide (“Rwanda – UNAMIR Background”). Contextually, at this point in Rwanda,
48
more than 800,000 people had been killed, and the objectives of the Hutu militants had been met.
The United Nations, who defined the scope of genocide in the post-WWII period, actively
ignored evidence of genocide brought forward by their own personnel, and refused to take
decisive action when decisive action alone could have ended the atrocity of civilian violence in
Rwanda.
The UN is the most easily identifiable actor in the Rwanda Genocide because it is the
organization most fundamentally linked with the preservation of humanity in the global
imagination. It is widely seen as a neutral party which, through political, social, and
humanitarian channels, defends those who cannot act for themselves. However, the UN is less
than the sum of its parts in some ways, hampered by the individual wills of the nations it speaks
for. The response to the Rwandan Genocide was also shaped by the actions and inactions of
nations whose voices carry the furthest in international conversations. The United States delayed
recognition of the genocide in Rwanda, and withheld American military personnel, weaponry,
heavy armour, and air support from the UN, delaying the UN entrance into Rwanda
(Ferroggiaro). The reason for the US delay was two-fold: the US suffered a loss of domestic
confidence after the death of soldiers during a humanitarian mission in Somalia in 1993, and
were not interested in a protracted involvement on African soil (Ferroggiaro). According to
Brent Beardsley, who served as the executive assistant to General Dallaire in Rwanda,
there was a lack of military will at the Pentagon and other national military
headquarters, with an overwhelming majority of US and allied military officers
opposing military involvement in Rwanda in 1994…they believe that a national
military should not be squandered on sideshows like peacekeeping and intervention
49
in ‘someone else’s conflict’ in an ‘unimportant’ area of the world. This attitude was
prevalent in most major militaries in 1994 and persists in some quarters to this day. (48)
Neocolonialism dismisses former colonial spaces as too foreign and remote to matter to nations
with economic and militaristic authority on the global stage. Framing Rwanda as a distant and
irrelevant space is a colonial era narrative imported into postcolonial discourse in order to
validate political and social disinterest in protecting human equality.
National decisions to avoid involvement in Rwanda’s conflict involved a degree of
semantics. As the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”
sets out, acts of genocide compel the action of United Nations member states. As a result,
naming the Rwandan genocide became a protracted game of political evasion. Roméo Dallaire
states that “in 1994 the United States, among others, would acknowledge only that ‘Acts of
Genocide’ were taking place and would not define how many acts it took to constitute a
genocide” (“Foreword” xxi). This kind of word play undermines the very basis of the law,
which is limited by the meaning ascribed to language 7. The authoritative declarations of a
government can be an extremely powerful aspect of public discourse. By evading discussions of
the very real horror occurring in Rwanda, the US government sabotaged public interest in this
issue.
*
In considering public Western investment in Rwanda’s genocide, the general discourse about
Rwanda in 1994 is pertinent. Public knowledge is often informed by pre-established media
narratives, and prior to the genocide, Rwanda had not claimed a great deal of Western media
7
Luke Glanville coined the term “semantic squirming” (472) in relation to Christine Shelley, spokeswoman for the
US State Department during the genocide, who was repeatedly evasive about the ‘acts of genocide’ that were
occurring en masse in Rwanda. The US government engaged in purposeful manipulation of the facts in order to
avoid having to commit to a foreign mission that might undermine American global authority as the mission in
Somalia had been seen to do.
50
attention. There was virtually nothing about pre-genocide Rwanda or its citizens that was
relevant to the average Western citizen. It was precisely this lack of information that informed
many of the decisions about Rwanda. Beardsley argues that
the international community knew little about Rwandan history and culture; about the
political, economic, and social root causes of the Rwandan civil war and ethnic strife;
or about the false ‘Hamitic myth’ of Tutsi and Hutu as two tribes in perpetual conflict.
This lack of knowledge directly contributed to the Western failure to understand
Rwandan discord and the genocide that followed. The ignorance about Rwanda by
virtually every non-Rwandan decision maker during this crisis could hardly provide the
foundation upon which to build a solution to the problems there. Decision makers cannot
expect to be part of the solution if they do not understand the problem. (48-49)
Furthermore, this lack of knowledge was used to permit a lack of action, allowing the genocide
to occur without a significant public outcry:
In many cases, the refusal to provide the means for intervention was tied directly to the
lack of public will in individual nations for the intervention itself. Few people in the
world have ever heard of Rwanda and they certainly did not identify it as something that
was vital to their security and prosperity. Public opinion could have been mobilized only
by effective political leadership, which was sorely lacking in 1994. The lesson is
therefore clear that, if we are going to stop the crime of genocide, political leadership
must be prepared to expend political capital for significant intervention by mobilizing
public support. (Beardsley 47)
Effective leadership requires the masses to trust the judgement of those elected, but in politics,
decisions are often made to maintain, rather than to assert power. Beardsley calls for effective
51
leadership in the face of a crisis, and suggests that such leadership emerges from informed and
vibrant public discourse. In 1994, the United States government avoided discussions of Rwanda
on the national and international stage for fear of the responsibility that good governance
requires. The reticence of Western military and political authorities served to quell public
concern for the fate of Rwandans, butchered by the hundreds of thousands in a country few were
interested in locating on a map.
In the modern world, media representations shape public discourse particularly because
of the speed at which these representations are made available, and the ease with which they
cross borders. Global mass cultures are “dominated by the modern means of production,
dominated by the image that crosses and recrosses linguistic frontiers much more rapidly and
more easily and that speaks across languages in a much more immediate way” (Hall 178). This
transmission of cultural and political information has serves as the impetus of revolutions, as in
the Arab Spring of 2011, but can also propagate dubious understanding and a false sense of
connection. While discussion of Rwanda in the Western world prior to the genocide was
extremely limited, the details of the violence reported by Western media informed an emergent
discourse about this “small, poor and globally insignificant” (Sciolino) nation. However,
significant problems exist within these representations, the most fundamental being that a
distinctly neocolonial narrative runs through them. Specifically, there was a lack of time devoted
to following this event, a pervasive tendency for Western media outlets to inaccurately explain
the causes of the genocide, misrepresent the principle actors on the ground, and rely on a faulty
diction when discussing the genocide.
While technology makes the world far more accessible than it has been in decades and
centuries past, the fact remains that there is a decline in the coverage of foreign events within
52
Western media compounded with a paucity of imaginative points of view. Moeller demonstrates
these trends with the use of statistics from The Tyndall Report, noting that from 1989-1995, the
time spent by the three major American networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) covering foreign news
stories in evening reports dropped from 4,032 minutes to 1,991 (29). This drop-off reflects a
reduction of more than 50% in the coverage of international news events over six years. This
trend continues in the most recent decade; The Tyndall Report for 2000-2010 reveals that the
same three American networks offered 146,643 minutes of news coverage, of which only 25,337
minutes were devoted to international news stories (“Tyndall Decade in Review”). This means
that only 17.3 percent of the total broadcast time in the last ten years offered American viewers
any discussion of the world beyond the American border. The average yearly discussion of
2,533 minutes remains much lower than the figure quoted in 1989. What this ultimately means
is that the media coverage on offer during the genocide was ill-prepared to air any in-depth
coverage of the real challenges experienced on the ground in Rwanda. The system intended to
enable public discourse limited the diversity of broadcast topics to ensure that local news
received far more attention than international events.
Most Western reporters were evacuated during the first days of the genocide; there were
never more than 15 reporters in Rwanda between April and July of 1994 (Melvern 204).
However, this limitation does not excuse the lack of judicious media discussion of the causes and
development of the genocide. Linda Melvern points out that aid organizations made it their
priority to ensure that the daily casualty numbers were provided to all available media outlets
(201). Furthermore, those reporters who did remain in Rwanda were very active in their efforts
to publish their stories. Jean-Philippe Ceppi, a French reporter, specifically used the word
“genocide” in his April 11th report to the French Libération newspaper, a framing that should
53
have sparked a more critical consideration of the killings in Rwanda (Ceppi). Instead, the
Western media chose to bury the story and avoided the use of the word genocide in all
publications for two full weeks. The New York Times offered only speculation that the killings
represented a genocide on April 23rd (Melvern 202). Eltringham observes that “the idea that the
genocide was the result of ‘primordial bloodlust’ – rather than a modern, premeditated, well
organized attempt to annihilate Tutsi – was, and remains, prevalent” (64). By positioning the
violence as tribal, western media outlets were complicit with the UN and major governments
around the world in allowing the real story to remain under-discussed. Instead, the narrative of
Rwandan tribalism was used as a convenient frame for the violence being perpetrated against the
Tutsi population in Rwanda. As Eltringham observes, the commonly employed “‘ancient’ tribal
motif naturalises more recent racial (re)constructions of social distinction in Rwanda” (66).
Rather than uncovering the complex causes of this genocide, media reports in America, Britain,
and France effectively exempted readers from understanding or engaging with modern African
politics.
While many scholars have commented these trends, Melissa Wall’s analysis of 38 fulllength genocide-era American news reports by Time, Newsweek, and U.S News and World
Report reveals Rwanda’s positioning in narratives with a wide global distribution. Article
headlines locate Rwandan identity for the very broadest category of readers. In the articles under
consideration by Wall, 71% of headlines offer no cause or solution to the genocide, a significant
omission that speaks to the common perception of African violence as endemic and unceasing
(264). 16% of headlines wrongly identify the genocide as a tribal conflict, trivializing the brutal
nature of the violence and the political nature of the killings (264). The final 13% of headlines
raise visions of valiant Westerners bringing solutions to the crisis, implicitly suggesting that
54
Rwandans were not capable of ending the chaos of genocide (264). The articles themselves
expand on these framings, mentioning the ethnic categories Hutu and Tutsi 456 times and using
the words “ethnic” and “tribal” 55 times. Conversely, the word “extremists” was used only 14
times (265). Perhaps the worst of all of the omissions and false framings in the reporting of the
genocide was the failure to clarify that the genocide was organized and carried out by Hutu
extremists. Sanctioned by the interim Rwandan government, extremists created a large-scale
conflict by forcing ordinary citizens to participate in local killings. To allow readers to believe
that the genocide was a spontaneously erupting ethnic conflict between neighbours is a gross
misrepresentation of a very serious political agenda instigated by an extremist Hutu government.
It is worth noting that, of the 215 sources quoted in these articles, 48% of these sources
were Western sources, while 44% were Rwandan sources (Wall 264). On the surface, this seems
like a judicious division of local and foreign opinion, but a closer examination of the way these
sources framed the genocide reveals a problematic reality. 74% of comments positioned
Rwandans as passive, while a similar 75% of statements framed Westerners as solving the
problems of the genocide (Wall 264). Such articles offer readers a relational view of the
Rwandan and Western responses to the genocide. The affirmation of Western superiority occurs
at the detriment of acknowledging Rwandan efforts to stop the genocide. This framing also
reflects a predictably neocolonial belief that Western actors are more capable than non-Western
actors, particularly in the face of crisis situations. Susan Sontag, discussing the construction of
Africa in the public imagination, writes that “the more remote or exotic the place, the more likely
we are to have full frontal views of the dead and dying. Thus postcolonial Africa exists in the
consciousness of the general public in the rich world…mainly as a succession of unforgettable
photographs of large-eyed victims” (70-71). Certainly the narratives informing the public about
55
the violence of Rwanda did so with a clear interest in valorizing Western intervention while
minimizing Rwandan and African actors, even though Western involvement during the genocide
was severely limited.
Wall identifies five themes which arise from her analysis of these articles, and similar
themes have been identified by other scholars 8:
1. The violence was a result of irrational tribalism.
2. The Rwandan people as animals – barbaric or pathetic.
3. The violence as incomprehensible to a Western audience.
4. Nearby African countries also mired in violence and no help to Rwanda.
5. Western intervention as the only way to solve the conflict (265).
These constructions are politically and socially charged. As Castelló argues, “repetition is a way
of consolidating cultural and ideological conceptions of reality” (307), and the repetition of a
singular narrative explaining the genocide as age-old tribal violence reveals the concerted effort
that went into validating this narrative of African disintegration and chaos for Western observers.
Despite irrefutable evidence that the killings were part of a mandate of Tutsi elimination by an
extremist Hutu government, these clichéd frames reflect a powerfully neocolonial desire to cling
to tired narratives of African savagery in order to avoid engaging on behalf of this ‘other.’
The representation of Rwandans in these articles devalues Rwandan identity by linking it
exclusively with violence and victimhood. Terms like ‘ethnic violence’ were used to gloss over
the actual causes of the genocide, an omission which implicitly suggests that such causes were
irrelevant to western audiences. Most problematically, there was no forum or opportunity for
Rwandans to respond to and reject these narratives of Rwandan identity. Language, authority
8
Specifically, see Mark Doyle’s “Reporting the Genocide,” Steven Livingston’s “Limited Vision: How Both the
American Media and Government Failed Rwanda,” and Linda Melvern’s “Missing the Story: The Media and the
Rwanda Genocide,” in The Media and the Rwanda Genocide. Ed. Allan Thompson. London: Pluto Press, 2007.
56
and access were all barriers to widely disseminated Rwandan counter-narratives, but the media
bias against alternative identity constructions placed a critical limitation on Western
understandings of local Rwandan identity. Narratives which complicated the one-dimensional
characterization of actors on this narrative stage were generally omitted from publication.
Counter-narratives which challenged the dominant framing of the genocide as ethnic conflict,
and Rwandans as hapless African victims or crazed murderers were ignored in favour of the
tropes of colonial era interactions. The dismissal of Rwanda as yet another African “failed state”
(Sciolino), offered by the American Diplomat Robert Oakley on April 15 th, 1994 demonstrates
the power of Western presumption. Given the very limited attention paid to Rwanda by the
media prior to the genocide, these narratives laid the groundwork for Western perceptions of
Rwanda as an independent political state in the post-genocide neocolonial era.
The framing of a crisis event has a great deal of influence over the public perception of a
reasonable national and international response because
each stereotype employed implies or presupposes a story line which in turn implies or
presupposed an appropriate political response. If the images that document a crisis are of
starving orphans, the remedy is humanitarian assistance. If the images are of the brutal
tyrant, the remedy is military force. (Moeller 43)
This observation is particularly helpful in clarifying how political will can be constructed
through news coverage. As Moeller wryly observes of the Rwandan Genocide, “Americans
weren’t naïve enough to think that their five dollars sent to Oxfam would rescue a child trapped
by genocidal killers. It might however buy a refugee child a blanket” (303). Indeed, the global
interest in the humanitarian crisis created by the mass exodus of Tutsis to the surrounding
borderlands far exceeded the public discussion of or support for Tutsi victims of genocide. An
57
accurate understanding of the Rwandan Genocide required observers to reject the pervasive
stereotypes of colonial Africa and recognize that the genocide was the product of colonial era
ethnic discourses, ineffective independence, and cultural and economic tensions. However, the
familiar narrative of starving Africans threatened by savage tribal conflict was aggressively
disseminated by the media and eagerly accepted by Western viewers, leading to a notable
disinterest in political and military action.
Academic consideration of the media coverage of the Rwandan Genocide and other
violent conflicts has revealed the negative impact of narrative tropes when discussing distant
trauma. Susan Moeller argues that presenting viewers with limited context and highly graphic
imagery encourages a response called “compassion fatigue” (2), which ultimately discourages
viewers from engaging actively with the information being presented. Moreover, the common
use of these frames means that viewers are increasingly detached from the trauma they witness.
As Moeller states,
there is a reciprocal circularity in the treatment of low-intensity crises: the droning
‘same-as-it-ever-was’ coverage in the media causes the public to lose interest, and the
media’s perception that their audience has lost interest causes them to downscale their
coverage, which causes the public to believe that the crisis is either over or is a lesser
emergency and so on. (Moeller 12)
Certainly, this was the case during the Rwandan Genocide, as news and aid agencies received
notably fewer inquires and funding donations than previous crises covered and championed by
the news outlets. As Tom Kent, the International Editor at Associated Press says of the public
response to their coverage of Rwanda, “we got practically no inquiries about how to help,
although our stories certainly suggested there’s as much misery in Rwanda as anywhere else”
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(qtd. in Moeller 12). Moeller suggests that the perceived socio-political distance between the
viewer and the principle actors shown on the screen is responsible for this ‘failed’ response.
While the fact of distance is not itself a cause, she observes that “especially when a crisis is a
‘foreign’ event, there is a tendency to fall back on hackneyed images, often revealing more about
what the crisis is thought to be than what the crisis actually is” (42). Because this designation of
‘foreign’ falls neatly in line with a neocolonial construction of global hierarchies, Western
viewers were assured that their attention is not necessary, as problems in former colonies are
presumed to be endemic to the local culture.
The consistent framing of the Rwandan Genocide as tribal warfare in Western media
reports, without exploring the role colonialism and neocolonialism played in creating Rwanda’s
ethnic tensions, helped to maintain neocolonial assumptions about Rwanda as a space
undeserving of Western intervention. The format of news reports on Rwanda, which avoided
accurate historical context and offered brief snapshots of violence rather than engage critically
with the experiences of the Rwandan people, compounded the tendency of viewers to engage
casually with the information provided to them. Susan Moeller suggests that this format of
information exchange fundamentally alters the role of the viewer, encouraging passive
engagement rather than an active response. She argues that the American media particularly, and
the Western media more generally, are politically and socially unproductive because viewers are
not given sufficient information to understand the nuances of individual international events.
This creates a sense of the wider world, and specifically former colonies or ‘exotic’ locations, as
incomprehensible (2). This sense “acts as a prior restraint on the media…reinforces simplistic,
formulaic coverage…ratchets up the criteria for stories that get coverage…[and] encourages the
media to move on to other stories once the range of possibilities of coverage have been
59
exhausted so that boredom doesn’t set in” (Moeller 2), discouraging further engagements while
creating an appetite for the neatly apportioned stereotypes of global locations and citizens which
already dominate much of the news coverage generated in the twenty-four hour news cycle of
the twenty-first century.
The use of colonial framing in the coverage of the Rwanda Genocide reflects the power
imbalance that remains, despite Rwanda’s independence and the United Nation’s affirmation of
equality across all races. The inaccurate representation of the facts of the Rwandan genocide by
Western governments and media demonstrates the neocolonial control held over Africa by
Western powers. Generally, Western representations made little effort to educate readers and
viewers about the history of Rwanda, specifically the role of colonial invasion in establishing
two distinct ethnic groups with differing access to power. As Susan Sontag writes, such stories
and images “carry a double message. They show a suffering that is outrageous, unjust, and
should be repaired. They confirm that this is the sort of thing which happens in that place” (71).
The power of reiteration cannot be underestimated; the media coverage of the Rwandan
Genocide painted Rwanda as a primitive, violent place, hindering the potential of an engaged
readership. Kaplan suggests that this type of reporting can maintain colonial stereotypes:
A certain kind of media reporting encourages sentimentality by presenting viewers or
newspaper readers with a daily barrage of images that are merely fragments of a large,
complex situation in a foreign culture about which audiences may know very little and
that reporters usually omit. What I call ‘empty’ empathy is empathy elicited by images
of suffering provided without any context or background knowledge.” (93)
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This kind of fragmented reporting was rampant throughout the Rwandan Genocide and was a
significant factor in the reluctance of the Western public to demand action from their
governmental representatives.
Considering the general disinterest demonstrated by Western governments and citizens in
the details of the Rwandan Genocide, these groups demonstrated remarkable interest in some
aspects Rwanda’s recovery. However, recovery efforts demonstrated a continued neocolonial
bias. One of the first steps taken by political leaders at the end of the genocide was to frame
their inaction as the result of misinformation. While this may have been a valid excuse for many
citizens, as thorough coverage of the genocide was limited, Western political leaders could not in
good conscience claim that the facts of the genocide were unknown to them. Caplan writes that
there were the lies told by both American President Bill Clinton and UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan in later apologizing for their inaction during the one hundred days.
Both claimed that they were insufficiently aware of the situation at the time. These
claims, on the part of both men, have been repudiated beyond a shadow of a doubt.
(“What Darfur Teaches Us” 33)
By distancing themselves from the possibility of action, these men attempted to distance
themselves from accusations of purposeful neglect. As the term ‘genocide’ was used in French
media coverage on April 11th, and by the United Nations Security Council on May 4 th, it is
impossible to argue that Western governments did not understand what was occurring in
Rwanda. However, this defence of inaction suggests a larger political enterprise at work. Well
aware of the expectations laid out in the United Nations “Convention on Genocide,” it was
essential for Western leaders to avoid the public perception that they were informed of the
genocide and chose not to act. To do so would reveal an obvious bias in the international
61
recognition of African equality. As Luke Glanville points out in his examination of the power of
the term ‘genocide’ in political and public discourse, “a determination of genocide that is not
followed by action only serves to undermine the ideational power—in both its legal and political
aspects—of the norm against genocide” (482). The Western failure to act in accordance with
international agreements to defend order and civil rights in Rwanda demonstrates the neocolonial
dismissal of African challenges and the empty rhetoric of Western equality when applied to
Africa in the socio-political imagination.
*
The search for justice in post-genocide Rwanda, both within the texts under consideration and in
the public discourse more generally, offers further evidence of a divide between local and
international concerns. Rwandan citizens resurrected traditional modes of establishing justice
after public order had been re-established. Reconciliation for a nation fundamentally divided by
colonial identity politics drew on precolonial social practices. Adapted from a “traditional,
community-based hearing mechanism used in Rwanda called gacaca – literally, justice ‘on the
lawn’” (Cobban 65), this system of justice was effective in addressing post-genocide civilian
tensions for several reasons: it affirmed the value of Rwandan cultural, social, and political
practices, it permitted local victims to publicly state their losses and face perpetrators, and
provided community-based restorative justice. Recognizing that the nation could not simply
lock up perpetrators in expectation of a formal trial, Gacaca courts imposed reparations at a
community level in order to facilitate local unity and the reintegration of survivors and
perpetrators9. Restorative justice is
9
The Gacaca courts were in place from 2001 – June 2012. In that time, approximately two million Rwandans were
tried for crimes during the genocide, with a 65% conviction rate (“Rwanda ‘Gacaca’ Genocide Courts Finish
Work”).
62
a way of responding to criminal behaviour by balancing the needs of the community, the
victims and the offenders. It is an evolving concept to problem-solving that includes the
victim, the offender, their social networks, justice agencies and the community…[It
differs from traditional systems of justice because of its] informal and horizontal
character, the personal and comprehensive involvement of conflict stakeholders and the
openness to minority or deviant points of view. (Rohne, Arsovska, and Aertsen 14)
Of course, those who planned and orchestrated the genocide were dealt with inside the
framework of the Rwandan legal system, but there were many Rwandans who were abused and
killed local Tutsis under duress or under the influence of a nationalistic Hutu rhetoric. For these
people, gacaca courts offered a relatively expedient public judgement and a means of claiming a
place in the national recovery of Rwanda.
The international response to the Rwanda Genocide was to apply Western systems of
justice and judgement. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, overseen by the United
Nations, was established on November 8th, 1994 with the goal of aiding Rwandan national
reconciliation and prosecuting those responsible for the genocide (“About ICTR: General
Information”). This court was established in Arusha, Tanzania on February 22nd, 1995 (“About
ICTR: General Information”). While a more detailed discussion of the operations of this legal
body cannot be offered here10, some scholars have raised concerns about the discourse and
objectives of the ICTR. Eltringham argues that the ICTR relied on colonial era distinctions
between Tutsi and Hutu in discussing individual cases, echoing the absolutist rhetoric of the
génocidaires (32). Alexander Hinton develops Eltringham’s point, emphasizing the dangers
10
There have been many excellent studies of the goals and objectives of the ICTR, as well as analyses of individual
cases and the overall impact of the ICTR on Rwandan citizens. The “ICTR Basic Documents and Case Laws” allow
access to the documents detailing the cases brought through the ICTR. Furthermore, the work of both Carroll and
Akhavana explore the benefits brought to Rwandan citizens through the ICTR, as well as the potential of the ICTR
to negate future outbreaks of similar violence.
63
implicit when state-run or internationally-run bodies simplify social complexities in an effort to
make them more readily understandable, transforming “complex phenomena into a more
manageable, schematised form” (12). In a society burdened by a colonial legacy which
complicated the identity politics of the nation, it is essential that binary categories of ethnicity are
challenged during recovery. Furthermore, the goals of the ICTR were fundamentally different
from the goals of Rwanda’s gacaca courts; the ICTR was concerned with identifying and
punishing genocide perpetrators in isolation from the efforts towards recovery11, while the
gacaca courts prioritized reconciliation and nation building within the process of justice itself.
Despite the efforts of the ICTR to impose justice on perpetrators of the genocide, this
investment in claiming justice for Rwanda has a faulty echo in the arena of international political
discourse. Countries which resolutely avoided acknowledgement of the genocide have not
openly accepted their failure to act. General Dallaire, one of a few Westerners to witness the
atrocities of the genocide in Rwanda, has been critical of the political rhetoric with which many
nation’s politicians have avoided blame for refusing to act in the face of dire need. Dallaire
writes of the 2004 commemoration of the genocide in Kigali, Rwanda, that
while the commemoration events on 7 April were well attended by representatives
of the international community, I was greatly disappointed that most heads of state from
the Western, northern, and developed world had failed to take the time to come to
Rwanda and to apologize for their failure and the failure of their nations to prevent or
stop the genocide. Instead, their representatives, many of whom were low-level officials,
11
The first judgement was passed down by the ICTR in 1998, convicting Jean Paul Akayesu, the bourgmestre of
the Taba commune in Rwanda, on fifteen counts of genocidal crimes and public incitement to commit genocide
(Arbour). Thus far, there have been sixty-nine cases completed through the ICTR, with ten individuals acquitted
and seventeen appealing their verdict. Five cases remain in progress today and one case remains to be tried (“Cases:
Status of Cases”). One case has been transferred from the ICTR to the Rwandan national courts, and two cases
transferred to France (“Cases: Status of Cases”). Finally, the ICTR continues to search for nine individuals who are
thought to have been involved in the genocide, but who have eluded authorities (“Cases: Status of Cases”).
64
failed to take direct responsibility. They tended to talk about ‘our’ failure as if by
accepting some vague collective responsibility they could absolve themselves of
individual responsibility and, more important, accountability for our failure in Rwanda.
(“Foreword” xx)
Indeed, the true place of Rwanda in Western consciousness was evident as in 1998, when
President Clinton arrived in Kigali to speak on the human loss during the Rwandan Genocide.
His visit to the country lasted approximately two hours, and he did not leave the airport, even to
lay a wreath at the genocide memorial constructed on the grounds of the airport specifically for
his visit (“Row over Memorial as Clinton Visits Rwanda”). While claims were later made that
his travel was limited by security concerns, it remained a powerful demonstration of the
fundamental disconnect between the recovering nation of Rwanda and figures of international
authority12.
One of the liabilities of the genocide coverage and post-genocide discussions of
responsibility was the impact on public understandings of Rwandan national identity. Rwanda’s
independent national identity was never widely explored by Western media in the pre-genocide
era, and during the genocide, coverage affirmed the tropes of colonial Africa. Media reports
during and just after the Rwandan Genocide focused on images of the dead and dying,
juxtaposed by groups of well-armed militia members. As the casualties associated with the
humanitarian crisis of internally and externally displaced persons increased, coverage became
12
The lack of demonstrable international remorse for the collective failure to respond to the genocide in Rwanda
suggests a profound lack of interest in the security of non-western nations. Given the increased awareness of the
genocide after July 1994, public apologies may have functioned as a means of “image restoration as well as a
legitimate tool for managing social relationships with others in the public sphere” (Kampf 2258). However, Kampf
also points out that “the speech act still poses a threat to the public figure’s image: by apologizing, the transgressor
admits to failing to fulfill a task or conform to a norm. Therefore, the act is face threatening due to the fact that it
may be regarded as a challenge to the apologizer’s ability to perform his role appropriately in the public arena”
(2258). In the case of the genocide, genuine public apologies could open public discourses about why the member
nations of the Security Council delayed UN action. However, such a discourse would negate the efficacy of
neocolonial superstructures between Western nations and former colonial spaces.
65
more pervasive, but remained superficial. As a news event, the genocide reaffirmed the most
popular Western constructions of Africa as a continent of social chaos and indiscriminate
violence. Once public interest in the refugee crisis waned, Rwanda all but disappeared from
public discourse, replaced by the next media firestorm. Coverage of the ICTR was general rather
than detailed, and as the work of the ICTR stretched out across a decade, only final convictions
were consistently reported. This fragmented coverage affirmed Rwanda as brutal and
disordered, a perspective that was palatable particularly because it accorded so well with
established tropes of Africa. As Eltringham concludes, “contemporary Rwandan society is
understood exclusively through the interpretative lens of genocide” (71). Far from recognizing
that this African genocide was in part the result of colonial and neocolonial interference,
audiences were permitted to elide the genocide with other neocolonial framings of Africa.
Coverage of the genocide validated, rather than challenged, Western preconceptions of Rwanda.
As collective memories “act as subtle yet powerful mechanisms for generating and sustaining
social solidarity” (Duncan Bell 5), colonial and neocolonial perceptions of Africa in Western
discourse were reaffirmed by the Western coverage of the genocide.
These literary engagements with the reality of genocide in Rwanda remind readers that
the impact of the global response to Rwanda’s genocide should not be underestimated; each
large-scale conflict is an opportunity to redefine the way that communities understand and
respond to threats facing specific groups. As General Dallaire points out,
in April 2004, while the so-called representatives of the international community were
pledging “Never Again” in Kigali, yet another genocide was in full swing a few thousand
kilometres to the north of Rwanda, in the area of Darfur in Sudan. Observing the events
66
in Darfur unfold was, for me, in many ways like having a flashback to the failed response
to the Rwandan genocide in the spring and summer of 1994. (“Foreword” xxi)
Although the failure of media outlets to accurately inform and enable viewers to demand
political action on a large scale has been well discussed in the post-genocide era, news agencies
continue to deliver superficial coverage of events that take place in distant communities. In
Western media, there is a tendency to focus on local and national events, with less time set aside
for international news (Moeller 20). To give a sense of the bias towards particularly narratives
and locales in Western nations, consider that
since 1998 ‘terrorism’ has been responsible for approximately 20,000 fatalities globally.
At the same time humanitarian tragedies such as the state-based conflicts in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Darfur region of Sudan glimmer only
sporadically into world news reports although they are claiming victims on a scale that
dwarfs the threats facing people in industrialized countries. (Rohne, Arsovska, and
Aertsen 6)
Clearly, the Rwandan Genocide has not had a profound effect on Western citizens or
governments. The opportunity to engender change in the dynamics of Western interactions with
Rwanda was missed, and the current construction of Rwandan identity as shaped by the
victim/perpetrator binary is likely to remain in the collective Western imagination unless serious
changes are made to the development of social, cultural and political discourse within and
between nations. However, the writings under examination here challenge the pervasive sense of
Rwanda as a space of genocide. More significantly, these texts offer readers contextual
understanding of Rwandan history, citizenry, and recovery, laying the foundation for revisions to
Rwandan national identity as understood in the Western imagination. As such, they have the
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potential to decolonize Western thinking about Rwanda, allowing for far more productive crosscultural engagements.
Roméo Dallaire poses compelling questions on this issue: “how will we ever achieve
‘Never Again’ if we have no intention of making effective and meaningful commitments in
support of international law, fundamental human rights, and basic human dignity? Where is the
will to intervene at the political levels?” (“Foreword” xxii). During the Rwandan Genocide,
Western society as a whole remained wildly uninformed about the actors involved in the
genocide, as well as the causes of the violence. Similarly, there was little political will to
commit troops and funding to a country preordained as remote and unimportant. Most critically,
there was virtually no sense that concerted public interest might shift political engagement at the
top levels. Simplified narratives misconstrued the historical and social forces at work in
Rwanda, and discouraged Western citizens from recognizing the role that neocolonial ideology
played in complicating Rwanda’s conflict. However, Bhabha boldly reminds us that “the state of
emergency is also always a state of emergence [Emphasis in the original]” (59). Indeed, there is
the potential to challenge the construction of Africa in the public imagination and re-create an
understanding of Rwanda that is not built on colonial and neocolonial frameworks, but rather on
the principles of equality that so failed Rwanda in April, 1994. In the face of the genocide, and
in response to it, Rwandan, global citizens have begun to write about the genocide. Many of
these texts are concerned with issues of justice and punishment, and certainly, these are
important aspects of recovery. However, other authors have used cultural production to provide
remote readers with historical and cultural context and nuanced human experience, enabling an
informed socio-political understanding of the genocide in Rwanda. Literature has long been
capable of challenging social and political structures; texts about the Rwandan Genocide which
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foreground the complex causes of violence in Rwanda, the impact of that violence on the
Rwandan people, and the complexity of recovery collectively establish a productive
understanding of modern Rwandan identity and reveal the international superstructures which
have maintained colonial era constructions of Rwanda in the Western imagination.
Consideration of the texts of the post-genocide era in the subsequent chapters will
establish that culture, often dismissed in deference to politics, is at the foundation of human
civilization. Culture holds groups together and can set groups at odds. The cultural productions
of the colonial authorities naturalized racism and permitted Western control of Africa and other
colonial spaces throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One of the most
productive strategies used to discourage colonial resistance was to denigrate local cultural
productions, thereby devaluing native creativity and authority. However, Bhabha observes that
“forms of popular rebellion and mobilization are often most subversive and transgressive when
they are created through oppositional cultural practices [Emphasis in the original]” (29). In
neocolonial spaces, the written word can, through its very production, refute dehumanization by
empowering individuals and communities. For a nation whose history has been marred by
colonial control, narrated by colonial prejudice, and whose current image in the public eye
validates colonial-era constructions of identity, post-genocide narratives can serve as powerful
oppositional cultural practices. The literature of Rwanda’s Genocide aids in the emergence of a
politically informed Western readership, instigating the decolonization of Rwanda in the Western
imagination.
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Chapter Three: Contextualizing Rwandan History and Culture through Literature
The discourses of power in our society, the discourses of the dominant regimes, have
been certainly threatened by this decentered cultural empowerment of the marginal
and the local.
Stuart Hall, “The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity,” 183.
There is no historical record that does not simultaneously demonstrate the social, cultural,
and political biases of the society it recounts. During the colonial era, the historical
constructions of dominant societies were consistently imposed on subjugated colonial citizens,
allowing the European powers to undercut the authority of local history and culture within the
colonial space, as well as to shape the perception of foreign nations for readers on the continent.
As with all colonial projects, dominance over colonial subjects was maintained through rhetoric
as well as through violence. To validate European dominance, elaborate narratives were
constructed to undercut the value of native culture. In Rwanda, differences between colonial
subjects were exploited in order to divide the population and so allow European powers to
control the whole population more easily. The ethnic distinctions formalized by Belgian colonial
authorities wrought division among the Rwandan people, and the cultural practices that
supported peaceful coexistence began to falter. This manipulation of Rwandan history and social
structure was a fundamental attack on Rwandan cultural identity, one which caused animosity
between Rwandan citizens while obfuscating the chaos of colonial rule. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
reminds us that “to control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition in
relationship to others” (16), and certainly, this was the case in Rwanda during the colonial era.
This colonial practice of undercutting local constructions of self through cultural manipulation
meets Ngũgĩ’s definition of a cultural bomb, which “annihilate[s] a people’s belief in their
names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in
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their capacities and ultimately in themselves” (3). As a means of ensuring colonial control,
Belgian authorities actively dismantled aspects of Rwandan social organization which could
resist the colonial hierarchy.
The effects of colonial rule in Rwanda remained foundational to the development of the
new Rwandan nation. In the postcolonial era, the internal discourse of identity in independent
Rwanda reflected the colonial discourse introduced by Belgium. Despite the emergence of a
newly independent nation, no united discourse of national identity was created. Rather, Rwanda
remained fundamentally divided by a discourse of Hutu supremacy and Tutsi subordination.
This trend of narrative construction within Rwanda was matched by equally antiquated
constructs of Rwanda within the international community. The geopolitical rhetoric developed
about Africa in the colonial era remained a powerful influence in the construction of new
national narratives. Assumptions of African chaos, a construction designed to validate
nineteenth century European superiority on the African continent, were transferred wholesale
onto emerging nations, enacting a measure of colonial influence in the neocolonial era. In
Rwanda, colonial era assumptions shaped emerging international narratives of Rwandan identity,
a compelling example of the limitations placed on African nations in the neocolonial era. As
Fierke points out, “social memory as a narrative recollection may be no less habitual than
habitual behaviour. There can be a habit of remembering a unique event. The words used to
capture that event may become habitual [Emphasis in the original]” (122). In the case of
postcolonial Rwanda, emergent discourses of identity were constructed , at least in part, from
antiquated prejudices against Africa rather than Rwandan self-definitions. This habitual
understanding of Rwanda, defined by colonial-era thinking, would become the cornerstone for
most of the Western coverage of the genocide.
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Post-genocide literature has challenged the neocolonial framing of African nations as
chaotic and inherently violent by exploring the impact of external actors and cultural shifts on
Rwanda’s socio-political stability. Journalistic writings are particularly valuable in spaces that
have undergone massive violence because these narratives are “often the first stage of writing to
witness traumatic experience for the public record…Journalists’ memories have been
underestimated as a meaningful writing of history, subjectivity, and culture, and yet they have
plenty to say” (Whitlock 21). In the consideration of the Rwandan genocide, Western journalists
and writers have provided detailed contextual analyses of the development of the Rwandan
Genocide. We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, by the
American journalist Philip Gourevitch, was published in 1998, while A Sunday at the Pool in
Kigali was written by Canadian Gil Courtemanche, published in French in 2000, and published
in English in 2003. These texts take distinct approaches to the exploration of Rwandan culture
and colonial / neocolonial history, but they demonstrate a shared interest in educating readers
about the impact of colonial influence and neocolonial independence on Rwanda as a nation.
*
Gourevitch’s We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, by
Philip Gourevitch, is perhaps one of the best-known English accounts of the Rwandan genocide.
Africanist René Lemarchand, in praise of Gourevitch, has stated that “that the story of Rwanda is
at all known in the United States today owes much to the work of Philip Gourevitch and Alison
Des Forges” (88). Gourevitch is a political writer who has written on multiple ethnic conflicts
and on political corruption more generally13; this text is in part a travelogue of Gourevitch’s
journeys through post-genocide Rwanda and in part a critical exploration of the events which led
13
Gourevitch’s interests consistently drive his writing; he has published texts on African, European, and Asian
ethnic conflicts, and most recently published a book entitled The Ballad of Abu Ghraib in 2008. We Wish To Tell
You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families was his first non-fiction novel.
72
up to the genocide in Rwanda. This text won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1998,
the George K. Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 1998, and the Guardian First Book Award in
1999. Courtemanche, a journalist, chose to write A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali in the genre of
fiction, although he notes in his preface that
it is also a chronicle and eye-witness report. The characters all existed in reality, and in
almost every case I have used their real names. The novelist has given them lives, acts
and words that summarize or symbolize what the journalist observed while in their
company…Some readers may attribute certain scenes of violence and cruelty to an
overactive imagination. They will be sadly mistaken. For proof, they have only to read
the seven hundred pages of eyewitness reports gathered by the African Rights
organization and published under the title Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance.
(Preface i-ii)
This narrative is complicated by Courtemanche’s choice of protagonist, a journalist named
Valcourt, who is clearly a version of the author himself. As Valcourt moves through Rwanda
and connects with individual Rwandans, the history of this nation is revealed, not as abstract fact
but as lived reality; colonial and neocolonial control over Rwanda is explored from the Rwandan
perspective, providing important insight for the distanced reader. This novel was a national
bestseller in Canada and won the Canada Reads French Language contest in 2005. Both texts
contextualize the Rwandan Genocide, making them valuable additions to the larger discourse of
the Rwanda Genocide; the lack of accurate understanding about the historical causes of the
genocide has been a prime reason for the lack of social and political action regarding Rwanda’s
recovery.
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In the search for restorative justice during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of
South Africa, four different types of ‘truth’ were identified: factual truth, narrative truth, dialogic
truth, and restorative truth (Vanspauwen and Savage 395-96). These categories challenge
simplistic definitions of truth and demonstrates the value of multiple truths in constructing
collective narratives of past events. Narrative truth is gained from individual stories, dialogic
truth is constructed through discourse and debate, and restorative truth refers to truths that can
support reparation efforts. This list highlights several interesting realities: facts alone simply
cannot convey lived experience, individual narration does not always reflect collective
perceptions, and recovery is dependant on truth to act as a productive, rather than destructive,
force. What is clear is that effective recovery efforts after large-scale conflict cannot depend on
facts alone; records must reflect truth as a lived experience and this can be far more complex
than histories which reflect only one version of fact. In these texts, both authors make use of this
complex definition of truth, shifting between absolute fact and experiential fact in order to most
accurately convey the nuanced relationship between factual colonial and neocolonial history and
the lived experience of this history by the Rwandan people.
We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families and A
Sunday at the Pool in Kigali explore Rwandan history and culture from the precolonial period to
the post-genocide era. These texts are important precisely because they do not locate the onset
of the genocide with the eruption of violence that occurred just prior to April, 1994. Rather, they
demonstrate the precolonial roots of class tension between the Tutsis and the Hutus, as well as
the severe strain on ethnic relations that began when colonial authorities began to politicize
ethnic difference in Rwanda. These texts put the genocide into the larger historical context of
Rwandan development as a modern nation so that the genocide becomes for Western readers the
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understandable product of social forces on a local, national, and international level. As Africa
has often been dismissed, even in the neocolonial era, this contextualization achieves two aims.
Firstly, it undercuts the colonial tradition of Euro-centric writing that spoke on behalf of Africans
by providing a space for Rwandan voices to be disseminated among an English-speaking
readership. Secondly, it accurately demonstrates the role colonialism played in causing the
genocidal violence which would eventually become a defining feature of Rwanda in the Western
imagination. Locating the genocide within Rwanda’s long history allows readers to trace the
evolution of this society under complex social, cultural, and political forces. These texts share
the desire to look beyond violence and place the genocide in a broader historical and social
context, implicitly challenging the fallacious belief that the genocide was the result of a failed
Rwandan political system. Given that very little media attention was paid to the larger historical
context of the genocide, and particularly the pivotal role that colonial and neocolonial politics
had in priming Rwanda for genocide, these texts offer new truths, narrative, dialogic, and
restorative, to the blinkered factual narratives reported during and after the violence of April –
June, 1994.
Culture is created through and contained within collective expression and interaction.
Far from static, all cultures exist in a state of flux and are influenced by other cultures as citizens
interact and interests intersect. Culture is a means of understanding a people’s history and
identity; it is the lens through which all people understand themselves. In 1954, the Hague
created a document to define and establish protections for culture. The “Convention for the
Protection of Cultural Property” defines cultural property as “movable or immovable property of
great importance to the heritage of every people” (“Convention for the Protection of Cultural
Property in the Event of Armed Conflict”). However, in the case of many cultures, such as
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Canada’s Aboriginal populations, and in Rwanda, culture is not predominantly conveyed through
physical objects. As Rwanda has always been an oral culture, stories and songs best reflect the
five hundred year old collaboration of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa in Rwanda; written history was
introduced with the arrival of colonial forces and represented Rwanda in European terms.
Cultural productions that do not conform to European standards of historical records have only
recently received protection:
The international political context is supporting ever-broadening claims concerning
Rights over cultural property on the basis that the existence and identity of collective
entities depends on these property rights. These claimed rights, moreover, extend beyond
tangible property and recognized intellectual property to folklore, ideas, and knowledge.
(Davis 3-4)
This shifting definition of cultural heritage reflects a growing acceptance that European-style
narratives of history are not the sole mode of constructing and exchanging culture. As negated
histories are increasingly reclaimed, the very definition of cultural form is under reconstruction
to become a more inclusive category of human production. This shift has also brought changes
to the way that culture is understood in relation to collective human identity. In 1976, “a
UNESCO panel formulated the principle that ‘cultural property is a basic element of a people’s
identity’. In 1982, the then chairperson of UNESCO’s Inter-governmental Committee for the
Return or Restitution of Cultural Property described the loss of cultural property in terms of the
‘loss of being’” (Coleman 161, abstract). The development of political protections for diverse
forms of cultural expression is a significant revision to the colonial practice of destroying culture
within a colonial space as a means of control.
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The precolonial history of Rwanda is difficult to ascertain because Rwanda’s culture has
primarily been preserved through oral records and because the colonial influence contorted
Rwandan identity politics so severely. Gourevitch notes that “there is no reliable record of the
precolonial state. Rwandans had no alphabet; their tradition was oral, therefore malleable; and
because their society is fiercely hierarchical the stories they tell of their past tend to be dictated
by those who hold power, either through the state or in opposition to it” (48). Ethnographic
studies of Rwanda and the countries surrounding Rwanda have been used to tentatively date the
arrival of Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa nomads into the area that would become Rwanda 14. Such studies
have demonstrated that although Hutus and Tutsis have historically distinct ancestry, individual
identity in precolonial Rwanda was “determined by many other factors as well – clan, region,
clientage, military prowess, even individual industry – and the lines between Hutu and Tutsi
remained porous” (Gourevitch 49). Gourevitch suggests that Tutsi and Hutu identifications in
the precolonial era were flexible rather than fundamental, and that ethnicity was never embraced
by precolonial Rwandans as an important aspect of personal identity. As early nomad settlers
began to establish themselves in Rwanda’s hills, shared aspects of cultural identity emerged:
With time, Hutus and Tutsis spoke the same language, followed the same religion,
intermarried, and lived intermingled, without territorial distinctions, on the same hills,
sharing the same social and political culture in small chiefdoms. The chiefs were called
Mwamis, and some of them were Hutus, some Tutsis; Hutus and Tutsis fought together in
the Mwamis’ armies; through marriage and clientage, Hutus could become hereditary
Tutsis, and Tutsis could become hereditary Hutus. Because of all of this mixing,
14
The most detailed overview of Rwanda’s history is offered by Jean-Pierre Chrétien in his 2003 study entitled The
Great Lakes of Africa: Two Thousand Years of History. The offerings of Gérard Prunier (1995) and Mahmood
Mamdani (2002) are also beneficial, although they focus both on Rwanda’s history and on the genocide.
77
ethnographers and historians have lately come to agree that Hutus and Tutsis cannot
properly be called distinct ethnic groups. (Gourevitch 47-48)
While tensions always exist within human collectives, the records of precolonial Rwanda
demonstrate that while Hutu and Tutsi did carry distinct meanings, they were not exclusionary
categories that denoted fundamental identity. This historical social flexibility refutes the
common narrative that tribal conflict was the basis of Rwanda’s internal conflict.
Gourevitch notes the historical importance of unity among Rwandans, irrespective of
ethnic identification. As monarchies have filled a similar role in other societies, it is not
surprising that Rwandans of all identifications were united under the banner of this collective.
The power of the Mwami lay as much in thought as in deed; “the Mwami himself was revered as
a divinity, absolute and infallible. He was regarded as the personal embodiment of Rwanda”
(Gourevitch 49). The King’s traditional palace, reconstructed today at Nyanza, and other such
structures of traditional Rwandan society, are valuable markers of Rwandan history and
precolonial culture. Local traditions, maintained even today, also provide insight into early
Rwandan heritage and culture. Travelling through the hills of rural Rwanda, Gourevitch hears a
woman’s loud cries and his guide explains that
the whooping we’d heard was a conventional distress signal and that it carried an
obligation. ‘You hear it, you do it, too. And you come running,’ he said. ‘No choice.
You must. If you ignored this crying, you would have questions to answer. This is how
Rwandans live in the hills…The people live separately together…so there is
responsibility. I cry, you cry. You cry, I cry. We all come running, and the one that
stays quiet, the one that stays home, must explain. Is he in league with the criminals? Is
78
he a coward? And what would he expect when he cries? This is simple. This is normal.
This is community.’ (34)
While this may seem a minor cultural practice, it demonstrates for readers the long-standing
Rwandan concepts of community, responsibility, and inclusion. This trust in community
protection speaks to the dangers of rural life, but more importantly, it demonstrates that within
early Rwandan society, community relationships superseded ethnic divisions. This practice of
communal protection speaks volumes about Rwanda as a nation which has long embraced the
benefits of community. It has been through the careful dissection of living Rwandan traditions
that knowledge of the past has been reclaimed. Such reconstructions are essential precisely
because “without memory we have no identity. In order to create our identities we draw on
cultural memories and historical understanding of our cultures. Remembrance of the past is
important in terms of our socialization into our culture” (Hunt 106). However, the advance of
German and Belgian colonialists would fundamentally change Rwanda’s established system of
identification. As Rwandan identity came to be narrated by colonial forces, the flexibility of
individual identity decreased and the ethnic categories already in place began to take on political
weight.
While cultures are always in flux, appropriating new constructions and discarding old
practices, the violent imposition of authority which marked the colonial mission was primarily a
unilateral cultural interaction. In part, the violence of the colonial exchange was a formula
echoed during the genocide itself; just as Belgian forces disempowered Hutu citizens in order to
affirm colonial superiority, Hutu propaganda dehumanized Tutsi citizens in order to claim
greater cultural authority within Rwanda. The colonial era of Rwandan history was a time of
massive upheaval for all Rwandan citizens, and laid the foundation for polarizing social
79
discourses and a deeply flawed political system. As the genocide that resulted from these
divisions has become a defining feature of modern Rwanda in the global imagination, the
contribution of colonial action to the socio-political structure of Rwanda is clearly mapped by
both Gourevitch and Courtemanche.
Rwandan history began a radical transformation when it was parcelled out to Germany
during the Berlin Conference of 1884. Thousands of miles from Africa, Europeans began to
shape Rwanda through European constructions. Unlike other colonial authorities, Germany did
very little in Rwanda other than to throw their support behind the established political structure.
Rwanda became a spoil of war for the Belgians, who took over political control in 1916 and were
far more involved in the management of Rwanda than the Germans had been. Colonial influence
is particularly dangerous because it is framed within the larger objective of political and social
control. While cultures regularly intersect along borders, colonial control is a pervasive cultural
influence which places local cultural organization and memory into jeopardy. As Richard
Handler argues, “cultural traits that come from the outside are at best ‘borrowed’ and at worst
polluting; by contrast, those aspects…that come from within the nation, that are original to it, are
‘authentic’” (66). While such distinctions can be difficult to parse when two cultures are
brought together, and notions of authenticity are always problematic when posed as absolutes,
the Belgian rule of Rwanda did occasion a cultural exchange in which Belgian cultural
constructions were carefully mapped onto Rwandan class structures.
The Belgians redefined the organization of Rwanda by aligning physical distinctions
between Rwandan citizens with varying access to state power, undermining the fluid categories
which were intrinsic to precolonial Rwandan identity. To legitimate Tutsi rule, which was in
place when Belgian forces arrived in Rwanda, the Belgians relied on the discourses of ethnicity
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and origin originally penned by John Hanning Speke, an English explorer who traveled the
length of the Nile between 1858 – 186015. Transplanting European racial prejudice to the
Rwandan colony allowed Belgian officials to more firmly embed social hierarchies into this
newly claimed colonial space. As Europeans validated their position as colonial rulers through
their whiteness, the Rwandan population was disempowered by degrees based on their physical
similarity or dissimilarity to Europeans standards of beauty. Gourevitch, aware of the power of
this colonial means of control, explains to his readers that
Speke’s basic anthropological theory, which he made up out of whole cloth, was that all
culture and civilization in central Africa had been introduced by the taller, shaperfeatured people, whom he considered to be a Caucasoid tribe of Ethiopian origin,
descended from the biblical King David, and therefore a superior race to the native
Negroids. (51)
Gourevitch’s emphasis on this initial colonial influence seeks to reclaim the lost history of
Rwanda for Western readers by demonstrating the colonial arrival as a moment in which
European narratives of Rwandans became significant within the Rwandan population. While
Speke’s work fundamentally shaped European concepts of Rwandan identity, it was not until
these constructs returned to Rwanda that European culture began to undercut Rwandan selfdefinitions. Significantly, it was at this point that “Hutu and Tutsi identities took definition only
in relationship to state power; as they did, the two groups inevitably developed their own
15
His racial assumptions about the history of the three physical types of Rwandans were published in his Journal of
the Discovery of the Source of the Nile in 1863. Indeed, rather than deduce the origin of the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa,
Speke imported European ideals to explain African physicality. The physical differences between Tutsi and Hutu
Rwandans were used as the basis for elaborate constructions of identity and value based on racialized features. The
Tutsis, who tended to be tall, lean, and lighter-skinned than the shorter, stouter Hutus, were set apart in the European
imagination precisely because they demonstrated faintly European features, while the Hutu were dismissed because
they approximated the European idea of Negro identity. Speke’s presumptions, published in Europe and accepted
wholesale as accurately representing native Rwandan categories of identity, were indicative of European arrogance
and racial prejudice more than any accurate understanding of precolonial Rwandan citizenry.
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distinctive cultures – their own set of ideas about themselves and one another – according to their
respective domains” (Gourevitch 50).
Making clear that the Belgians were consciously manipulating fundamental elements of
Rwandan identity, Gourevitch identifies politics and religion as the two channels through which
European ideology was conveyed to Rwandan colonial subjects: “the Belgian colonials stuck
with the Hamitic myth as their template and, ruling Rwanda more or less as a joint venture with
the Roman Catholic Church, they set about radically reengineering Rwandan society along socalled ethnic lines” (56). Courtemanche explores this same fact of Rwandan history in his novel
through the Rwandan character Gentille, who becomes the narrator’s wife towards the end of the
novel. Gentille recounts the story of her great grandfather Kawa, whose family would eventually
be destroyed by the identity politics of the colonial leaders, as well as by Kawa’s respect for
colonial knowledge. Kawa, a Hutu mindful of the supposed superiority of the Belgians, has his
son Célestin read to him the European commentary on the Tutsis and Hutus of Rwanda:
The Hutu, a poor farmer, is short and squat and has the nose characteristic of the
negroid races. He is good-natured but naïve, coarse and unintelligent. The Hutu is
deceitful and lazy, and quick to take offence. He is a typical negro. The Tutsi, a nomadic
cattle grazier, is tall and slender. His skin is light brown on account of his northern
origins. He is intelligent and skilful at trade. He has a sparkling wit and a pleasant
disposition. Colonial administrators in Ruanda-Urundi would do well to obtain the
assistance of the Tutsis for tasks which in their judgment they may entrust without danger
to natives. (23)
The very fact that Kawa seeks European definitions of Rwandan identity demonstrates a key
facet of the colonial endeavour: those who sought equality with European authorities were
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educated in European understandings of the world. In this case, European prejudice, presumed
accurate, alienates Kawa from his local culture. His reaction to this information is compelling:
“when Célestin read these words to his father, Kawa uttered a fearful cry. All was crumbling
around him: his pride as a Hutu patriarch and the ambitions he had been harbouring for Célestin”
(23-24). In this description, fiction powerfully illustrates the complexity of living within these
two competing sets of knowledge. Kawa’s identity as a Hutu patriarch is devalued in this
moment precisely because his respect for the colonial authority supersedes his pride in the local
and national politics of Rwanda. Through the application of European values, the worth of his
identity is negated. Courtemanche connects Rwanda’s colonial history to the genocide of 1994
in the brief narrative of Kawa, as his acceptance of European knowledge “disrupted his entire life
and the lives of his family, his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, of whom the
most beautiful and most intelligent would be baptized Gentille” (22). By tracing Kawa’s
colonial-era conflict for his audience, Courtemanche demonstrates how the introduction of
European ideologies fundamentally marred Rwandan identity politics, laying the groundwork for
the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.
Faced with competing views of Rwandan identity and history, and because of the respect
he has for colonial knowledge, Kawa defers to the colonial view which privileges Tutsis and
demonizes Hutus. Convinced of the accuracy of these writings and desperate to be found
desirable under this new colonial order, Kawa takes advantage of the flexible identity categories
of the precolonial Rwanda system:
Kawa’s daughters would need only marry Tutsis for their children to be part of the race
chosen by the gods and admired by Whites. This ought to be easy to bring about…But
for the males of the family, fate condemned them to remain Hutus in Tutsi bodies. And
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their origin and that of their children would forever be written on their identity papers.
What a nightmare. What a tragic fate. Schools forbidden, scorn from Whites, careers
and ambitions blocked. Kawa would not allow his sons and the sons of his sons to be
officially inferior beings forever, negroes among negroes. (27-28)
Kawa’s concern over his children’s fate under European definitions of Tutsi and Hutu identity
speaks to the colonial influence on Rwandan citizens. Changes introduced by Belgian officials,
such as the hierarchical evaluation of Hutu and Tutsi and identity cards, were fundamentally
foreign constructions which has a profound impact on the local population. European
constructions of ethnicity began to take hold in the Rwandan imagination, evidence that
Rwandan authority and Rwandan belief systems had been unseated by colonial intervention.
This final phrase, “negroes among negroes” (28) is evidence of Kawa’s acceptance of a
European view of Rwandan identity, a faith so strong that he fights to ensure that his identity will
not be passed down to his children and grandchildren. As culture and traditional knowledge are
commonly passed through families, Courtemanche demonstrates here how the colonial influence
disrupted the transmission of culture as well as polluting local constructions of Rwandan identity
in favour of European narrations.
Kawa tries to bargain for new identity papers for each of his children; he eventually
trades his entire earthy fortune in order to buy or barter acceptance as a Tutsi for each of his sons
and daughters. Unsurprisingly, this effort is fraught with danger, particularly from the colonial
authorities who used ethnicity as a fundamental basis of organization in Rwanda. Appealing to
the Belgian burgomaster, Kawa
offered several cows, several goats, and his most beautiful daughter, who had just turned
fourteen. The White refused to issue new identity papers transforming Kawa’s Hutus
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into Tutsis. However, he would take the girl in exchange for the silence he would keep
forever regarding Kawa’s improper and shameful proposal. This is how Clémentine
(whose buttocks and breasts nourished fantasies in the men of the hill, whatever their
ethnic group) became the property of a very ugly, pimply-faced Belgian who came and
abused her from behind every time he was in the neighbourhood. She died at seventeen
from a blood disease that came, it was whispered, from the cocks of unwashed men. (28)
Again, fiction demonstrates with force the consequences of colonial rule in Rwanda; Kawa’s
recognition of European knowledge and his willingness to conform to European hierarchies in
order to improve his future ultimately condemns his daughter to death. The language of the
passage, with terms like “take the girl” and “property” (28), and the clear extortion by which the
burgomaster claims Clémentine from Kawa further demonstrates Kawa’s disempowerment as a
Hutu in colonial Rwanda. Kawa, willing to accept his undesirability in the colonial regime,
cannot transform himself into a desirable Tutsi, and moreover, he is punished for his efforts to
reshape himself in the Tutsi image.
Religious influence allowed for a similar appropriation of authority in Rwanda; European
religious leaders used their growing status in Rwanda to exert more control over the discourse of
ethnicity introduced by the colonial powers. Gourevitch demonstrates this trend by quoting
Monsignor Léon Classe, the first bishop of Rwanda, who stated that “uncouth [Hutus] would
lead the entire state directly into anarchy and to bitter anti-European communism…we have no
chiefs who are better qualified, more intelligent, more active, more capable of appreciating
progress and more fully accepted by the people than the Tutsi” (56). What is compelling here is
that the perceived danger of a Hutu state is offered in European terms; the practical threat of
communism in colonial Rwanda was non-existent and the projected success of a Tutsi-run state
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was based on European models of ‘progress.’ That the Tutsi population was “capable of
appreciating progress” (56) ultimately functions as a coded statement for the general Tutsi
willingness to accept European constructions so long as those constructions empowered the
Tutsis under colonial rule. It is through statements like these that the political role of European
religions in Rwanda becomes clear.
Both Gourevitch and Courtemanche explore Western religion’s endorsement of colonial
rule in Rwanda. Kawa, eager to understand the worldview of the Belgians, learns what he can of
their religion, but is afraid to ask “why the children of God did not love the Hutus and Tutsis
equally, why true greatness in this country was physical and why, here on earth, the first are
always first” (28). That he has such questions positions him as insightful; that he feels he cannot
ask reveals him as disempowered. Therein lies the basis of colonial control: individuals are
taught to devalue themselves and accept without questions a new world order. The introduction
of European religious systems did not directly threaten traditional Rwandan concepts of divinity
until fifteen years into the Belgian control of Rwanda. In 1931, European religion began to
purposefully impact local Rwandan governance and social collectivity. Courtemanche has Kawa
recount this shift:
The Belgians did not want a mwami who believed in Imana the creator and in
Lyangombe, and who practised kuragura, or divination and ancestor worship.
Monseigneur Classe, the head of the Great White Robes, arranged for the son of the
mwami, Mutara III, to become king on condition that he abandon his old beliefs. Mutara
III was baptized on a Sunday in 1931. (20)
In this moment, the religious and political colonial authorities in Rwanda bisected Rwandan
culture and Rwandan faith by forcing Mutara III to choose between the two. In claiming the title
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of King, Mutara III gave up his faith and adopted Christian values publicly. As a public figure,
this choice had a powerful impact on Rwandans who identified strongly with their king.
Monsignor Louis de Lacger, writing the history of Rwanda, has observed that “the natives of this
country genuinely have the feeling of forming but one people” (qtd. in Gourevitch 54) through
their loyalty to the Mwami. By ensuring that the Mwami publicly rejected traditional beliefs and
customs to embrace European religion, the Belgian authorities undercut an important aspect of
the cultural unity between Rwandan citizens. Without the cohesion of culture and religion
provided by the figure of the Mwami, Rwandans would soon find themselves divided along the
ethnic lines first formalized by colonial authorities.
The colonial forces saw the Tutsis as similar to Europeans, while the Hutus were
dismissed as without any redeeming features. It would be an overstatement to suggest that the
Tutsis were well treated in colonial negotiations, but they were afforded greater latitude in
colonial society, and were empowered to rule over the Hutu population. In Rwanda, as in many
colonial spaces, those who were given power by the colonizer became “mimic men” (Naipaul
146). Tutsis were granted local authority in Rwandan politics and society, but imposed the
restrictions of colonial rule on Hutus. As explained to Gourevitch by an old Tutsi man, the
colonial system demanded him to “whip the Hutu or we will whip you” (57). Thus, social
frustrations concerning the colonial powers were redirected towards Tutsis who benefited from
the racism of the colonial enterprise. The pervasive rhetoric of Tutsi superiority based on
pseudo-similarities between Tutsi and European physicality, the newly inflexible ethnic
categories imposed on all Rwandans through government-mandated identity cards, and the
increasingly political nature of ethnic discourse aggravated the growing rift between Tutsi and
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Hutu citizens. The cost of Tutsi empowerment was the loss of social cohesion, and the loss of
social cohesion ensured the success of the Belgian colonial system.
As with all cultural exchanges, language helps to establish social mores about what
public speech and public actions are permissible. The colonial forces disseminated a discourse
of racial hierarchies which legitimated Belgian authority and empowered Tutsis over Hutus. As
a means of resisting Tutsi control, Hutus began to accept and further politicize the colonial
discourse of ethnic difference. Tracing the origins of negative rhetoric directed towards Tutsis in
colonial Rwanda, Gourevitch’s research reveals that “in March of 1957, a group of nine Hutu
intellectuals published a tract known as the Hutu Manifesto, arguing for ‘democracy’ – not by
rejecting the Hamitic myth but by embracing it. If Tutsis were foreign invaders, the argument
went, then Rwanda was by rights a nation of the Hutu majority” (58). This appropriation of
European racial discourse to motivate change in Rwanda’s social order demonstrates how
effective the weapons of pseudoscience, religious pressure, and unmitigated arrogance were
during the European conquest of Africa. Far from the narrative of “age-old animosity”
(Gourevitch 59) between Tutsi and Hutu that underpinned most media discussions during the
genocide, both authors demonstrate that the ethnic tensions between Tutsis and Hutus were
largely the result of European influence. In a direct challenge to the narrative of perpetual
Rwandan violence, Gourevitch notes for his readers that there is no record of a politically
motivated attack on a Tutsi by a Hutu until 1959 (59). This first violent action instigated the
Rwandan Revolution, during which thousands of Tutsis were killed and large-scale Tutsi
migrations into Uganda began. However, the rhetoric of this conflict relies on the hierarchy used
to validate European superiority and divide Rwandan citizens according to simplistic physicality.
Just as the Europeans determined Tutsis and Hutus by appearance, attacks on Tutsis in the late
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colonial and neocolonial era were based on the physical traits originally made significant by
Europeans.
In the post-WWII era, the superstructure of the colonial project began to draw public and
political criticism, and colonized countries began to demand independence. In Rwanda, the
beginnings of this global rejection of colonial rule had a radical impact on local politics. After
nearly thirty-five years of Tutsi empowerment by the colonial authorities, the Belgians
performed a political about-face and threw their support behind the Hutus. As Gentille’s father
Jean-Damascéne explains to Valcourt,
until 1959, this pact with the devil brought us [the Tutsis] only pleasure and prosperity.
Then the Belgians, who were a bit lost in an Africa that was shaking free of the colonial
mould, and probably a bit tired of this unprofitable country, discovered as if by magic the
virtues of democracy and the law of majority rule. Overnight, the shiftless Hutu became
an incarnation of modern progress, and the shapeless mass of ignorant peasants a
legitimate democracy. (198)
This statement conveys the lived reality of the colonial shift in allegiance from Tutsi to Hutu;
Jean-Damascéne’s sarcasm towards the late-realized Belgian desire for democracy in Rwanda
provides an honest Rwandan response and demonstrates awareness of the political concerns of
Europe in Africa. His critical tone towards the Hutu majority also demonstrates the internal
tensions which framed the loosening of the colonial bonds. For readers with limited
understanding of this history, offering a Rwandan perspective on the motivations of
decolonization undercuts the altruism of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and
forefronts the very real “alternative cultures and histories” (Meskell 162) which have been
suppressed by colonial and neocolonial powers.
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Gourevitch is even more precise in his discussion of the delayed Belgian empowerment
of the massive Hutu population. Far from embracing the ideals of democracy, “in early 1960,
Colonel Logiest staged a coup d’état by executive fiat, replacing Tutsi chiefs with Hutu chiefs.
Communal elections were held at midyear, and with Hutus presiding over the polling stations,
Hutus won at least ninety percent of the top posts” (60) 16. Colonel Logiest oversaw the
empowerment of Hutus while Tutsis were rapidly dismissed from their places in social and
governmental organizations. While this change was born out of a popular sense of
disenfranchisement for Hutus, who made up approximately 85% of the Rwandan population, this
simplistic inversion did nothing to undercut the colonial rhetoric which had instigated powerful
ethnic aggression across Rwanda. Rather, the inversion of Hutu over Tutsi reinforced the
political definitions of ethnicity introduced by the Belgian authorities. Even the United Nations
recognized the danger of this ill-considered manipulation of Rwandan social and political order,
as “a UN commission reported that the Rwandan revolution had, in fact, ‘brought about the
racial dictatorship of one party’ and simply replaced ‘one type of oppressive regime with
another.’ The report also warned of the possibility ‘that some day we will witness violent
reactions on the part of the Tutsis’” (Gourevitch 61).
Rwandan independence began on July 1st, 1962. However, the impact of colonial rule
and the dramatic changes in Rwandan social and political order had not prepared the nation for
peaceful self-rule. The attacks on Tutsi citizens which began just before independence now
escalated into state-legitimated acts of violence. Hutus new to authority and aware of the power
vacuum created by the Belgian exit were anxious to assert control over the Tutsi population. In
1963, the first of several Tutsi massacres occurred, an event which succeeded in drawing
16
Colonel Logiest served as the special military resident in Rwanda from 1959-1962, and the High-Representative
of Belgium in 1962. He was the highest ranking military officer throughout his time in Rwanda, which made him an
extremely important person during the final days of colonial rule.
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international attention. The response of the international community to this attack is telling;
Gourevitch quotes Bertrand Russell’s description of the scene in Rwanda as “the most horrible
and systematic massacre we have had occasion to witness since the extermination of the Jews by
the Nazis” (65). In light of the genocide of 1994, this response is compelling on multiple levels.
Russell, like many others, uses the European analogy of the Holocaust to frame the conflict
between the Hutus and Tutsis. Russell’s response suggests a clear victim and perpetrator, which
simplifies the conflict between Rwanda’s citizenry, undercuts the complex reasons for Hutu
outrage towards Tutsis, and negates any discussion of the colonial role in the violence. Finally,
this statement, like many that were made during the genocide of 1994, was ultimately dismissed
by the international community without any commitment to action. This quotation, offered at the
outset of organized violence against the Tutsi population in Rwanda, highlights how removed
international responses were from the lived challenges of Rwandan citizens. Moreover, it
demonstrates for readers how little international constructions of Africa have changed in the
neocolonial era.
*
Colonies, during and often after colonialism, tend to be constructed for the global imagination
through the narratives of the colonizer rather than through acts of local self-expression. To
counter this tendency, it is important that independent nations reclaim the value of precolonial
culture and identify the social, cultural, and political changes imposed by colonial rule,
particularly if such changes cause tensions within the colonized society. As the colonial
exchange undercuts the voices of the colonized, postcolonial writings that forefront any local
perspective can be seen as representative of a disenfranchised perspective. In Rwanda, this
disenfranchised position can refer both to the Hutu population, who were excused from
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governance during colonial rule, as well as Tutsis, who were blocked from power in the
postcolonial Rwandan nation. While both groups were in power and autonomous for a time,
there was little discourse which did not revolve around ethnicity across this time period. This
has meant that Rwandan culture, while produced by Rwandans, has been innately tied up by the
discourse of ethnic hierarchy introduced during the colonial era. It has been only in postgenocide productions, literary, narrative, creative, and political, that a range of internal
perspectives have begun to redefine Rwandan culture. Actively rejecting the discourse of ethnic
difference, modern Rwandan voices have recognized their own disenfranchisement within the
neocolonial system and begun to assert local perspectives to counter the narratives of the
observing Western world.
The Belgian authorities exited Rwanda, leaving the local population divided and without
the uniting force of shared cultural touchstones. This made Rwanda a likely candidate for
internal conflict as colonialism gave way to neocolonialism. Sibomana writes that “in the wake
of [Alexis] Kagame, all historians, whatever their ethnic origin or their political opinions,
dressed up Rwanda’s history and turned it into a tool for political propaganda” (80). The
politicization of identity in Rwanda fundamentally changed the way that history was applied in
public discourse, and in the neocolonial period, Rwandan history became the basis for the
dangerous internal politics of the Rwandan Genocide. Neocolonialism, distinct from but in
many ways similar to colonialism, is neatly defined by Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of
Ghana: “the essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory,
independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its
economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside” (ix). This definition
demonstrates an early insight into this legacy of colonial history; in the neocolonial era, this term
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applies even more broadly as colonial influences shape social, cultural, economic, and political
exchanges between nations.
As observed by Gourevitch and Courtemanche, the neocolonial era in Africa is marked
by the presence of non-African actors, such as aid agencies, international government officials
and representatives, and religious workers. Demonstrating the variety of neocolonial influences
helps these authors to establish the nature of international engagement in pre-genocide Rwanda.
Gourevitch describes Rwanda’s relationship to other nations in the neocolonial period with a
notable sense of sarcasm:
Belgium shovelled money into its own stomping ground; France, ever eager to expand its
neocolonial African empire – la Francophonie – had begun military assistance to
Habyarimana in 1975; Switzerland sent more development aid to Rwanda than to any
other country on earth; Washington, Bonn, Ottawa, Tokyo, and the Vatican all counted
Kigali as a favourite charity. The hills were thick with young whites working, albeit
unwittingly, for the greater glory of Habyarimana. (76)
Belgium and France are positioned here as actively engaged in Africa for their own benefit, and
other nations, among them the US, Canada, Japan, and Germany, view Rwanda as an
underdeveloped space in need of Western aid, reflecting continued colonial definitions of Africa.
Gourevitch recognizes the efforts which ground-workers put into the development of Rwanda,
but he also notes their failure to understand the political environment in which they are working.
Courtemanche paints a similar picture of the nuanced motivations of the aid workers in Kigali,
noting particularly their refusal to work collaboratively in order to improve the lives of Rwandan
citizens:
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Around the pool, Québécois and Belgian aid workers vie in loud laughter. The Belgian
and Québécois aren’t friends; they don’t work together, even though they are working
towards the same goal: ‘development.’ That magic word which dresses up the best and
most irrelevant of intentions. The two groups are rivals, always explaining to the locals
why their kind of development is better than the others’. The only thing they have in
common is the din they make. (3)
While Western aid in Africa is a well-understood concept, efforts on the ground are shown to fall
short of the ideal often conjured by media coverage and news reports. The Belgians and
Québécois, despite sharing a language and an objective, prefer to compete with one another than
to commit their energy to real improvements. Courtemanche also draws attention to the use of
catch-phrases to validate the continued involvement of former colonial powers and neutral
countries in Rwandan development. While much of the aid offered to African nations is
beneficial, both authors demonstrate frustration and distrust of aid workers who are ultimately
there to improve the perception of their own countries on the global stage rather than to
transform local Rwandan lives.
While direct commentary on the role of foreign aid workers helps to establish the
enactment of neocolonial influence in Rwanda society, Courtemanche also offers a powerful
view of the hierarchical organization of Rwanda, one which exemplifies the power of
neocolonial influence over Rwandan lives:
All around the pool and hotel in lascivious disorder lies the part of the city that matters,
that makes the decisions, that steals, kills, and lives very nicely, thank you. The French
Cultural Centre, the UNICEF offices, the Ministry of Information, the embassies, the
president’s palace (recognizable by the tanks on guard), the crafts shops popular with
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departing visitors where one can unload surplus black market currency, the radio station,
the World Bank offices, the archbishop’s palace. In circling this artificial paradise are the
obligatory symbols of decolonization: Constitution Square, Development Avenue,
Boulevard of the Republic, Justice Avenue, and an ugly, modern cathedral. Farther
down, almost in the underbelly of the city, stands the red brick mass of the Church of the
Holy Family, disgorging the poor in their Sunday best into crooked mud lanes bordered
by houses made of the same clay. Small red houses – just far enough away from the
swimming pool not to offend the nostrils of the important—filled with shouting, happy
children, with men and women dying of AIDS and malaria, thousands of small
households that know nothing of the pool around which others plan their lives and, more
importantly, their predictable deaths. (2)
This long but significant description of Kigali, beginning at the Hôtel des Mille Collines and
moving outward to convey the city as a whole, is compelling precisely because it links
geography with politics, both international and local. The centre of Kigali is described here
through the architecture of the neocolonial authorities, who stand together and claim a large
segment of Kigali’s public space. These forces, marshalled together, are reminiscent of colonial
authority; religious and economic influence demonstrate alternative means of control, while the
aid offices are a reminder of Africa’s long history of international aid, and the cultural
presumptions that have accompanied that aid. Beyond this powerful district are streets and
spaces named after the ideals of decolonization, despite the fact that many of these ideals have
yet to be instituted in Rwanda. Finally, decentred in this description of the city are the citizens of
Rwanda, whose lives are fundamentally detached from the power wielded over them by foreign
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actors. Courtemanche gives half of the paragraph to their description, developing a minute
glimpse into their lives even as he observes their disempowerment in the neocolonial system.
Aware of the complexity of aid work in Africa, Courtemanche avoids simplistic
representations of neocolonial involvement in Rwanda. He is critical of decisions made by
remote actors who do not understand the realities of daily life in Rwanda and pointedly
demonstrates the ways in which Western solutions do not always solve African problems:
When you’re discussing these things in an office in Washington or drawing econometric
curves on a computer, it all seems logical. In a hospital, it doesn’t hold up at all. You
begin by charging admission fees. Half the patients stop coming to the hospital and go
back to the leaf-doctors – that’s what they call the witch doctors or charlatans. The cost
of medications goes up because they’re imported and structural adjustment devalues the
local currency. (124)
This is an important point, as many African economists have pointed out the dangers of
establishing African services based on international aid rather than more permanent sources of
funding17. Courtemanche’s protagonist Valcourt explores the challenge of integrating
international support into current Rwandan social structures without undermining local practices
and frequently faces newly-arrived bureaucrats who assume their pre-fabricated plans can be
imposed wholesale onto Rwandan social structures. However, these bureaucratic failures are
contrasted by the representation of several deeply devoted and respectful aid workers, the most
compelling of whom is Elise:
17
There are a number of texts on African aid and development, particularly the dangers of aid and the failures which
financial support has created in Africa. The following three authors are noted for the depth and breadth of their
examinations: Alex de Waal’s Famine Crimes: Politics & the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa, Fiona Terry’s
Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action, and David Rieff’s A Bed for the Night:
Humanitarianism in Crisis.
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Two years in Rwanda; hundreds, thousands of AIDS patients. The same cautions
tirelessly repeated, the words a thousand times said announcing the end, the
encouragements whose effectiveness she doubted, this permanent companionship with
the death of people she learned to love day by day as they confided in her—nothing
undermined her determination. (52-53)
Her efforts are carefully focused to respond to the needs of the Rwandan population without bias
or judgement; her commitment is unwavering and apolitical. While the actions of the
bureaucrats are, for Courtemanche, calculated and politically motivated, he does see the
possibility for unbiased interactions between Rwandan and international citizens in characters
like Elise and Valcourt. As one of the few Western characters who is informed about Rwanda
and empathetic towards Rwandan citizens, the character of Elise demonstrates that the genuine
presumption of equality between Western and Rwandan actors holds the potential for productive
cross-cultural interactions.
For Rwandan citizens, the aid community and other international actors present
opportunities and challenges. Both authors depict Rwandans responding to the assumptions that
underpin the international perception of Rwanda in the international community. Describing the
interactions between Rwandans and non-Rwandans, Courtemanche writes that Rwandans require
“a smile too broad that must stand up to sixteen hours of temperament, condescension,
impatience, ill-concealed mistrust and sometimes a kind of third-worldism so pleasantly warm
that the employee would paint his situation the blacker to please the lonesome White” (46).
Because of the pervasive construction of Africa as poverty-ridden and chaotic, even simple
exchanges become battles between reality and perception. Here, the Rwandan citizen is
expected to perform the role conjured by colonial-era prejudice in order to affirm external
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neocolonial assumptions, particularly those which deepen the imagined divide between Western
and African. The low-grade hostility directed towards Rwandans by Western actors reflects the
more generally inequitable attitude towards Rwanda demonstrated by the international
community. Notably, this hostility is imparted by the same individuals and nations who claim to
offer aid to Rwandan citizens. Though this spare description, Courtemanche conveys the
complexity of neocolonial prejudice and specifically the ways in which discrimination is
embedded into the larger rhetoric of international aid.
Courtemanche also explores the Rwandan conception of whiteness the discourse of
international aid. The Rwandan character Raphaël explains to Courtemanche the Rwandan view
of white lives outside the borders of Rwanda:
Sex with a White man is like a lifebuoy. A dress from Paris…a duty-free piece of
jewellery, a little money so you can leave the Muslim quarter and move up the hill
into a house with a hedge and a guardian. Then, God willing, liberation, paradise,
a shack in Canada or Belgium or France or Tashkent, as long as there are no more
Hutus and Tutsis, just Whites who look down on Blacks. Intolerance doesn’t kill. (35)
This statement demonstrates acceptance of a fundamental inequality between white and black
individuals, both within and beyond Rwanda. Moreover, Raphaël elaborates here on the nature
of racial exchanges within the neocolonial environment: African sexuality has a market value
within the international community in Rwanda. Sex can be exchanged for a variety of goods and
experiences, all of which are a means of escaping local poverty and local dangers. “Liberation,
paradise” (35) is here defined as a life of poverty in a distant country away from the racial
politics of Rwanda; Raphaël accepts the prejudice of non-African nations as a necessary evil of
escaping the internal ethnic politics of Rwandan society. Raphaël’s statement that “intolerance
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doesn’t kill” (35) puts into stark relief the real dangers that exist for Tutsis in Rwanda, framing
the Rwandan acceptance of racial inequality with foreigners within the larger reality of racial
inequality inside Rwanda itself. For Raphaël, neocolonial bias is less dangerous than the politics
of postcolonial, pre-genocide Rwanda. What Courtemanche makes clear is that Rwandans
understand the inequality of the neocolonial exchange; they do not accept it blindly, but rather,
understand that it can provide access to comforts that are otherwise denied to them. In itself, this
refutes the common perception of Rwanda as passive; here, Raphaël is shown to work within the
socio-political structures that shape his life.
In a scene representing the dynamics between Rwandans and the international
community, Valcourt takes Jean Lamarre, a novice Canadian Consular official, to the local
hospital in Kigali to strip him of his ignorance concerning the value of international aid in the
lives of Rwandan children. There, Lamarre is overwhelmed by the lack of supplies, beds, and
staff, and avoids contact with the children stacked three to a bed in makeshift wards. As the
children crowd Lamarre, Valcourt urges him to “take some pictures, Monsieur Lamarre. Don’t
be shy. They’ll like it. Every time someone takes pictures or movies of them, a little hope of
help to come is born. Anyway, they’ll die before they realize that no capital city in the world
cares about them” (127). Two realities are conveyed by this statement: the children’s
expectations of aid and Valcourt’s jaded recognition of the futility of current international aid
practices. These children understand that race determines power: whites give aid; Rwandans
receive aid. They assume that becoming visible will ensure their survival, unaware that photos
of sick African children are heavily over-represented in global images of Africa and increasingly
fail to muster international response as compassion fatigue becomes more pervasive. Indeed,
these images only affirm the stereotypes which are most strongly connected with Africa.
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Valcourt’s cynicism about this exchange undercuts the well-established narrative of international
aid as fundamentally beneficial to African communities, a theme which Courtemanche explores
repeatedly in the novel. For non-African readers, particularly those based in countries engaged
in this neocolonial management of African nations, Courtemanche represents international
exchanges from the Rwandan perspective, prompting the reader to see themselves and their
nations critically. The children’s ingrained faith in the spectre of international aid demonstrates
their internalization of colonial and neocolonial rhetoric which asserts foreign superiority.
*
While the neocolonial management of Rwanda is explored by both Gourevitch and
Courtemanche to differing degrees, they both focus carefully on the build up to genocide. While
Tutsi massacres occurred in Rwanda in 1959, 1962, 1963, 1967, and 1973, the rhetoric of ethnic
violence intensified in 1990 and lead to more aggressive and wide-spread attacks on the Tutsi
population. This protracted history of conflict based on ethnicity was simplified by international
media reports as a civil war rather than a series of calculated, government-sanctioned attacks on
a minority population. In order to counter this inaccurate representation, these two novels offer
additional details which help readers to better understand the nature of the conflict. Gourevitch
clarifies the identity and mission of the RPF, commonly identified as rebels during coverage of
the genocide: on “October 1, 1990, a rebel army, calling itself the Rwandese Patriotic Front,
invaded north-eastern Rwanda from Uganda, declaring war on the Habyarimana regime, and
propounding a political program that called for an end to tyranny, corruption, and the ideology of
exclusion ‘which generates refugees’” (82). The use of the term "rebels" suggested to many that
the RPF was challenging the accepted governance of the nation, when in fact the RPF
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represented a challenge to the dangerous rhetoric of violence propounded by government
officials through the national military and local Hutu Power leaders.
Courtemanche’s writing demonstrates, rather than directly identifying, the increasing
tensions in the pre-genocide period of the early 1990s; he writes of Gentille that “danger was on
all sides. A discontented Belgian, a drunk and infatuated German, a passing soldier, a lovestruck civil servant. All of them possessed her potentially and all of them could kill her.
Increasingly, in Kigali and even more in the country side, life hung on a word, a whim, a desire,
a nose too fine or a leg too long” (33). Gentille here is under threat from local and international
actors and no protection is available for her. While the threat from Rwandan members of Hutu
Power is expected, Courtemanche reminds the reader that neocolonial forces are also a threat to
her, fundamentally undercutting the common perception that international involvement was
neutral or helpful for Rwandan civilians. Regarding the international peacekeeping force
installed in Rwanda in October 1993 18, Gourevitch observes, “distrust of UNAMIR was the one
thing which Hutu Power and those it wanted dead shared as deeply as their distrust of one
another” (102). This is a compelling statement, for it demonstrates that many Rwandans,
regardless of their political beliefs, saw international involvement as dangerous. Only months
later, UNAMIR would prove that it did not have the ability to effectively protect hinder the
onslaught of violence that would commence on April 6, 1994.
Because of the continuous propaganda supporting the Hutu Power movement in Rwanda
in the months before the genocide began, citizens were well aware of the threat of violence;
many assumed that the next rash of killings would be like the massacres before: swift and brutal,
18
UNAMIR was the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, which was established during the Arusha
Peace Agreement signed by Habyarimana’s government and the RPF leaders on August 3, 1993. The objectives of
the peacekeeping force were to implement aspects of the Arusha Accord, such as assuring the security of Kigali,
aiding in the preparations for elections, and monitoring the ceasefire agreement between these two parties. Further
details of this force can be found in United Nations records.
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but isolated. Valcourt, as a white man, is not directly threatened by the impending genocide, but
local characters vocalize their fears about the danger they face. Lando, a Rwandan man well
aware of the horror he is awaiting, addresses the ability of the international community to ignore
the coming deaths of Rwandans:
You still don’t understand. Good little Westerner that you are, all tied up with fine
sentiments and noble principles, you’re witnessing the beginning of the end of the world.
We’re going to plunge into a horror never seen before in history. We’re going to rape,
cut throats, chop, butcher…We’ll have the savage efficiency of the primitive and the
poor. With machetes, knives and clubs we’ll do better than the Americans with their
smart bombs. But it won’t be a war for television. You won’t be able to stand fifteen
minutes of our wars and massacres. They’re ugly and you’ll think they’re inhuman. It’s
the lot of the poor not to know how to murder cleanly, with surgical precision, as the
parrots of CNN say after their briefings from the generals. (62-63)
Lando predicts that neocolonial prejudice towards Rwanda as an African nation will
fundamentally blind the international community to Rwandan suffering and prevent any effective
response. As this is precisely what did occur, Courtemanche is asking readers to recognize the
assumptions and prejudices which determine international action and inaction. That these words
are spoken prior to the genocide demonstrates something often forgotten in the neocolonial
exchange: just at the international community has preconceived notions of Rwanda and Africa
more generally, Africans and Rwandans have preconceived notions about countries on the
international stage. The political reality of neocolonialism is clear to Lando, and he knows that
this genocide is only going to affirm the popular constructions of Rwandan identity in the
Western imagination. As an active participant in this political exchange, although disempowered
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by virtue of his nationality and race, Lando reminds readers that Rwandans can be shrewdly
aware of the nuances of the stereotypes which define them, inside and beyond national borders.
Valcourt understands the ill-informed prejudice which will ultimately permit the deaths
of his Rwandan friends, and he condemns it vocally. His commentary becomes pointed when he
considers the conventions through which African identities are constructed in global media
coverage:
An article, an in-depth report might perhaps stir public opinion and influence his
government, which in turn would talk about it to another…But what a fool I am!...It takes
ten thousand dead Africans to furrow the brow of even one left-learning White. Even ten
thousand’s not enough. And they aren’t noble deaths, either – they make humanity blush.
The media don’t show dead bodies cut up bymen and shredded by vultures and wild
dogs. They show the pitiful victims of drought, swollen little bellies, eyes bigger than
TV screens, the tragic children of famine and the elements – that’s what moves people.
Then committees get set up and humanitarian souls get busy and mobilize. Contributions
flow. Encouraged by their parents, rich kids break open their piggy banks.
Governments, feeling a warm wind of popular solidarity blowing, push and shove at the
humanitarian aid wicket. But when it’s men like us killing other men like us, and doing it
brutally with whatever’s handy, people cover their faces. And when they’re expendable
men, like these in this country…. (111-12)
This invocation of the international response, in advance of the onset of genocide, demonstrates
the rigid nature of the neocolonial system of relations. Regardless of the violence that will
descend on Rwanda, there will not be a reaction. Rwandan and Canadian alike know this to be
true, and Courtemanche is determined that the reader should recognize that the dismissal of
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Rwanda is predicated on the nature of the crisis facing Rwandan citizens. As Moeller suggests,
the framing of Africa within the humanitarian paradigm predetermines Western reactions, and so
limits political development between African and Western countries. There will be no deus ex
machina to protect Rwandans from this conflict set in motion during the colonial era, and
Rwandans are aware of this as a neocolonial fact. These vocalizations of mistrust are powerful
because they identify international responses as politically motivated rather than benevolence in
the face of threat. There is, particularly in Lando’s commentary, an internalized sense of lesser
worth as a result of colonial and neocolonial political practices and discourse.
Valcourt is present to witness the initial killings that marked the beginning of the
genocide but he is evacuated within four days of Habyarimana’s death. Despite being recently
married, Valcourt is not permitted to leave Rwanda with Gentille and their adopted child,
orphaned in an early bout of ethnic killing, because Gentille has such strong Tutsi traits. The
militia guards at the airport knock Valcourt unconscious and put him on one of several planes
carrying citizens of non-African nations who were evacuated by their governments. As Father
Louis predicts, “they’re not coming to stay and save the country. They’re giving themselves
three days, then they’ll be gone again” (224). Certainly, this rapid evacuation of foreign
nationals demonstrates the ability of distant nations to mobilize the protection of their citizens in
light of threats of violence. More importantly, it demonstrates a pervasive sense in the
international community that Rwanda’s problems were for Rwanda’s government to solve.
Since the government was behind the genocide, there would be no protection for those not
permitted on the planes. While immediate international efforts established routes of escape for
foreign nationals, the international coverage of the onset of genocide was limited. As Valcourt
narrates,
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in its major international bulletin CNN spent twenty seconds on the recurrence of ethnic
problems in Rwanda, giving assurances, however, that foreign nationals were safe. Even
the perspicacious BBC said little more. Radio-France Internationale talked about
recurrent confrontations and ancestral tribalism. Wondering if Africans would ever be
able to rid themselves of their ancient demons that kept provoking the most dreadful
atrocities. (226-27)
This minimal coverage, emphasizing the safety of non-Rwandans over Rwandans, and relying on
tropes of African violence to explain the killings by Hutu militias are demonstrative of
neocolonial prejudice. Both Courtemanche and Gourevitch make clear that the international
community knew enough about the threat of violence to protect their own citizens, but used a
variety of political excuses to avoid acting on behalf of Rwandans. For readers, this effort to
protect Western citizens while avoiding public discussion about the instigation of genocide in
Rwandan is a powerful demonstration of the nuances of neocolonial influence, as it can enable or
deter action for its own ends.
This early political response to the genocide is mirrored by a similar military response.
Both authors note that Dallaire, the commander of the UNAMIR mission, had a Rwandan
informant who warned him about the impending genocide but that his superiors dismissed this
intelligence, ordering him to give his information to Habyarimana’s office for further review.
Dallaire, working with limited resources, and himself under threat as the limited authority of
UNAMIR became clear, was quick to develop a possible military response. Gourevitch states
that
on April 21, 1994, the UNAMIR commander, Major General Dallaire, declared that with
just five thousand well-equipped soldiers and a free hand to fight Hutu Power, he could
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bring the genocide to a rapid halt. No military analyst whom I’ve heard of has ever
questioned his judgement, and a great many have confirmed it…Yet, on the same day,
the UN Security Council passed a resolution that slashed the UNAMIR force by ninety
percent, ordering the retreat of all but two hundred seventy troops. (150)
In juxtaposing these two pieces of information, Gourevitch highlights the fact that there were
preliminary actors on the ground in Rwanda who could have responded to the outbreak of
genocide directly, had they been given international support. Dallaire, on the ground in Rwanda
since October 1993, understood the overwhelming threat of large-scale violence. However, the
reduction of his mandate and resources in the face of demonstrable genocide in Rwanda is
evidence of a lack of interest in responding to this crisis. This is, fundamentally, a neocolonial
response; foreign nations involve themselves in former colonial spaces when it suits their
interests, but step away from involvement when it becomes socially or politically difficult to
remain. The US was particularly determined to avoid vested responsibility in Rwanda;
Gourevitch notes that Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s ambassador to the UN, opposed leaving any
troops in Rwanda (150).
The recognition of this international refusal to act is important because it was not part of
a larger public discourse around the events unfolding in Rwanda. Media coverage was minimal
and emphasized chaos over solutions, governmental statements avoided use of the term genocide
so that political commitments at the end of WWII would not compel them to act on Rwanda’s
behalf, and UN decisions were under-discussed in public forums. Gourevitch’s commentary is
echoed in the analysis of the United Human Rights Council, who say of the international
response to the Rwandan genocide that international leaders
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declined for weeks to use their political and moral authority to challenge the legitimacy
of the genocidal government. They refused to declare that a government guilty of
exterminating its citizens would never receive international assistance. They did nothing
to silence the radio that televised calls for slaughter. Even after it had become
indisputable that what was going on in Rwanda was a genocide, American officials had
shunned the g-word, fearing that it would cause demands for intervention” (“Genocide in
Rwanda”).
Gourevitch offers a powerful analysis of this concerted effort to ignore Rwanda’s genocide,
writing that the “desertion of Rwanda by the UN force was Hutu Power’s greatest diplomatic
victory” (150). The Hutu Power movement was unintentionally protected and validated by the
international community for much of the genocide, its actions and objectives sheltered by an
international desire to avoid commitments on African soil. Gourevitch makes a compelling point
to his readers; international powers would rather support genocide by inaction than prevent
genocide by valuing Rwandan lives as equal to Western lives. The perversity of this political
logic should compel critical evaluation of the political enactment of neocolonialism,
demonstrating that socio-political education, offered through literature, can create a more
politically engaged citizenry.
It was not until June 22, 1994, that the Security Council rubber-stamped Opération
Turquoise, a formally impartial deployment of French military personnel with permission to use
aggressive force on the ground in Rwanda (Gourevitch 155). However, as the violence peaked
in April and May, this late deployment was not a means of ending genocide but rather an attempt
to marshal social order. As knowledge of the genocide was increasingly a matter of public
record, this was an effort to be seen as active in Rwanda. However, even this delayed effort
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demonstrated ignorance of the facts of genocide. Gourevitch writes that “the signal achievement
of the Opération Turquoise was to permit the slaughter of Tutsis to continue for an extra month,
and to secure safe passage for the genocidal command to cross, with a lot of its weaponry, into
Zaire” (160-61). Because there was not a clear understanding of the politics behind the
genocide, génocidaires were able to hide in plain sight among the fleeing Rwandan refugees. In
an effort to reassert local order, the French soldiers repeatedly threw their support behind local
leaders, failing to recognize that these leaders were complicit in the violence the French claimed
to condemn (Gourevitch 158).
Re-examining Rwandan history reveals the very real connection between colonial and
neocolonial influences and the genocide of 1994. Discussing the pervasive assumptions made
about Rwanda during the genocide, Gourevitch notes that
Rwanda was regarded in much of the rest of the world as the exemplary instance of the
chaos and anarchy associated with collapsed states. In fact, the genocide was the product
of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorizing and indoctrination, and
one of the most meticulously administered states in history. (95)
While media representations, individual governments, and the UN painted this violence as the
product of savagery and tribal conflict, careful study demonstrates how colonial politics, rooted
in an emergent and politicized sense of Rwandan nationhood in 1962, created an atmosphere ripe
for further conflict. Tschudi offers the term “cognitive imperialism” (55) to account for
instances where two individuals or groups have radically different interpretations of the same
event. He states that in such cases, two possibilities exist: either one party lacks full access to
information, or one party has an “irrational, biased, or distorted view” (55). In the response to
the genocide in Rwanda, it is clear that the biases of the neocolonial political system rendered the
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most powerful international actors unwilling to recognize the role that Western racial politics
played in instigating and naturalizing this violence. Both We Wish To Inform You That
Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families and A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali draw
attention to the ways that international biases blocked accurate understanding of the causes of the
genocide, instead hiding behind the tired rhetoric of the colonial era. These literary narratives
responds to the need for public education about the local and international factors of this
genocide, allocating some responsibility for this genocide on international influences that have
refused to admit their culpability, both in word and in deed.
Gourevitch offers, towards the end of his narrative, a comprehensive list of all of the
factors that contributed to the Rwandan genocide of 1994, a list which evinces the international
nature of this conflict. Moreover, his inclusion of this list makes it easy for readers to understand
at a glance the interaction between local and international tensions:
the precolonial inequalities; the fanatically thorough and hierarchical centralized
administration; the Hamitic myth and the radical polarization under Belgian rule; the
killings and expulsions that began with the Hutu revolution of 1959; the economic
collapse of the late 1980s; Habyarimana’s refusal to let the Tutsi refugees return; the
multiparty confusion; the RPF attack; the war; the extremism of Hutu Power; the
propaganda; the practice massacres; the massive importation of arms; the threat to the
Habyarimana oligarchy posed by peace through power sharing and integration; the
extreme poverty, ignorance, superstition, and fear of a cowed, compliant, cramped – and
largely alcoholic – peasantry; the indifference of the outside world. Combine these
ingredients and you have such an excellent recipe for a culture of genocide that it’s easy
to say that it was just waiting to happen. (180)
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This list of collective factors prompting the Rwandan Genocide does make the genocide seem
inevitable, which was precisely the rhetoric of the international media as they covered the
developing situation. However, this media analysis reflected assumption rather than the
concerted failure of understanding. This list reflects both the influences of the international
community and the complexities of internal politics in Rwanda. Gourevitch here conveys the
complexity of the genocide while simultaneously undercutting the excuse that the event was not
understandable. What remains clear is that it was the prolonged Western disinterest permitted by
neocolonialism which allowed the media to frame the genocide as chaos.
Both Gourevitch and Courtemanche focus on the external influences which shaped
Rwanda’s genocide to bring attention to several of the causes that were never fairly identified as
having a role in the genocide. The Rwandan genocide was not only a reflection of Rwandan, or
even African politics; this genocide was an international creation, demonstrating the very real
outcomes of colonial and neocolonial influence. Many factors of the genocide connect back to
the ethnic politics made concrete during the colonial era, and this information is important for
Western readers, as few would know enough from media representations to be able to explain
how external pressures caused the genocide. As the media coverage of the Rwandan genocide
did not consistently identify the causes for violence, it was easy for foreign viewers to confuse
colonial and neocolonial myth and fact. Susan Moeller writes of the coverage of genocide that
“it’s easy to run a map indicating where Bosnia is or a graphic clarifying who’s who in Rwanda.
More difficult, more time consuming, more expensive in terms of both money and energy is for
the media to show their readers and viewers why they should care about Bosnia and Rwanda”
(315). Gourevitch and Courtemanche, aware of the superstructures which influence information
exchange in Western news media, attempt to fill in this gap by educating their readers. Texts
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such as these explain Rwandan history in order to challenge the misperception that this genocide
was the product of an independent Rwandan civil society.
Although the genocide did not motivate significant political or financial support outside
of Rwanda Rwanda’s subsequent humanitarian crisis was extremely compelling to external
audiences. Throughout the genocide, many Rwandans had crossed the borders of Rwanda for
the relative safety of the surrounding nations. Moeller reports that “in mid-July, after the
genocide was over, but at the height of the refugee crisis, Oxfam received more than 1,000 calls
in 24 hours, raising $50,000 – more money in one day than the past four months…In the case of
Rwanda, clearly, the famine images touched people. The genocide pictures did not” (235).
However, these images of displacement and chaos were not clearly explained to viewers, who
often did not understand the complexity of the refugee crisis:
All too often, television in particular, would forget to remind its viewers that the
refugees were not fleeing the massacres. In fact, many of those fleeing had
participated in the killings or were just escaping, gripped by the fear of rebel
retribution. If the massacres had never happened, there would not have been a refugee
exodus. (qtd. in Moeller 296)
Viewers, primed by years of media narratives about Africa, were well able to understand these
images of victimized Africans in a way that they had not been made to understand the
complexity of the Rwandan Genocide. Significant aid was not offered by the international
community until the representation of Rwandan need was in line with accepted constructions of
Africans in the Western imagination. This distinction reveals public reliance on stereotypes as a
powerful method of enforcing neocolonial political policies. Gourevitch explains that while the
genocide garnered little action among global citizens, the response to the narrative of Rwandan
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refugees without food, water, or shelter in appropriate numbers instigated “the largest, most
rapid, and most expensive deployment by the international humanitarian-aid industry in the
twentieth century” (165). This response exemplifies the practice of neocolonial involvement in
former colonial spaces like in Rwanda. Tropes of African suffering motivated a strong public
response, affirming the perception that such crises are endemic to some nations over others. By
juxtaposing these two responses, Gourevitch urges readers to consider the role of their own
preconceptions of Africa on their socio-political engagements. However, once Rwandans were
framed as victims and the focus was on need rather than on Rwandan violence, a greater
response was offered.
The international involvement in Rwanda’s recovery also demonstrated the specific
nature of neocolonial interest in Rwanda. Rwanda was strongly encouraged to use international
channels to enforce justice at the close of the genocide. While this was possible for those who
planned and gave orders during the genocide, the sheer scale of the violence and the number of
perpetrators involved meant that the protracted jailing of perpetrators would dangerously strain
Rwanda’s prison system. Gourevitch raises this practical limitation with Gerald Gahima, an RPF
officer and the Deputy Minister of Justice in Rwanda, who notes that in Rwanda, “we’re trying
to see how to get as many ordinary people off the hook as possible…It’s not the justice the law
provides for. It’s not the justice most people would want. It’s only the best justice we can try for
under the circumstances” (250). As a massive proportion of the Rwandan population were
involved in some way in the genocide19, with estimates ranging between tens of thousands and
19
Scott Straus offers a detailed discussion of this number, considering the estimates of other researchers as well as
his own empirical evidence, gathered during his seven-month stay in Rwanda in 2002. His conclusion is that
approximately 200,000 Rwandans perpetrated violence against the 800,000 Rwandans killed over the course of the
genocide. The specific article is entitled “How many perpetrators were there in the Rwandan genocide? An
estimate*,” published in the Journal of Genocide Research in March, 2004.
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three million, the practicality of using a justice system modeled on the International Criminal
Courts simply did not exist in Rwanda.
However, neocolonial influence in post-genocide Rwanda remained evident as Rwanda
established its own means of affecting local recovery. Gourevitch quotes a Rwandan diplomat
who explains that the newly established Rwandan government requested help from the UN to
arrest those responsible for the genocide who had fled to various protective countries, like
France, and return them to Rwanda to face justice in their own country (252). Disinterested in
affirming Rwandan justice, but anxious to appear involved in the search for justice, despite
having ignored the genocide, “the UN created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,
which was essentially a subset of the tribunal that had been established for the ugly Balkan war
of the early 1990s” (Gourevitch 252). Both the ICTR and the ICTY (International Criminal
Tribunal for Yugoslavia) were to share a single prosecutor for the duration of the search for
justice (Morris). The ICTR, on which much attention has been focused, dealt an additional blow
to Rwandan identity in the wake of the genocide; while the international community refused to
be involved in protecting Rwandan citizens, it took on a powerful role in determining the
punishment or non-punishment of génocidaires. This UN solution did not take into account the
fact that executing justice is a powerful means of reasserting national control, something that was
desperately important in the early months and years of recovery in Rwanda.
The ICTR limited its scope to the crimes committed only during 1994, which frustrated
Rwandans who had lived through threats and acts of violence in a prelude to the genocide
(Morris). Furthermore, the UN refused to allow the death penalty as a punishment for any
convicted génocidaire, and also refused to transfer any case to Rwandan courts until the
Rwandan government rescinded its use of the death penalty (Mujuzi 239). Because the death
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penalty was permitted in Rwanda but not in the ICTR, the leaders of the genocide faced less
aggressive justice than local génocidaires who stood trial in Rwanda. Mr. Bakuramutsa, the
Rwandan Ambassador to the United Nations during the establishment of the ICTR, said of this
disparity that the “situation is not conducive to national reconciliation in Rwanda” (Morris).
Indeed, Rwandan justice was limited by international involvement, and this limitation was felt as
an additional burden to the recovery of many Rwandan citizens. The critical examination of the
actions and objectives of the ICTR are particularly beneficial for readers who presume the UN to
be a non-partisan organization. As UN actions throughout the genocide have clearly
demonstrated, the politics of neocolonialism encroach into all facets of the political landscape.
However, by making this clear, Gourevitch’s text lays the foundation for an increasingly
engaged readership.
Rwandan efforts to assert their own justice, however challenging, was a means of
initiating recovery and reasserting the value of the legal and judicial system in Rwanda. As these
systems had had no power to stop or mitigate the genocide, their reinstitution into the daily lives
of Rwandans served to assure the population of collective safety. Of the 1997 trial of
génocidaire Froduald Karamira in Kigali, Gourevitch writes that “many Rwandans later told me
that seeing this once immensely powerful man so humbled had been cathartic in itself” (344). In
part, justice done is justice that is seen to be done and Rwandans who lost everything in the
destruction of the genocide took comfort in witnessing the public judgement and punishment of
those responsible. Post-genocide, the traditional Rwandan form of justice known as the Gacaca
court system was reinstituted to expedite the processing of low-level perpetrators of genocide.
These courts were reliant on public accusations and the limited facts available concerning each
perpetrator brought before the court. This sort of justice allowed survivors to face their attackers
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and initiated valuable public discussions which prevented the genocide from settling, unresolved,
out of public discourse. The value of these courts to individual recovery is more thoroughly
addressed in Combres’ Broken Memory in chapter four. There were reduced sentences for those
who confessed freely and punishments reintegrated perpetrators to the community through
community works projects. While far from perfect, the Rwandan gacaca system dealt efficiently
with prisoners, enabled victims to be a part of the process of justice, and demonstrated the return
of law and order to Rwandan communities.
While the international community was interested in the ICTR, interest in the recovery
from the genocide was limited, even as the needs of the genocide survivors increased. Recovery
in Rwanda took multiple forms; practically, homes, schools, places of business, churches, and
public spaces required clean-up and rebuilding, while survivors required emotional, mental, and
physical aid in order to begin recovery. Many children had escaped violence through the
protection of their parents but were now orphaned and needed social assistance, supervision, and
community care. Justice, while important, was only one aspect of Rwanda’s recovery, but
tellingly, the international community fixated on the hunt for justice instead of throwing its
weight behind the practical needs of survivor recovery. Of the Rwandan effort to find
international aid for internal recovery, Gourevitch writes that “the government had no program
for survivors. ‘Nobody wants to help them,’ Kagame’s adviser, Claude Dusaidi, told me. He
meant no foreign donors, no aid agencies. ‘We say, ‘Give us the money, we’ll do it.’ Nobody is
interested’” (315). This lack of sustained interest in realizing a Rwandan recovery demonstrates
compassion fatigue. Overwhelmed by need, without a sense of how recovery is possible, and
with no understanding of the conflict, international observers remained, on the whole, observers.
The international interest in justice rather than recovery also demonstrates how neocolonial
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forces pushed international modes of justice onto Rwanda, thereby enacting recovery on Western
terms rather than on Rwandan terms.
*
Educating readers about the complex history of Rwanda from the precolonial to the neocolonial
era, texts like Gourevitch’s and Courtemanche’s situate the genocide within a larger series of
historical, social, political, and economic forces. They acknowledge the role that external factors
had in shaping this event, challenging the belief that the genocide was fundamentally a product
of Rwandan tribalism. These texts do not overly-demonize the colonial and neocolonial system
of involvement in Rwanda, but clarify that the ethnic nature of the conflict was rooted in the
colonial prejudice which informed the identity politics in the independent nation of Rwanda.
Furthermore, the pervasive neocolonial authority of Western nations allowed the Rwandan
Genocide to occur without accurate representation, appropriate response, or respectful aid during
recovery. Because Rwanda has never been permitted equality on the global stage, the Rwandan
Genocide occurred without drawing sufficient interest from either Western citizens or political
leaders. As Rwandans tend to produce oral rather than written narratives, few Rwandans have
asserted their view of history for an international audience. As such, texts like Gourevitch’s and
Courtemanche’s endeavour to offer counter-narratives that represent Rwandan constructions of
history and identity to a broad readership. Aware of the complex challenge of writing for
another, both journalists spent extended time in Rwanda and spoke to hundreds of Rwandans in
an attempt to most accurately voice Rwandan concerns. While colonial and neocolonial officials
have imposed their own narratives on Rwandan citizens, these writers succeed in allowing
Rwandans to speak through them. As such, these texts offer readers insight into the lived details
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of history that have long been ignored, particularly by Western actors who speak of Africa rather
than from Africa.
Stepping away from the socio-political engagements in Rwandan history, these authors
also explore in their narratives their experience of the physical space of Rwanda. While recovery
efforts typically focus on social, economic, and political recovery, it is also important that
readers gain a clear vision of Rwandan beyond the images of destruction which effectively
conveyed Rwandan victimhood to Western viewers. In all places, particularly in places
previously subject to colonial control, it is essential to remember that “physical geographies are
bound up in, rather than simply a backdrop to, social and environmental processes” (Woods 3).
As such, physical geographies also offer an avenue for challenging neocolonial constructions of
Rwandan identity in the Western imagination. The writings of Gourevitch and Courtemanche
model a powerful sensory and tactile engagement with Rwanda. These texts convey the
experience of travelling through the distinct culture and society of Rwanda. Gillian Whitlock
writes that “life narrative is instrumental in debates about social justice, and narratives can
inspire readers’ imaginations to rethink communicative ethics in ways that engage with
difference without resorting to either identification (which produces the empathic response) or
othering (which looks to the antithesis of the self across cultures)” (13). In this instance, these
Western authors use their own experiences of moving through Rwanda to engage their readers
and position their broader historical, social, and political commentaries.
There is a long tradition of travel writing in Africa, generally with the aim of exoticizing
African spaces and people. However, in this case, the authors record their lived responses to
Rwanda as a geographic and cultural space. Most notable is that their comments about Africa do
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not reiterate the common tropes of Africa as a place of urban and rural poverty, or Africa as a
space of rudimentary cultural practices. Gourevitch describes Rwanda as
spectacular to behold. Throughout its center, a winding succession of steep, tightly
terraced slopes radiates out from small roadside settlements and solitary compounds.
Gashes of red clay and black loam mark fresh how work; eucalyptus trees flash sliver
against brilliant green tea plantations; banana trees are everywhere. On the theme of
hills, Rwanda produces countless variations: jagged rain forests, round-shouldered buttes,
undulating moors, broad swells of savanna, volcanic peaks sharp as filed teeth. During
the rainy season, the clouds are huge and low and fast, mists cling in highland hollows,
lightning flickers through the nights, and by day the land is lustrous. After the rains, the
skies lift, the terrain takes on a ragged look beneath the flat unvarying haze of the dry
season, and in the savannas of the Akagera Park wildfire blackens the hills. (20)
This description defines Rwanda as vibrant, complex, nuanced, and evocative; the nature of the
description challenges the static images of Africa as a land of poverty and want. Rwandan
geography is presented as a visual spectacle, avoiding the tropes of external social and political
constructions.
Courtemanche’s narrative contains a similar consideration of the physical space of
Rwanda; Valcourt’s growing attachment to Rwanda is not solely a matter of relationships, but
also of his connection to the land:
When the sun goes down over Kigali, the beauty of the world brings joy to the
beholder. Great flocks of birds delicately embroider the sky. The wind is gentle and
cool. The streets are transformed into lazily slipping, brightly coloured ribbons,
thousands of people, like swarms of ants, leaving the city centre and slowly climbing
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their hills. On all sides smoke rises from cooking fires. Each column that shows against
the sky speaks of a tiny house. Thousands of laughing children run about in the earthen
streets, kicking burst footballs and rolling old tires. When the sun goes down over Kigali,
if you’re sitting on one of the hills surrounding the city and still have the remains of a
soul, you cannot do otherwise than stop talking and watch. (85)
His description highlights the natural beauty of the landscape, as well as the sense of harmony
and community which pervade the scene. There is a strong statement of joy contained within
this commentary, which is simultaneously a compelling invitation to the reader to see and
imagine Rwanda in a new way. While the political construction of Africa in international
rhetoric often emphasizes lack and need, we see here a functioning and even thriving
community, a community which seems to enchant Valcourt all the more as the novel progresses.
Drawn in by the environment, Valcourt finds a sense of connection to this place and a
revitalization of his interests: “he had been deeply moved by the landscape, the hills sculpted by
thousands of gardens, the mists caressing the valley floors, and by the challenge he was being
handed. At last he was going to be really useful, was going to change the course of things. My
life is really beginning, he said to himself” (19). Valcourt’s connection with the landscape and
the people of Rwanda bind him to Rwanda’s fate; his relationship with local Rwandans allow
him to see Rwanda through their eyes, and in this way, he comes to find deep affection for the
nation. This is significant because Valcourt is a war reporter; he has traveled through countless
war-zones and lived in a number of places, but has never felt a connection to space and people
the way that he feels connected to Rwanda: “for all this time, he had had a house but no country.
Now he had a country to defend and it was Gentille’s, Méthode’s, Cyprien’s and Zozo’s. He had
come to the end of a long road and could say at last, “Here is where I want to live’” (182). For
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Valcourt, Rwanda becomes a place he is willing to defend, a powerful statement in the face of an
imminent and all-encompassing genocide. In coming to know and understand the geography and
culture of Rwanda, Valcourt finds a value that he did not expect, and his loyalties shift
dramatically under this change: “my real country is the country of the people I love. And I love
you [Gentille] more than anything in the world. My country is here” (144). Rwanda, a poor,
developing country with complex internal and external tensions, is nonetheless found to be a
place of fundamental value by Valcourt. This representation demonstrates for readers a new
experiential view of Rwanda which fundamentally undercuts the dominant global perception of
Africa as the destination of Western aid and not Western affection.
Valcourt’s connection to Rwanda becomes even more outwardly demonstrable after he
meets Gentille’s family and announces their engagement. It is at this point, as his connection to
this Rwandan community becomes more deeply felt, that he begins to actively protect it by
drawing the attention of the international community to the coming genocide:
I’m starting to ply my trade again. Trying to say what’s hidden behind the bogeymen, the
monsters, the caricatures, the symbols, the flags, the uniforms, the grand declarations that
lull us to sleep with their good intentions. Trying to put names to the real killers sitting in
offices at the presidential palace and the French embassy. They’re the ones who draw up
lists and give orders, and the ones who finance the operations and distribute the weapons.
(116)
He writes to protect Gentille, and Rwanda more generally, awoken from jaded complacency by
the love and connection he feels for this physical space. His attention is not on the low-level
actors in the genocide, but the powerful Rwandan and international actors who acquiesced to
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genocide without consideration of the lived trauma that would cripple Rwanda for years after the
final machete blow.
It seems at times that Valcourt’s love of Rwanda is tied up in his love of Gentille, a Tutsi
woman who works in the hotel Valcourt stays at and who eventually succumbs to his tentative
romantic advances. Valcourt and Gentille are separated as they attempt to leave the country and
she dies soon after the end of the genocide of the rapid onset of AIDS contracted as the prisoner
of a local Sergeant. Valcourt returns to Rwanda to rescue her, but finds her close to death and
unwilling to engage with him. Valcourt’s commitment to Rwanda remains even in light of her
death, and he throws himself into the recovery effort. Courtemanche writes that
Bernard Valcourt is still living in Kigali, where he works with a group that defends the
rights of people accused of genocide. Recently the government, now dominated by
Tutsis, threatened to expel him. When ignorant and slightly drunk foreign journalists ask
him to explain Rwanda, he tells them the story of Kawa. He lives with a Swedish woman
his own age, a doctor who works for the Red Cross. They have adopted a little Hutu girl
whose parents have been condemned to death for their part in the genocide. Her name is
Gentille. Valcourt is at peace with himself. (258)
These lines which conclude the novel demonstrate Valcourt’s commitment to Rwanda as distinct
from his love for Gentille, and demonstrate the possibility of international engagement in
Rwanda on an individual level. Valcourt’s adoption of a Hutu child speaks to his own desire to
aid in recovery, as well as his rejection of the ethnic narratives that characterized Rwandan
discourse in the years leading up to the genocide.
By critically examining Western and Rwandan interactions throughout the colonial and
neocolonial period in Rwanda, Gourevitch and Courtemanche provide readers with a clear
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understanding of the genocide as an event shaped by known socio-political superstructures.
Such writing offers many benefits, particularly as the superstructures which have long limited
Rwandan authority on the international stage remain in place. For Western readers who have
been encouraged to dismiss African voices through subtle and less subtle demonstrations of
neocolonial indifference, these texts examine the historical engagements which established and
cultivated systemic racism. These authors demonstrate a palpable affection for Rwanda which
comes from their active rejection of the narrative tropes applied to Africa, their accurate
understanding of Rwandan history, and their willingness to make connections with local
Rwandans. As Lionel Grossman argues, “evidence only counts as evidence and is only
recognized as such in relation to a potential narrative, so that the narrative can be said to
determine the evidence as much as the evidence determines the narrative” (26). As past histories
and the media coverage of the genocide demonstrate, facts can be omitted or ignored in order to
fit particular social and political frames of reference. In opposition to this trend, both Philip
Gourevitch and Gil Courtemanche forge a new narrative of Rwanda by including Rwandan
perspectives and colonial/neocolonial facts that have habitually been excluded in international
narratives of Rwanda and offer a “challenge to normative history…an enlargement of the picture,
a corrective to oversights resulting from inaccurate or incomplete visions” (Scott 58). The focus
here on broadening historical understandings of Rwanda as a colony and as an independent
nation positions the genocide as the product of complex international forces instead of as
evidence of an innate African violence. The narrative exploration of Rwanda as a physical and
emotional space further help to elaborate international imaginings of Rwanda outside of the
tropes of neocolonial African representations.
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Chapter Four: Exploring Rwandan Identity and Experiences of Genocide
through Literature
It was as if all the pain in the world had found a voice. Yet had I known such pain
was in the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe – I have thought since – I could
have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves
quivering that this pity comes troubling us.
H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau, 38.
The colonial and neocolonial rule of Africa by Western nations maintains control to a
large extent by using literature and public discourse to affirm cultural, political, and racial
hierarchies which naturalize inequality. The colonial mission in Africa required that oppositional
African voices be silenced to create the illusion of acquiescence to European rule. In order to
naturalize European authority in Africa, both for Africans and Europeans, tropes were developed
which conveyed African inferiority through the representation of African identity. Early
representations of African individuals and communities, like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
in 1902, emphasized savagery and violence; later representations, such as Joyce Cary’s Mister
Johnson in 1939, emphasized volatility and ineptitude. What is consistent between these two
novels, and the larger collection of colonial-era writing about Africans, is the positioning of
African individuals as “other,” a framing which has remarkable flexibility while always negating
African authority. Thus, early twentieth-century writings about Africans served a political
purpose by establishing a perceptive framework for European individuals. In the neocolonial
era, these tropes are challenged by the emergence of African voices in Western socio-political
discourse, but continue to frame dominant representations of African identity, particularly in
Western nations.
During the Rwandan genocide, the established colonial and neocolonial tropes of
representing Africans were once again used with a political objective: to quell objections to the
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decision, made at multiple levels of government, to avoid Western engagement in Rwanda. The
coverage emphasized the spectacle of destruction and reiterated the trope of Africans as either
victims or perpetrators of violence. As such, Rwandans were depicted as silent and dejected, or
brazen and aggressive. This framing encouraged compassion fatigue rather than critical
engagement with the facts of the genocide. Rwandan suffering was not made knowable, and the
impact of the genocide on Rwandan communities was not considered information worthy of
broadcast. This means is that for many Western viewers whose understanding of the genocide
relied on media reports and political discussion, Rwanda remains another African country mired
by internal politics and civilian divisions. Thus, a defining moment in Rwandan history, set in
motion in part by the arrival of colonial forces, has become for Western citizens an affirmation
of the colonial notion that Africa is a space of chaos and danger. Predictably, the media did not
return to Rwanda in significant numbers to convey the collective mourning and the massive
recovery efforts of the nation and its conscious and subconscious decolonizing mission to
Western viewers. By ignoring the narrative of Rwandan recovery, the international media served
to reaffirm colonial and neo-colonial notions of Africa and ensured that Rwanda would remain a
space synonymous with genocide rather than productive social recovery.
Many of the collaboratively produced literary texts which explore the Rwandan Genocide
reject the common tropes used to represent the Rwandan experience of genocide. Rwandans
were consistently positioned in the popular presentation as the perpetrators and victims of
genocide and observers to their own recovery. Such representations did little to develop
meaningful understandings of the lived traumas of genocide and post-genocide recovery.
However, as Joan Scott observes, “seeing is the origin of knowing. Writing is reproduction,
transmission – the communication of knowledge gained through (visual, visceral) experience”
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(58). Writing which enables Western readers to fully understand the challenges and victories of
Rwandans during and after the genocide counter the fragmented and dehumanized representation
of Rwandans that have been prevalent in Western media and political discourse since the
colonial era. Literature, with its flexibility of form and narrative structure, as we will see in this
chapter’s examination of a young adult novel, a graphic novel, and a novella, offers a fruitful
space in which to create and recreate experience at length, thereby providing a basis for complex
representations of Rwandan identity and community interactions. Literature, particularly the
novel, long used to naturalize hierarchies for the colonial and neocolonial regime, is employed
by Western writers to add depth to representations of Rwandan identity which circulate in
Western society, while also critically evaluating Western actors in Rwanda. As such, these texts
reclaim the novel as a form of writing which can be used to empower, as well as subjugate,
Rwandan voices.
Many of the texts written about the Rwandan Genocide demonstrate a clear interest in
decolonizing the representation of Rwandan by emphasizing personal experiences and memories
that have consistently been ignored. Affirming the value of the collective memories of others
begins social and political recovery, as “the subject of memory is…a social subject…the
alienation or exclusion of any individual from social memory will be tantamount to both social
extinction and deprivation of identity… testimonial fiction and postcolonial writing are
recognized as important bearers and construction sites of cultural memory” (Crewe 75-76).
Colonial control over Africa resulted in a systematic dismissal of African experience for Western
audiences and the neocolonial era has continued this pervasive disinterest in African voices. The
violence of the genocide has instigated the increased representation of Rwandan perspectives; the
trauma and suffering of the people in Rwanda, and the disproportionate attention paid to Western
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concerns over Rwandan concerns throughout the genocide has demonstrated the imbalance of
representational power and its impact on Western understanding of this conflict. Ann
Cvetkovich, who writes of trauma and public cultures, observes that “trauma puts pressure on
conventional forms of documentation, representation and commemoration, giving rise to new
genres of expression, such as testimony and new forms of monuments, rituals and performances
that can call into being collective witnesses and publics” (7). Certainly, the genocide has
instigated a new interest in the representation of Rwanda for an international readership, in
factual and fictional forms. One such effort was the Fest’Africa: “Écrire Par Devoir de
Mémoire” (“Duty to Memory”) project set up in 1998, during which Nocky Djedanoum invited
ten other Franco-African writers to Rwanda to undertake a creative residency in Rwanda and
write about the genocide. This large-scale project was an attempt to reverse the fact that
“Africans had too often been silent about the events of the genocide” (King vii). This
undertaking asked African writers to respond to the genocide publicly, instigating a discourse
about the Rwandan Genocide which asserted the value of African perspectives. These narratives
have been published and made available to the reading public, although the issue of language
remained a limiting factor for the widespread distribution of texts written in a language other
than English.
The texts produced during the “Écrire Par Devoir de Mémoire” project, like most of the
literary texts that have been published about Rwanda since 1994, are not intended for Rwandan
readers. These narratives taken written form and are intended for global audiences, specifically
those reading in English or French. However, they remain a means of negotiating a new
relationship between Africa and the world. Literature that represents the concerns of Rwandan
citizens during and after the genocide have political potential; “narrative ensures that the
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personal becomes political because literature depicts the joys, sadnesses, and small beauties of
lives that are put under erasure by large-scale politics. Thus telling one’s story becomes an act of
reaching out to others” (Handlarski 71). These texts, written with an active effort to represent an
authentic Rwandan experience during the genocide, educate readers about aspects of Rwandan
identity and the lived costs of the genocide. Moving past the construction of Rwanda as a space
of chaos and death, readers follow the lived experiences of individual Rwandans and come to
understand their individual responses to personal loss and social disorder.
This subject has a political value: “literature as social testimony does not only demand
attentive writing but attentive reading, as well. Active listening and a conscious and attentive use
of imagination and mimesis are necessary in the process of creating narrative transmissions and
transformations of traumatic memory” (Kopf 6). It is precisely because these texts weave
personal and political truths that they can add dimension to a reader’s understanding of the
genocide. Improving comprehension of the complex impacts of genocide on Rwandan survivors
resists the simplification of Rwandan suffering that was so pervasive in Western media coverage.
Jenny Edkins, who studies the interaction between large-scale trauma and politics, writes that
the way in which events such as wars, genocides and famines are remembered is
fundamental to the production and reproduction of centralized political power. However,
memory is central not only to the production of these forms of power but also to their
contestation: certain types of memory, the memory of catastrophic events, for example,
provide specific openings for resistance to centralized political power. Ways of
remembrance then are not only a site of political investment but also a site of struggle and
contestation. What is at stake is the continuing existence of a particular form of power
relation: sovereign political authority. (101)
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While Edkins here considers how memories of national trauma can serve as a means of resistance to
national or governmental political structures, the same argument can be applied beyond the scope of
the Rwandan border. Memory-based texts refute international narratives that dismissed Rwanda as
“small, poor and globally insignificant” (Sciolino) throughout the genocide and have largely
ignored Rwanda since. Representing Rwandan suffering in detail, these texts reveal the belief that
Rwandans are unimportant to be a fallacy borne of Western media practices and political tropes,
and the reticence of international citizens to involve themselves in African politics. The benefits of
this detailed narration are initially cultural and social, but as Edkins suggests, it is possible for there
to be larger political benefits as well related to nation-building and decolonizing agendas; such
possibilities are considered in chapter six. Just as false social narratives within the central European
societies were used to disempower Africans over centuries, the same channels of cultural
dissemination can be used to supplant prejudice and introduce accurate narratives of citizen
experience into wider social and political discourses.
*
There are three specific texts under consideration in this chapter, all of which explore the Rwandan
genocide in a very direct and personal way. In line with the linguistic trend observed earlier, all of
these English texts were originally published in French in either France or Belgium before being
translated for English audiences. Moreover, all three texts were written by non-Rwandan authors
who did not experience the genocide directly, but who had personal knowledge of and interest in
Africa generally or Rwanda specifically prior to the genocide. Broken Memory: A Novel of Rwanda
is a young adult novel written and published by Élisabeth Combres in 2007 in France; Shelley
Tanaka’s translation was republished for English audiences in 2009. Combres was born in Bouches
du Rhone, France, and worked as a journalist covering West Africa and Europe before becoming an
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author of fiction. Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda is a graphic novel written by Jean-Philippe Stassen
in 2000 and published in Belgian, and translated by Alexis Siegel and published in English in 2006.
Stassen is Belgian by birth but traveled extensively throughout the world before settling
permanently with his family in post-genocide Rwanda. The third text, The Oldest Orphan, is a
short novella written by the Francophone Guinean writer Tierno Monénembo in 2000 as the
culmination of his participation in the “Duty to Memory” project. His work was translated into
English by Monique Fleury Nagem and republished in 2004. Conscious of their choice to write
about the Rwandan genocide as non-Rwandans, all three writers chose to adopt a Rwandan
perspective in their work and the narrators and most major characters are Rwandan.
Nigel Hunt, in his work Memory, War and Trauma, states that “creating a coherent story
about a traumatic event is essential to trauma recovery” (117). The benefits of such an effort are not
limited to the author; readers also benefit from the access to lived experiences and a greater
understanding of how individuals and societies reform themselves in the wake of violent clashes. In
reading trauma narratives, Hunt highlights four aspects of the narrative which the reader must be
attentive to in order to understand the traumatic experiences under exploration: the use of sensory or
emotive details, narrative disorganization or fragmentation, interruptions to the temporal context,
and the nature of the narrator’s references to him or herself (119). All of these offer important clues
to the way that the narrators are responding to and recovering from trauma. The three narratives
under consideration here are rich in the authorial details emphasized by Hunt. Despite the fact that
there are three different genres represented by these texts, showing the diversity of possible
approaches to this topic, there are also striking shared concerns evident as well.
All three authors chose child narrators over adult narrators. This narrative frame of
reference deliberately highlights the experience of children during the genocide, and emphasizes the
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destruction of the family, local community, and larger social order. Children are vulnerable
persons; they are at greater risk during genocide because they are less able to protect themselves.
The rapid dissolution of familial and social order is felt most deeply by children, who must struggle
to reassert normalcy in their lives. Child narrators are potentially more sympathetic to readers than
adults, as their role in creating the genocide is minimal to non-existent and the reader may presume
that they are guiltless in genocide. Such a representation could seem a simplistic ploy for the
sympathy of the reader, however, these authors are careful to nuance their characters; these children
do not claim easy sympathy and at times, they are more difficult than adults to organize into simple
categories like “victim” or “perpetrator.” Beyond this, the resolute response of the narrators in the
face of horror demonstrates their personal strength and serves to comment very effectively on the
chances of recovery in Rwanda. While the range of violence described in each text is different, it
should be noted that these authors do not shy away from placing their narrators as witnesses of
extreme violence, nor do they assume that children would be unaffected by this violence. It is
perhaps more disconcerting to hear genocide narrated by a child, and Monénembo’s narrator
Faustin certainly pushes the line in this regard, as he alternates rapidly between vicious bravado and
dejected silence.
A second similarity across these texts is the use of complex character identities. While the
media coverage of the genocide relied on simplistic identifications of the Rwandan population as
either Tutsi or Hutu, which then were translated into subject positions of either “victim” or
“perpetrator,” these texts seem to deliberately push back against such classifications. Two of the
texts address the flexibility of “Hutu” and “Tutsi” in Rwandan culture prior to the genocide and all
three texts take care to show how these two categories have become more political than cultural in
terms of meaning. Perhaps the most compelling exploration of identity categories is the
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representation of those who are both victim and perpetrator. Certainly, each text contains a
character, and in two cases, it is the narrator, who exists in the nebulous space between innocence
and guilt. These representations, while developing the complexity of the narrative, also explore
Rwandan identity politics after the genocide. That these victims who also perpetrate violence are
children challenges the reader to understand how fragile these categories are in a space of genocide.
As might be expected in explorations of a genocidal and post-genocidal society,
fragmentation of the narrative serves both a formal and emotional function. Fragmentation of a
narrative challenges the reader to make sense of information presented with some degree of
incoherence. The narrative fragmentation is indicative of the narrator’s state of mind, and can
suggest trauma even when the narrator seems unaware or denies his or her trauma. Irene Kacandes
argues that
literary texts can be about trauma, in the sense that they can depict perpetrations of violence
against characters who are traumatized by the violence and then successfully or
unsuccessfully witness their trauma. But texts can also ‘perform’ trauma, in the sense that
they can ‘fail’ to tell the story, by eliding, repeating, and fragmenting components of the
story. (56)
Both Deogratias and The Oldest Orphan convey the experience of the genocide through a narrative
failure to clearly explain their experiences. Having to piece together narrative details, the reader is
drawn into the subject position of the narrator, and experiences through narrative form the uncertain
world in which the narrators exist. This intentional narrative failure requires a greater commitment
on the part of the reader, but can provide a richer, more personal understanding of the difficultly of
narrating genocidal experiences. This fragmentation also serves as a functional representation of
the lack of social order in a post-genocide space. As these children attempt to assert order in their
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own lives, they are aware of the lack of order, or the efforts to regain order, in their wider
community. While some structures of public order exist, such as a strong military presence and the
public Gacaca courts, other more basic structures, like functional family units or schools, are shown
to be absent. Thus, the fragmentation of narrative can serve as a representation of the wider social
chaos with which these narrators must grapple.
Finally, all of these texts look beyond experiences of genocide and consider the potential for
individual and social recovery in Rwanda. This is an important narrative effort, as Western media
coverage of the genocide did not cover the recovery process in any significant or prolonged way.
These texts remind the reader that recovery from trauma is a multi-faceted effort that is personal
and social. Boris Diop, who contributed to the “Duty to Memory” project, has suggested that he did
not feel that the five years between the end of the genocide and the writing project was enough time
to attempt a literary approach on the subject (Kopf 2). For him, the experiences of the genocide
needed to settle into the background of everyday life and find a place in the national discourse
before being reconstructed through narrative. However, by offering a commentary on the recovery
of the narrators from the events of the genocide, these narratives attempt to show this process of
integrating the genocide into the narrative of local and national identity. In Broken Memory, this
integration is successful; in Deogratias and The Oldest Orphan, the narrators can find no place for
themselves in a recovering Rwanda, highlighting the reality that the aftershocks of genocidal
violence can continue for an extended period of time and have dire consequences on those who
survive.
Analysis of these texts as a cohesive collection reveals five consistent themes that inform
this consideration of the role of post-genocide literature in instigating productive Western
understandings of Rwandan identity. The first narrative concern is the nature of individual identity,
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both during and after the genocide; second, the impact of violence on family and community
relations; third, local Rwandan perceptions of Western involvement, which explores the actions of
religion, the military, and the international media in Rwanda during the genocide; fourth, the larger
social context of trauma and memory; and fifth, the means and limitations of recovery, both
emotional and judicial. These issues will be discussed in order, considering how each concern is
raised and dealt with in each literary text. It should be noted that each of these areas of narrative
consideration work collectively to refute the representative tropes of African identity which
obscured the complexity of Rwandan suffering during the genocide. By exploring Rwandans as
individuals and communities, these texts offer depth to Western understandings of Rwandan
national identity and challenge the political structures, in particular the imperialcolonial/neocolonial divide, which have long limited African representation.
*
The issue of identity and subject position in genocidal societies becomes one of the utmost
importance. During the Rwandan genocide, victims were identified by numerous sources:
government issued identity cards, lists generated by local Hutu militias, and ethnic stereotypes,
broadly applied. Regardless of how Tutsis were identified, it remains true that Tutsis were the
targets of concerted violent efforts by Hutu militants. News stories during the genocide offered up
this simple binary as an explanation for the genocide, casting Tutsis as victims and Hutus as
perpetrators. However, human actors rarely fall into such simple categories. While such a stringent
view of good and evil may seem accurate on the surface, narratives of the Rwandan genocide have
troubled this type of binary by putting forward characters who do not fit easily into either category.
In order to provide compelling stories for the reader, “it is necessary to distinguish the different
positions and contexts of encounters with trauma” (Kaplan 2). This is particularly true in the case
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of the Rwandan genocide, as the colonial identity categories of Tutsi and Hutu became well-known
and generally misunderstood monikers applied to the citizens of Rwanda. Societies recovering
from mass violence and serious socio-political fractures need to ensure that all experiences are
accepted as part of the local and national narrative of lived experience. Hunt accurately warns that
“it is difficult to generate political inclusivity in collective memory after a civil war” (110), but in
the case of genocide perpetrated by citizens against citizens, it is only by including all into the
collective memory that practical divisions might begin to fall away. This process begins with the
narration of a single experience, permitting the reader to explore the world from the narrator’s point
of view. It is not only the narrator’s words that shape their identity, but the way they locate
themselves in relation to others: “the positionings of the self in personal narratives indicate the
performance of identity” (Hunt 45). The very act of narration can serve as a basis for the
interpretation of character and identity. As these narrators are not neutral but instead are influenced
by their experiences, their style of narration provides insight into how they locate themselves in the
wider social environment. Additional characters demonstrate the complexity of defining ‘victim’
and ‘perpetrator’ in post-genocide Rwanda, and therefore challenge the reader to question the
usefulness of such theoretical identifications.
Combres’ Broken Memory explores multiple victim positions. The narrative centers on the
character of Emma, who witnesses the murder of her mother and flees into the Rwandan
countryside, wandering until she is taken in by Mukecuru, an older Hutu woman who lives alone.
The opening lines of the text introduce the genocide, and particularly Emma’s experience as a
witness to her mother’s killing: “they are there. Behind the door. They are yelling, singing,
banging, laughing. Mama’s eyes are wide with fear. Soon she will be nothing more than suffering
on the ground. Cut up and bleeding. Then, finally, set free by death” (15). This introduction to the
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narrative demands that the reader engage with the explicit violence of the genocide. By prefacing
the introduction of the character with the character’s perceptions, the reader is asked to understand
Emma within the context of her immediate reality. This moment is the only direct representation of
the genocide in the text, as the rest of the narrative is set in post-genocide Rwanda. However, this
short chapter, set alone on the first page, also takes the form of a testimony, describing the sensory
details of the moment of her mother’s murder in a way which sets up a clear perpetrator/victim
binary. “They” are dangerous, perpetrators without feeling; “Mama” is a victim, a person in the
process of becoming only “suffering on the ground” (15) with her personhood revoked. Emma’s
own identity for the reader hinges on this moment, as it becomes a central fact of her identity and
one which she labours under throughout the narrative. The present tense of the narrative begins in
chapter two, and it is here that Emma’s character begins to take a clear shape. The opening line
serves to connect the past and the present: “Emma woke up with a start, exhausted by the same
nightmare that she had almost every night” (17). Despite the passage of time, although it is not
made clear how much time, Emma remains haunted by the memory of her mother’s death, thereby
emphasizing that in trauma, the past remains a poignant part of the present. Emma is isolated by
her experiences, or, more accurately, she isolates herself from others in her adoptive community,
and develops a quiet daily routine with Mukecuru. Emma is a simple victim; she is a Tutsi who
escapes murder through her mother’s protection. She is burdened by the severity of what she has
experienced, but while she is withdrawn from strangers in her community, she is supported in her
slow recovery by her adoptive mother. Her suffering, deeply painful, is the suffering of someone
who has been victimized and must find a way to incorporate that pain into a functional social
identity.
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As a novel for young readers, not surprisingly it depicts the protagonist as easily identified
within the binary of victim/perpetrator. However, the character of Ndoli is more complex,
challenging the reader’s understanding of guilt and innocence. Ndoli, also a survivor of the
genocide, remains far more traumatized than Emma. When he is introduced into the text, Ndoli is
“wearing rags spattered with mud, his head bent, his arms glued to his sides and his fists pressed to
his stomach. As if he [is] holding himself together, afraid of seeing his body fall apart in pieces”
(31). Such a description suggests that, indeed, Ndoli is a victim of the genocide; certainly, his
physical and emotional tensions are aptly brought to the fore here. His rags suggest that he lacks
parental support and his alienation from those around him, including Emma for the first half of the
text, demonstrates that he is not yet able to form trusting relationships. Interestingly, Ndoli’s
outward behaviour is shown to shift over the year, and he is most deeply haunted by his memories
of the genocide during April, the official month of commemoration in post-genocide Rwanda:
“every year at the same time, the young boy would lose a grip on reality. He stopped going to
school, no longer went back home to his aunt, his only remaining relative. He turned into a kind of
wandering monster, eaten up with guilt and madness that became a little more rooted in him each
year” (49). In demonstrating this shifting burden, the author encourages the reader to recognize that
being a victim of the genocide is not a static identity, but rather one that can change radically over
time and under specific circumstances. This small point is valuable particularly because the
simplistic construction of African victimhood is so pervasive in Western media; asserting the
complexity of victims of the Rwandan genocide requires readers to recognize the fallacy of Western
media and political simplifications.
Ndoli is a complex victim because the burden of the genocide changes for him as the society
around him changes; commemorations bring his memories to the fore, while at other times he is
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able to control his memories and attempt a life of normalcy. However, the nature of Ndoli’s trauma
also marks him as a complex victim. Deeply buried in the narrative, and revealed slowly to the
reader, Ndoli’s genocide experience is not one of witness so much as traitor, a dubious designation,
but a self-assigned one that the character is unable to escape. Ndoli was a resident of Bisesero, a
noted location of resistance during the genocide, although the civilian resistance to the militias was
eventually overrun. During the battle of Bisesero, which lasted weeks, Ndoli was captured and
tortured until he gave up the location of his family and members of his community to the militias.
Badly beaten, he escaped only to witness the violent murder of his entire social community. He,
like Emma, eventually finds someone to care for him, but his reintegration into Rwandan society is
hampered by his own sense of guilt, as well as the reproaches of those who know of his role in the
battle of Bisesero. While he is far harder on himself than others, he is consistently identified as a
perpetrator rather than a victim, and so exists on the margins of the recovering Rwandan society.
The categorization of perpetrator, in the context of Ndoli’s experiences, seems unfair to the reader,
and so demonstrates how one can be simultaneously a perpetrator and victim of the same conflict.
This precarious social position, although it improves within the context of the larger social
recovery of Rwanda, remains a defining feature of Ndoli’s identity. Emma, who shuns social
contact, becomes interested in Ndoli and seeks out his friendship. Despite the label of perpetrator,
Emma can see that she and Ndoli have a similar response to the horrors of the genocide: “it was
reassuring to have Ndoli there, lurking in the background. He’d shown her that someone could be
interested in her, even watch over her for an entire night. And even if his past made her shudder,
she knew that they shared the same pain” (65). The friendship which develops between Emma and
Ndoli demonstrates the power of shared understanding to bridge past experiences and affirm human
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connection. By making these characters understandable to a Western audience, Combres lays the
groundwork for positive and honest understanding between Western and Rwandan citizens.
The protagonist of the graphic novel Deogratias is Deogratias, a young teenage boy
identified in the text as a Hutu, but who, prior to the genocide, rejects the increasingly political
rhetoric of ethnicity embedded in his education. He has strong relationships with Tutsis in his
community, specifically with Apollinaria and Benina, two school friends whose mother is also a
Tutsi. The heavy use of flashback in this narrative allows the reader to witness Deogratias’s
character before the genocide. He proves himself to be a good-natured young man, playful and at
times, disobedient, but always mindful of keeping others happy and safe. He is in love with
Apollinaria, although he later sleeps with her sister Benina when Apollinaria spurns his clumsy
advances. Moments after their first sexual experience, Deogratias and Benina learn that the
President’s plane has been shot down, and his first response when several Hutus knock on his door
is to protect Benina by hiding her in the closet. Despite her protests and frustration at being held
away from her family, Deogratias refuses to let her leave his room, seeking to protect her even as
she demands to be released.
Deogratias is a complex character. He is not a victim, nor is he tortured into cooperating
with the militias who swept through Rwanda. However, he becomes a perpetrator under duress and
certainly against his instincts. The announcement of the shooting of the President’s plane comes
over the radio is accompanied by the rhetoric of the Hutu Power movement: “Rise up, brothers!
Rise up and go to work! Sharpen your tools, pick up your clubs! This race of cockroaches must be
eliminated” (58). Deogratias dismisses this invocation to violence, and immediately begins to plan
for Benina’s safety. As the first of the Hutu militias begin organizing, Julius, a Hutu extremist
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known to Deogratias, arrives at his door with a group of men and several knives and clubs,
demanding Deogratias’s compliance:
Julius: Take your stuff and come, we have work to do. We’re setting up a roadblock in
front of the Umusambi Hotel.
Deogratias: I don’t take orders from you, Julius.
Julius: Watch it, Deogratias. Everyone knows you like Tutsi pussy. Show the true
colour of your blood. (59)
This dialogue highlights two important discourses that shape the definition of victim and
perpetrator. Julius does not ask Deogratias to join his militia; rather, Deogratias is ordered to join in
the “work” (59) that is about to begin. It must also be stated that Julius does not speak as an
individual, but for the powerful roving militias that did the majority of the killing during the
genocide. Deogratias admirably attempts to stand up to this figurehead of ethnic violence, asserting
his own authority and rejecting the call to arms. What follows is a complex statement in which the
discourses of ethnicity and national duty are intertwined. Julius’ warning to “watch it” (59) carries
a heavy weight; in the first days of the genocide, the rhetoric of the Hutu Power movement was at
its zenith, insisting that it was the duty of every devoted Hutu to fill the rivers with the bodies of
Tutsis (Des Forges, “Call to Genocide” 48). To show hesitation on this issue was seen as proof of
complicity with Tutsis, and was likely to mean a swiftly-enacted death sentence. Julius’ command
to “show the true colour of your blood” (59) naturalizes the ethnic tensions and turns Deogratias’s
resistance into a failure to live up to his national duty as a Hutu.
The implicit threats, and Deogratias’s young age serve to mitigate his identity as a
perpetrator, and the text is coy in its representation of his crimes. His actions are never stated
directly, although the reader can make inferences. As this is a graphic novel, there are also brief
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images of violence that shape the reader’s understanding of what occurs in front of the Hôtel
Umusambi. After the genocide, Deogratias is not arrested or considered a perpetrator, although it is
clear that he is traumatised by his experiences of genocide and feels himself to be a perpetrator. He
meets Bosco, an RPF officer, after the genocide has ended, and Bosco comments on Deogratias’s
continued freedom: “We’re not going to lock you up now…You’re not all guilty, you lot. And you,
you poor crackpot, you’re not suspected of anything in particular. Besides, the jails are full, there’s
no more room” (17). While his crime has been publicly overlooked, his own sense of guilt defines
his existence. His reaction to his role in the genocide is compelling; Bosco’s mention of “no room
for dogs” (17) refers to the fact that Deogratias, in the present tense, transforms visually into a dog
and loses all ability to think or act rationally when he is overcome by memories of the genocide or
his sense of guilt. As contact with others tends to trigger his transformations, he is wilfully isolated
in his society, wearing ragged clothes and sleeping in a church yard. In this depiction, Deogratias is
a self-defined perpetrator, forgiven or dismissed by others, but unable to forgive himself.
The final novel under consideration, The Oldest Orphan, explores the impact of the
genocide on the main protagonist, Faustin. As this novel, like Deogratias, relies heavily on
flashback and fragmented narrative, it is possible to see the pre and post-genocide Faustin as two
distinct characters which, in relief, reveal a great deal about the way that genocide changes identity.
The text opens with a striking narrative voice:
My name is Faustin, Faustin Nsenghimana. I’m fifteen years old. I’m in a cell in the
Kigali central prison. I’m waiting to be executed. I was living with my parents in
the village of Nyamata when the advents began. I can’t keep from thinking back on
those days. And each time I do, I tell myself I had just turned ten for nothing
[Emphasis in the original]. (6)
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This statement locates Faustin within the larger social context of his life and the directness of his
commentary is startling, particularly his statement that he is awaiting execution at fifteen. This
statement also identifies the genocide as an event long over, even if the recovery is still ongoing.
Such identification helps to give shape to the fragmented nature of the narrative, as it establishes a
clear five-year timeline in which most of the novel’s events will occur.
Pulling together the remembered thoughts, feelings, and actions of the pre-genocide Faustin
is not a simple task, particularly because the present-tense narration of fifteen year old Faustin is
unreliable and deeply cynical. However, in his memories of the days leading up to the genocide,
Faustin recounts asking his father “‘Father Théoneste, tell me, am I a Hutu?’ I wanted to make
absolutely certain…‘It’s good to know who you are, right? Especially in these times’” (85). In
asking this question, his concern over his own identity is made clear. His father explains the
custom of ethnic identity passing from the mother, which makes Faustin a Tutsi despite his father
being a Hutu. Upon hearing this, Faustin “rush[es] over to see the Brazilian nuns” (85) who live in
his village to ask “‘Mother Superior, since God is magnanimous, do you think He’ll be willing to
protect me when the killings start?’” (85). These questions reveal a child deeply concerned with his
identity and aware of the impending threat of genocide. Despite the fact that both adults assure him
of his safety, he remains unconvinced, fearful that his Tutsi ethnicity will eventually make him a
victim.
When the Nyamata village church is attacked and he flees, Faustin is aware that the social
chaos has simplified identity categories into either victims or perpetrators, and it is precisely this
confusion that makes him afraid to come into contact with others: “in one village I would have been
called génocidaire and in another, informer [Emphasis in the original]” (56). While neither of these
designations are appropriate for Faustin, his concern over the perception of his role in the genocide
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demonstrates his awareness of the binary identity politics of the genocide. Faustin, hiding in the
forests, is captured by a young RPF soldier and taken back to the RPF camp to be questioned. The
assumption is made that because he was hiding, he is a génocidaire. When Faustin questions the
young soldier about his assumptions, the soldier explains “‘everyone is [a génocidaire]! Children
have killed children, priests have killed priests, women have killed pregnant women, beggars have
killed other beggars, and so on. There are no innocents left here’” (23). Such a statement
powerfully summarizes the chaos implicit within Rwandan civil society during the genocide; the
scale of the violence pushes authorities to see all civilians as dangerous. Faustin is soon released
from the RPF camp once it becomes clear that he is not a perpetrator. Indeed, he commits no
crimes of genocide in this text, although he is a witness to much violence. This role of witness
changes Faustin dramatically over the course of the novel, although the reader must work to see the
character’s response to the genocide develop in a linear way. By the close of the narrative, Faustin
is in prison and narrates his story as if he is impervious to emotional weakness. Claudine, an aid
worker who looks over Faustin at various points in the novel, bursts into tears upon learning of his
death sentence, while Faustin remains imperturbable:
I had witnessed lots of things the three years after my twelfth birthday. But that was
too much. I wanted to jump in her arms and cry with her. That must be what love is. To
cry, openly, and sincerely this time. Only, not a single tear came to dampen my eyes. I had
lost that habit as I had lost the habit of swimming, trapping tree squirrels and ground
squirrels, or washing my hands before meals. (71)
Faustin’s present identity has been fundamentally changed by his efforts to protect himself from the
very real threat of violence. Far from the innocent questions of a fearful child, Faustin is a victim so
hardened by what he has seen and felt that he becomes a threat to the efforts of recovery, both his
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own and in a larger social context. Escaping the genocide, Faustin becomes a victim of social
chaos, a position from which he lacks the skills to escape.
All three texts contain simple and complex identity positions as a result of the genocide.
While simple victims like Emma, or simple perpetrators, like Julius, are more easily understood by
the reader because they conform to standard tropes, many Rwandans emerged from the genocide
not as guiltless victims but as complex victims or complex perpetrators. Even witnessing the
violence of the genocide is shown to be a powerful force of change for several of the characters,
often with violent consequences. The value of this spectrum of identity for readers should not be
underestimated; news reports maintained a simple binary that linked ethnicity with guilt or
innocence, constructing a false vision of the way that genocide altered identity formation in
Rwanda. These texts undercut simplistic rhetoric and reveal the variety of ways that citizens can be
affected by large-scale social violence. These characters are nuanced individuals even before the
genocide, and they respond to the chaos of their societies in different ways. Fleshing out the lived
experiences of these characters ensures that the consequences of the genocide are mapped onto
complex individuals rather than flat ethnic generalizations, as were so common in Western media
representations. By creating complex characters, these texts allow readers to productively consider
the impact of genocide at the level of the individual.
Complex representations of the individual’s response to genocide takes on even greater
meaning when developed within a social context. All three texts contain protagonists who are
orphaned at some stage, and so are more reliant on communal, rather than familial, care. This
interweaving of the individual and the social performs another important task: serving as a rebuttal
to the media reports that ignored the impact of the genocide on communities in favour of depicting
the sheer scale of violence and death in Rwanda. Susan Moeller, commenting on the trends of
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representation during the genocide, asks, “tired of the bodies tossed by the roadside? Take a look at
the bodies bloating in the rivers. Tired of the bodies in the rivers? Take a look at the bodies
decomposing in the churchyard. The permutations were endless. And the graphic portrayal of
horror, like the acts themselves, was ratcheted increasingly higher” (301). The sensationalism of
the genocide coverage drew attention to the history of other conflicts within Rwanda, but did not
spend significant time reporting on the way that the genocide influenced the communities under
attack. Images of the dead and suffering were broadcast far more regularly than intact families and
communities. Reports created a sense that families had been obliterated and that larger social
structures no longer existed. Their absence fell neatly in line with colonial and neocolonial
assumptions that Africa was without order, the font of perpetual chaos.
*
This issue of the visibility of functioning social supports and a wider social fabric is essential in
genocide, both in the media coverage and in the literature. Writing on memory and war trauma,
Hunt observes that “low perceived social support is seen as a predictor of traumatic stress. If a
person experiences a traumatic event and they do not perceive that they have good social support,
then they are more likely to be traumatised than if they perceive that they have good social support”
(3). Media representations of the genocide consistently positioned Rwandans as simple victims,
isolated by the destruction of normal social order. While genocide literature represents this same
reality, these texts also demonstrate the protagonist’s need for social connections in order to survive
and begin recovery from the genocide. Emma, Ndoli, Deogratias, and Faustin have all lost family
and friends, and carry the burden of that loss, but they also attempt to connect with others and
reform a functional and supportive social network. In these narratives, the complexity of mourning
personal loss in the midst of widespread social destruction serves to affirm the value of these
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familial and communal structures in pre-genocide Rwandan society. These texts demonstrate the
real importance of Rwandan communities to the people of Rwanda, particularly during recovery
from the genocide.
Ann Kaplan states that “trauma conflates or blurs the boundaries between the individual and
the collective” (19), and this is true both for those who observe and those who experience trauma.
The coverage of Rwanda in the spring and summer of 1994 teemed with people whose identities
had been whittled down, first by the militias and Interahamwe and second by the media coverage,
the status of their victimhood. Individuals faded into the background, replaced by restless crowds
and the bodies of the dead. To observers, Rwanda became a place of horror and suffering, and of
victims hunted by killers. This pervasive victimhood made the experiences of any one individual
impossible to discern amidst the chaos. However, Rwandans also experienced this in their own
lives during the genocide. As families and communities were separated or killed en mass,
individual identity fell away. This loss of identity is demonstrated by several of the characters, and
they begin to understand themselves in generic ways shaped by the new communities they enter
into. In exploring the ways that these characters redefine themselves post-genocide, it becomes
possible to understand the full weight of the social chaos that these survivors bear, and the recovery
which they have become enacted for themselves.
In Broken Memory, Emma is rendered an orphan when her mother is murdered in the
opening chapter. She flees, with others, into the forests of Rwanda, travelling alone within a crowd
that slowly dwindles until she is alone, “walking between the dead bodies that blackened the fields
and the roads” (18-19). Very much alone, and a child of five years old, she eventually turns to a
stranger for help. However, she is careful in this decision, watching an old woman’s movements
“for two days from her hiding place in an empty old chicken coop. Finally, something about the
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woman’s gentle movements made her cast caution aside and approach her” (19). Notable is the fact
that a young child demonstrates such a clear understanding for the need for prudence in her actions.
Despite a practical need for care, Emma resists forging a new connection in order to ensure her own
safety first. Interestingly, the text also explores the larger social context of this rescue; “the old
woman was a Hutu peasant, so she was not in danger. But by protecting the little girl, she was
condemning herself to death” (20). Emma’s request for food is far more complex than she
understands at the time, as Mukecuru places herself in danger in order to support the little girl. This
narrative detail serves to remind the reader of the real dangers undertaken by Hutu Rwandans who
did not support the genocide and protected those targeted by militia attacks. Far from only victims
and killers, Mukecuru stands as one of the many Hutus who did not support the Hutu Power
objectives, and were themselves trapped between binary identity positions.
Emma’s relationship with Mukecuru is one of subtlety. This woman watches over Emma
with quiet concern but Emma is withdrawn and reserved, explaining little of what is on her mind.
Emma is also very reticent to enter into relationships with others in the community, despite having
been there for nine years. Emma’s first prolonged interaction is with Ndoli, a young man
traumatized by the genocide. This relationship is founded on their mutual recognition of pain and
fear, a powerful connection between them. Early in their relationship, Emma sees the men who
killed her mother being taken to Gacaca court, and falls into a non-responsive state. While others
try to rouse her, and fail, Ndoli watches over her throughout the day, reminding her by his presence
that comfort is available. This act of care is motivated by their shared sense of trauma; although
they have very different experiences of the genocide, they labour under trauma in a similar way.
What is compelling is that a shared vulnerability becomes the basis of their relationship; “Emma
knew that she, too, troubled Ndoli deeply. That night he had spent at her side had opened
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something up in him, had somehow broken through the fog of his existence. When that truck
passed and she fainted, he had recognized the demons that were so similar to the ones that haunted
his own days and nights” (53). These two characters, who understand their role in the genocide
differently, nonetheless forge an intimate bond on the basis of a shared sense of social isolation. In
part, this isolation is self imposed as a mean of avoiding the ethnic tensions that remain in the
community. At one point, Emma is approached by a stranger and warned:
They say you live with an old Hutu,’ she said, her voice low and threatening. ‘What
are you doing with her? She’s one of them, one of the assassins. Don’t you know
that?’...‘And who’s to say she wasn’t denouncing others at the same time she was hiding
you?’ she went on, her voice raised. ‘It happened often’… ‘Be careful, girl,’ she said, her
voice low once again. ‘Look around. The murderers have come back. (37-38)
This woman’s commentary, shown to be baseless in the text, remains as evidence of the continued
fear felt by Rwandan citizens years after the genocide. Of particular note here is the fact that this
woman relies on the language of the genocide and perpetuates her own sense of social mistrust and
insecurity. Thus, this text demonstrates the necessity of developing new communal relationships in
order to recover from the violence, while simultaneously depicting the challenge of excising fear
from communities torn apart by ethnic rhetoric.
Unlike Emma, Deogratias from Deogratias has no home or family to return to after the
genocide. He begs for food and beer from those who knew him before the genocide and sleeps in
the destroyed local churchyard. The use of flashback ensures that the change in Deogratias’s life is
notable. Prior to the genocide, Deogratias is shown to have a wide circle of friends: Rwandan,
European, old, young, Hutu and Tutsi, Deogratias is shown to be central to, and centered by, his
community. He attends the local school, works as a casual errand boy for a French sergeant, is
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involved in the church, and tours the newly arrived priest Brother Philip around the local
countryside. Deogratias is friendly and engaging, and most of all, proud to educate others about
Rwandan customs: “this evening, Brother Philip, I’ll take you out to try Urwagwa. You really have
to taste banana beer if you want to understand our culture” (9). This version of Deogratias,
accessed through memory, is nowhere to be found in the present narrative of the text. In the
present, Deogratias alienates himself from nearly everyone in his community and shuns contact
with others. He is traumatized by his role in the genocide, as well as the horror that he witnessed,
and it is clear that he no longer trusts those around him. He meets Serg, a French sergeant stationed
in Rwanda in the early days of the genocide who has returned for a vacation, at a local tavern and
after handing him a beer, warns him: “Sergeant, you shouldn’t drink from a bottle that’s already
been opened…because you never know if someone’s poisoned it. You know, people here like to
poison their fellow man” (6). This references a Rwandan custom of sharing beer in order to be sure
that it is safe to drink, but in this context, it also serves as an indication that Deogratias is no longer
the open and trusting individual he used to be, and is now suspicious of those around him.
Deogratias has no means of re-establishing a community because he does not trust anyone.
The memories of the genocide are powerful for him, and he runs from social situations when
overcome with emotion and confusion. In these moments, he becomes even more ragged and wild
looking than usual, and in some moments, turns into a dog completely, a device which signals his
break with humanity and self-esteem. This graphic signifies a complex narrative that is woven
throughout the text; at the onset of the genocide, Deogratias witnesses French soldiers shooting the
dogs eating corpses left on the street in the wake of violence. This image is one which stays with
Deogratias, and he links the barbarity of the genocide with the perceived barbarity of the dogs that
ate human bodies. His transformation from boy to dog symbolizes Deogratias’s sense of his own
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lost humanity. Thus, Deogratias’s social exile is a self-imposed penance for his crimes, and one
which precludes any chance of a supportive social network. What is particularly interesting is that a
few characters reach out to Deogratias, offering companionship, if not friendship. However, he
shies away from any emotional relationship, demonstrating for the reader that while some
communities can be repaired, collective recovery is also an issue of individual recovery, which
takes place in its own time, if at all.
In The Oldest Orphan, Faustin witnesses his parents’ murder and loses his siblings in the
chaos of his escape. However, Faustin’s admiration for his father, as well as his need to invoke
memories of his past life, prompt him to repeatedly restate the lessons taught to him by his father.
Made to feel young by an RPF soldier, his “father’s famous words came back to [him]: ‘Beards
aren’t everything, you know! If that were the case, then the billy goat would be the wisest one in
the village’” (21). Asked to lie about his experiences of genocide by Rodney, the international
reporter, he remembers his father’s words: “‘Lying and Truth are the first inhabitants of the earth.
Truth is the older brother but since Lying is more gifted, well, he’s the one who runs the world.
Don’t you ever forget that, kid’” (63). In these instances, and there are several others in the text,
Faustin turns to the lessons of his father to direct his actions, demonstrating the importance of
family for him in the wake of the genocide. When first running from the attacks, Faustin meets
Funga, the local witch doctor, who warns Faustin of the value of companionship and community in
the face of large-scale violence. His logic, while grim, is apt advice to a ten-year old boy hoping to
survive the genocide: “I repeat, come with me! You’re safer with a group; before they can reach
you, they have to exterminate those around you. It’s better than to be all alone’” (8). This
statement emphasizes the practical protection afforded by a crowd, but Funga’s warning also speaks
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to the emotional support derived from social interactions, and stays with Faustin throughout his
short life.
Faustin, while adopting the glib tone of a teenager in his narrative, nevertheless does
repeatedly attempt to re-establish a family for himself. Early in the narrative, while on the run,
Faustin is discovered by an RPF soldier and taken back to RPF headquarters. Because he was
present at the attack on Nyamata, he is a person of great value to the RPF, and is treated with care
and respect at the makeshift headquarters. His testimony is recorded and “the chiefs got interested
in my lowly person” (26). Being a young boy, recently orphaned, and receiving care after weeks of
traveling alone, Faustin understandably latches onto this place, insisting “I had found a new family.
There’s nothing I’d have liked better than to end my days there” (26). However, he mistakes
protection with love, an error which is quickly corrected when he is released to fend for himself
once again. Faustin travels to Kigali, where he falls in with a group of orphans who roam the city in
search of food and money, and who live in an abandoned building project. The building becomes
known to the children as HQ and the unofficial head of the group, Musinkôro, “actually look[s] like
a schoolteacher or the head of a family, not like a gang leader” (29). In this new family, the
children organize themselves into roles, and provide for the collective as best they can:
The girls were supposed to look pitiful enough to move the rich pedestrians yet dressed in
clean enough outfits that, if the opportunity presented itself, they could slip between the
sheets of some lecher loaded with dough. And the boys, besides their jobs as shoeshines or
porters, were supposed to stash in hiding places all the food or jewellery they could pinch
without getting caught. At night the oldest would make the rounds of the hiding places, and
we’d bury our loot in a hole we’d dug under the avocado tree. The girls would cook while
we’d entertain each other with jokes and smoke grass or sniff glue…Those were happy
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times, among the best in my life. In fact I rarely thought about my parents. It was an
ordinary life, fulfilled and orderly, and it distracted us from thoughts of the past or the future
(32).
The casual nature of this explanation reveals both the significant efforts these children are making
to survive, and the escapist nature of this space. Faustin says this is an “ordinary life” (32) when it
is clear that it is far from the ordinary life he had when his parents were alive. His acceptance of the
circumstances of survival emphasizes his strong desire for normalcy and order, and most of all, for
a stable collective unit to belong to.
When HQ is broken up, Faustin is taken by Claudine to Una, an Irish nun who runs an
orphanage called the City of Blue Angels. This space marks the third home that Faustin tries to
create for himself. This orphanage frustrates Faustin, who has become used to complete
independence at HQ. It also holds a mystery which stresses Faustin to no end, which is the
absolutely unbearable hysterical weeping off and on, day or night, coming from the girls’
wing…the cries were so intense they scared us more than the bursts of thunder coming from
the bowels of the tin mine next door. No one could ignore them…According to those who
had seen them, there were three (three girls, or else two girls and a boy, depending on the
person’s eyesight). They had been wandering through the brush among the wild cats and
monkeys when an old priest found them. They were in such a state of hysteria and
malnutrition that they had to be bottle-fed and then they were locking in a windowless room
for fear they would break the panes, for fear they would set fire to the dormitories, for fear
they would eat the Hirish woman alive…They had been here a year and they never set foot
in the halls, had never discovered the vegetable garden or tried to play on the swings! (3839)
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His response to this suffering is interesting; he is frustrated by the cries of these other children, but
does not clearly link their suffering to the genocide which he also experienced. Whereas his
character is hardened by the violence he witnesses and the life he lives to survive the lack of social
order and familial control, these children appear fundamentally trapped by their experiences and
unable to move past the first onset of horror. While Faustin uses the collective “us” (39) to describe
himself at the orphanage, these children are isolated and unable to find any community outside of
themselves.
When Faustin runs from Nyamata, he believes himself to be a solitary orphan. His sisters
and brother were taken by the neighbouring Brazilian nun hours before the Tutsis of Nyamata were
ordered to the local church and massacred, and Faustin never assumes their survival. However,
when he catches a glimpse of these three isolated children, he recognizes them immediately and
faints before having a seizure. This moment of recognition, as experienced by Faustin, is itself a
trauma:
I broke the director’s glasses and hurled the metal chair where they usually kept my phials
and my tablets as well as the compresses used to mop up my sweat, and I screamed so loud
I could be heard a half-day’s march away. ‘One of them is named Esther, the other
Donatienne! The little boy, that’s Ambroise! They’re my brother and sisters. My brother
and sisters, you idiots. (42)
As a boy without family or a strong social connection, there is a certain desperation in this moment
of claiming. These children connect Faustin very intimately with his home and memories of his life
before the genocide, and his desire to be near them is nearly overwhelming. However, they do not
recognize him and in their trauma, see him only as a threat. He is held at bay by their terror, in a
position to reclaim his family if only he can recover their memory of the world before the genocide.
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This is a compelling moment, as Faustin can only help his siblings by recreating a semblance of
their familial experience, even as he has failed to help himself in this same way.
Faustin is initially unable to calm the children, and they shriek in horror at being approached
by a stranger. However, Faustin does not give up, racking his brain to find a way to connect with
his siblings through memory:
That’s when I remembered the lullaby our mother used to sing to us. Ambroise alone
reacted; the others, knowingly averting their bulging and bloodshot eyes, carried on with
their horrible wails. I threw my arms open wide as Mother use to when she’d return from
the fields with ripe avocados and delicious passionfruit juice. He curled up in a ball like a
kitten and began to sob, but finally let me kiss him. I walked around rocking him, trying my
best to imitate Mother’s voice and gestures. The sobs became less frequent. He snuggled
against my chest and a minute later was sleeping like a log. No doubt contagion spreads; the
girls, now quiet, were watching the whole thing with the kind of curiosity I had when there
were love scenes on the TV screen at the Fraternité Bar! I stopped humming the lullaby and
began to pray to all the powers I could think of: Imana and the Holy Spirit, the rock of
Kagera and old Funga’s charms. I hoped they’d all pool their miracles together to sustain
forever the calm now reigning. (43-44)
The obvious pleasure Faustin feels at having calmed his siblings is a compelling reminder of the
value he places on family, and the kind of solace that he has been seeking, however well hidden by
bravado. In adopting the role of parent, he comforts his siblings; in recreating home in their
presence, he comforts himself. His desperate prayers to Rwandan, Christian, and magical deities
suggests his acute awareness of the lack of authority he can count on in his life, and the value that
he places on the “calm” (44) of being with family. This emotionally compelling family reunion
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reminds readers of the simple needs of recovery, and the momentous obstacles, social, political, and
practical, which make communal recovery so difficult.
Faustin, pragmatic, glib, and at times, caustic, is deeply changed by the recovery of his
siblings. He remains at the City of Blue Angels with more patience than he had before he reclaimed
his siblings. He also indulges in a complex fantasy in which his parents return to life and the Rock
of Kagera, which Funga said was purposely unsettled by colonialists to undermine local faith, is reset into place. This fantasy suggests his desire for higher authorities and structure in his live. In
this fantasy, the traditional festivals resume and the banana harvest is followed by games and
challenges between his cousins and himself. He watches over his sisters until they marry and he
imagines the marriage ceremony and the celebrations that follow. He imagines that he is a powerful
warrior and has twelve mistresses (46). It is compelling that Faustin’s fantasy-life is dedicated to
re-establishing social order and taking his place as the patriarch of his family, as these are aspects of
communal identity that he lacks in his real life. In this vision, he is in control, respected in his
community. He is powerful and loved. The recovery of his family is the cause of this vision, which
can be seen as the beginning of a new identity path for him. His actions to this point have been to
recreate the family, but with his siblings recovered, he begins to dream about recreating a
community in which he is the man his father was.
Once the children are more generally recovered, Faustin takes them from the orphanage to
the city of Kigali, anxious to exercise his new identity as patriarch. His motivation is clear: he
believes that his siblings are recovered from their trauma, and he wants to leave the City of Blue
Angels, which is filled with suffering victims. In rationalizing his actions, he thinks “I’d finally be
able to give Ambroise the ball he’d been wanting. Children have this advantage: they have no sense
of tragedy. Life is still a game even in times of disasters” (57). It is notable that Faustin does not
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include himself in this category of children, as he is still very young and carries his own burden of
trauma, although he ignores it. However, by going to the city, he can begin providing for them as
his father had. However, being in the city has its own stresses; Faustin is hyper protective of his
family, and particularly his two sisters, who attract the attention of men in Kigali:
The first time I learned about that was when I was with my sisters in front of the Caritas
Bookstore. Lewd faces appeared behind picture windows, motorcycles tooted, cars abruptly
put on the brakes when they got near us…Without my noticing it, Esther and Donatienne
had become women. A gnawing anger mixed with an incomprehensible feeling of shame
took hold of me. These fevered looks directed at their bodies reminded me of a swarming of
caterpillars on a newborn’s back. That was the day I decided to have a gun too. (51)
This young boy is determined to defend his sisters as he imagines their father might have. Faustin
rarely acknowledges how the genocide impacts his choices, but it is clear to the reader that his
defensiveness and the method of protection he chooses are, in part, responses to the violence he
witnesses during the genocide. He settles into a routine with his family at HQ, which is once again
filled with orphan children, and for a short time, his life is complete.
Part of Faustin’s identity as the patriarch of his family is providing for their needs, and to do
so, he travels with a reporter for days at a time, leaving his siblings in the care of HQ. However,
upon returning home after an extended trip with Rodney, he discovers that his fears have come true:
I lit a candle and went toward the corner where my brother and my sisters used to sleep to
make sure they were there…It’s strange, I had never thought about it before, but as soon as
he said that, I knew instinctively what I would discover a few seconds later: Esther naked on
a straw mattress and Musinkôro sprawled on top. I aimed at the hoodlum’s head and fired
until I ran out of bullets. (69)
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This is a defining moment for Faustin for several reasons. Having witnessed a great deal of sexual
violence in the days and months of the genocide, Faustin makes the presumption of violence in this
instance, and fires on his friend Musinkôro without hesitation, choosing protection of family over
loyalty to anyone. The language here is also notable; Faustin calls Musinkôro by name, but then
refers to him as “the hoodlum” (69) when describing the shooting. This demonstrates Faustin’s
sense of insecurity in his relationships; people can be friend and enemy in the same breath.
Violence is his first response in this situation, and the zealotry of his reaction is evidence of his
desperation to protect his family, regardless of how his actions might influence his own future.
Finally, Faustin is repeatedly helped by Claudine, a Rwandan aid worker who takes a
particular interest in him. He initially presumes her interest in him is sexual, and entertains a
fantasy of love for her, but he is also resentful and difficult with her when she tries to guide his
actions. It is she who most directly advocates for the importance of community, reminding Faustin
of the Rwandan proverb that “he who thinks he can do without others will die!” (35). Moreover,
she chastises him for remaining in the fabricated community of HQ instead of attempting to reestablish ties with survivors from his home community in Nyamata. Her words position individual
recovery within a larger collective recovery, and introduce the idea of duty into Faustin’s recovery:
How long ago did lightning strike? Six months, nine months, a year! That’s plenty of time
to find out who’s dead, who’s not, who was able to flee, and who’s in jail!...That doesn’t
give you the right to isolate yourselves! If you don’t need others, others need you.
Isolation, that’s the source of our woes. Here, everyone withdraws on a hill as if the
neighbours had eyes in the middle of their foreheads…Take that any way you wish, but I
don’t have the right to leave you alone! (36)
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Claudine’s speech is a reminder of the heavy reality Faustin must face if he is to reintegrate himself
into any functional community, but she also inverts the system of recovery, reminding Faustin that
he has the potential to aid in the recovery of others, as he does for his siblings. Despite the bravado
which he routinely demonstrates around Claudine, she is his most consistent friend, and Faustin
broods over his behaviour, fearful that she will grow tired of his resistance and leave. He admits “I
was afraid of losing her. It’s like that, even when you’re irredeemable, even when you’re in hell,
you need someone as a link to the world” (52). Despite his insistence that he needs no one but
himself, Faustin is indeed reliant on community for his practical and emotional survival. His youth
and need blind him to the distinction between congregation and community, but he consistently
fabricates families in order to reassure himself of his place in post-genocide Rwanda.
All three protagonists are profoundly affected by the loss of their families and communities,
and strive, in different ways, to allay the absence of structure in their lives. The fact that this
personal loss takes place within the wider chaos of Rwanda means that there is little formal support
for these children to fall back on. However, Emma and Faustin find help in a variety of places and
re-form communities, however temporary and fragile they might be. What is significant about this
representation is precisely that both simple and complex victim positions are shown within their
wider social context rather than alienated and alone. These texts remind the reader that while
genocide hacks at the fabric of society, it cannot destroy all bonds of community and loyalty.
Genocide heightens the value of connection as a means of survival and protection, and these
depictions emphasize both the dynamic social structure of pre-genocide Rwanda, and the need for
communal connection in all efforts to recover from the genocide. Far from presenting isolated
victims outside of their larger social context, these narratives explore the impact of genocide on
individuals and communities, revealing that survival and recovery are made increasingly possible
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within a social context. These varied representations also assert the productive social networks
which existed prior to the genocide and which are under reconstruction in the lives of each of these
characters.
*
One of the most dominant themes in the media coverage of the genocide was the depiction of actors
from the West as the heroic saviours of the Rwandan people. This, as Melissa Wall points out, was
juxtaposed by representations of Rwandans as disempowered victims or unfeeling villains. Such a
dynamic reifies the traditional colonial and neocolonial representation of Africans more generally.
However, these three narratives undertake a bold objective in representing to Western readers
Rwandan perceptions of the Westerners who were in Rwanda throughout the genocide and
recovery. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o reminds readers that “what immediately underlies the politics of
language in African literature…is the search for a liberating perspective within which to see
ourselves clearly in relationship to ourselves and to other selves in the universe” (87). Literature in
the colonial era served as a means of affirming inequality between Africans and Europeans, but
increasingly, literature has been used as a mediating space between distinct cultural identities.
While the media coverage of the genocide was dominated by Western actors, literature which
adopts a local perspective attempts to represent Rwandan perceptions of Western intervention.
Such representations are a valuable challenge to the simple binary which first brought the genocide
to the attention of the world in 1994. By empowering Rwandan perspectives, these texts challenge
the hierarchical discourses which have limited representational authority to those with the upper
hand in the colonial and neocolonial exchange.
Across the texts under consideration here, there are three specific categories of Western
aid represented: the religious, the military, and the media. Authors avoid simplistic inversions of
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good and bad in order to make political points. Rather, these intersections between cultures
comment as much on the institutions as the individual characters represented in the text. By
emphasising the Rwandan perception of external actors, the texts demonstrate a respect for
Rwandan perspectives. Because these texts are aimed at English-speaking readers, they give
readers a rare chance to consider Western actors from a non-Western perspective. As a political
tool, such depictions have the potential to undercut the tropes which position Western actors as
capable and inherently heroic. Generally, there is an assumed altruism that accompanies the
phrase “Western Aid” but these depictions show that such aid can take many forms and is rarely
without cost to the locals.
Combres’ Broken Memory does not address the issue of Western aid in any direct way
but the reader is shown the exodus of foreigners of various nationalities when the violence
begins. As part of Mukecuru’s larger explanation of the causes of the genocide to a confused
Emma, she explains “how the whites had left the country” (69) to avoid the genocide. While
their engagement with this issue is fleeting, this statement reflects the racial bias which protected
whites while ignoring Rwandan desires to escape the coming genocide. As this is a book for
young readers, it is likely that Combres avoided wider political discussions in order to convey
Emma’s more personal story of loss and recovery.
The graphic novel Deogratias focuses its representation on military and religious figures.
Representing the French military is a sergeant stationed in Rwanda at the onset of the genocide
who returns after the genocide as a private citizen for a vacation. Both before and after the
genocide, Serg, or Boss, as Deogratias calls him, demonstrates a notable callousness in his
dealings with local Rwandans. When a school bus is pulled over by the Sergeant and a small
local force of men, Apollinaria questions why they are held without reason. Serg’s response is
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aggressive: “You don’t see us fucking things up in your country, do you…Shut it sweetie.
You’ll talk when we tell you to and everything’ll be all right” (23). This textual moment is
heightened by the image accompanying it; the Sergeant holds Apollinaria’s face as he snarls at
her. Serg’s caustic tone is echoed by his bitter sense that he is responsible for dealing with a
mess created by Rwandans. This sense ignores the very real impact of colonial imposition on
Rwandan definitions of ethnicity; by ignoring history, Serg is able to maintain a sense of
superiority over those it is his duty to protect. His demand for Apollinaria’s silence is also
compelling because she is challenging his authority as a black woman. In the midst of the early
hours of the genocide, Serg finds Deogratias trying to escape the Hutu militias and shouts “Good
damn savages! Even when you’re among your own you’re at one another’s throats! …Well, if
he wants to get butchered by the others, it’s his business” (72). Stassen’s use of the term
“savages” (72) as well as the implication that Rwandans are inherently violent with one another
exposes Serg’s colonial-era assumptions about Rwandan identity, and reflect a common
discourse about Rwandan identity in Western ideology. Serg’s ugly attitude compels readers to
recognize the ways in which the discourse of Western aid can function as a cover for Western
racism; as Western involvement in Africa is typically portrayed as heroic, Serg’s character
reminds readers of the dangers of generalizing about Western, as well as Rwandan, identity.
When Serg returns to Rwanda as a civilian, he demonstrates fundamental callousness.
He runs into Deogratias and without a word about Deogratias’s survival or state of mind, he
comments
Holy shit! Deogratias, check out those two bitches….Man, those Tutsi girls! You
know what I mean, right, Deogratias? That’s what I missed the most…And it’s such a
shame, when you think about it. All those beauties who won’t be sharing their soft little
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things with anyone anymore. All those sweet pieces of ass hacked to bits with
machetes…What a waste! (2-3)
His statement, crude and shockingly self-involved, undercuts the severity of the genocide by
focusing solely on what he has lost in the deaths of 800,000 people. While he is a representative
of the French soldiers in Rwanda, Serg’s language is closely reminiscent of the violent sexual
rhetoric of the Hutu militias as they swept through the Rwandan countryside during the
genocide. That he says these things openly on the streets of Rwanda demonstrates his lack of
interest in national recovery, as well as a more fundamental disrespect for Rwandan women. As
a reflection of non-Rwandan military actors, Serg embodies the arrogance of colonial authority
as he dehumanizes most of the Rwandans with whom he has contact. His conversations with
Deogratias and the impudence of his behaviour in Rwanda exhibit insensitivity to the personal
and social costs of the genocide. As evidence has proven that the French army were both
training and supplying arms to the Rwandan militias in the days before the genocide, this
representation also reveals the hypocrisy of the belief that in this conflict, the Rwandans were
alone in practicing horrific brutality.
Stassen scrutinizes religion in this text through the characters of Brother Prior and
Brother Philip. Brother Prior is a long-time resident of Rwanda and the leader of the local
church, while Brother Philip arrives in the build-up to the genocide as a second church minister.
Brother Prior is more complexly situated in the local community because of his time in Rwanda,
but it is made clear that he has strayed from his role as a religious leader here. Deogratias, upon
being scolded for a minor trespass, accuses Prior: “everybody knows Venetia was your mistress!
And everybody knows you’re Apollinaria’s father!” (12). While Prior does not confirm this, it is
made clear later in the text that this is true, as Prior was responsible for saving Venetia from one
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of the early massacres of Tutsis in the years before the genocide. As Prior’s internal world is
never revealed in the text, it is not clear whether this relationship is sexual, emotional, or both.
However, as the genocide draws near, Prior’s limited devotion to Venetia and his daughter
Apollinaria is revealed. Hutu militias approach the church, which is sheltering local women and
children, and Brother Prior deters the men from attacking, reminding them of the sanctity of the
church. However, moments later, Brother Philip and Brother Prior are shown in a truck, leaving
for the border. In this frame, Prior rationalizes his decision, explaining “You are young, Brother
Philip…and although I know you love this country…I also know that you haven’t experienced
the soul of its people long enough to know just how dark it can sometimes be” (61). This
suggestion that Rwandans have a particular propensity for violence directly echoes the
assessment of early colonial visitors to Africa, and in this situation, is used to justify Prior’s own
questionable actions. This scene reminds readers of how easily racism can be mobilized to evade
questions of moral and political significance, and demonstrates the value of interrogating
generalizations which enable simple excuses to complex issues.
When Philip and Prior meet Venetia, she is shocked to find that her two children are not
with Prior. Parked on the border and about to escape the threat of death, it is Venetia and not
Prior who turns back to seek the girls. Instead, Prior makes excuses about why he left
Apollinaria’s fate to be decided by the waiting militias surrounding the church. As a father and
as a man of God, Brother Prior is an important character; he becomes a symbol of failed religious
promises and protection. As the history of the genocide is replete with religious figures who not
only permitted but at times aided the militias in their hunt for Tutsis, the author shows that
Brother Prior cares more for his own safety than those he would profess to care for in Rwanda.
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He also relies on stereotypes of inherent darkness and violence, and suggests to Philip that with
enough time, he too will come to understand these “facts” about Rwanda.
Acting as a foil to Prior’s callous disregard for those he has lived with for more than
twenty years, Brother Philip is deeply concerned about the survival of the locals he has briefly
come to know, although he does leaves the country with Prior at the onset of the genocide.
Philip marks himself as particularly interested in Rwanda even before he arrives, struggling with
the language on the plane and happy to be taken around the city of Kigali by Deogratias upon
arriving. When asked by Brother Prior about his sense of Africa, Philip responds “well, I still
haven’t seen anything, but…the air feels so light…It’s wonderful to be here” (9). This positive
impression and his interest in learning about Rwandan culture marks him as notably different
from other Westerners presented in the text. When the genocide begins, Philip takes the young
daughter of Venetia’s friend Augustine abroad with him, choosing to keep her safe rather than
leave her with Augustine, who is murdered shortly after. Most importantly, Brother Philip
returns to Rwanda after the genocide, and seeks out those he knew during his short stay. In a
notable contrast to the character of Serg or Prior, Philip demonstrates genuine concern over
Deogratias’s tattered clothes and strange behaviour, and also asks after Venetia, Apollinaria, and
Benina, all of whom died during the genocide. In this way, Deogratias demonstrates a range of
Western actors and offers criticism as well as praise in the depiction of Western responses to the
genocide. While the military is represented very negatively, the religious characters are more
nuanced and demonstrate a less aggressive prejudice against Rwandan citizens. For readers used
to seeing these figures as stabilizing forces in foreign nations, particularly in situations of chaos,
these depictions convey the need for a more nuanced considerations of military and religious
involvement in foreign spaces. Here, Rwandan perspectives of Western actors provide a
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valuable opportunity for self-refection on the real value of such one-sided involvement in other
cultures and societies.
In The Oldest Orphan, the role of religious actors and the Western media come under
scrutiny. There is also a more general comment about the colonial forces in Rwanda offered by
Funga, the witch doctor who guides Faustin immediately after the massacre at Nyamata. Despite
the chaos of this moment, he pauses to asks if Faustin has ever heard of the legend of the Sacred
Rock of Kagera, to which Faustin replies, “‘a thousand times, Funga: no one must move the
sacred rock of Kagera! The whites knew that when they deliberately moved it. That’s why they
conquered us, and that’s why there are catastrophes’” (9). In this moment of destruction, Funga
is anxious to ensure that Faustin understands the history of Rwanda and moreover extracts a
promise that Faustin will “put the rock of Kagera back in its place one day!” (9). This is an
interesting exchange, as it emphasizes the colonial context of the genocide, which has been
under-represented to Western readers. Affirming the value of Rwandan culture, Funga reminds
Faustin that overcoming the destruction of the present can only occur by embracing traditional
Rwandan beliefs. Later in the text, Faustin comments on the role of Western actors in his
society, saying “it’s hard to talk with whites; our worlds were made as if the feet of one were the
head of the other. They’re francophones, belgeophones, or swissophones. But all we speak is
Kinyarwanda. Hutus, Tutsis, Twas, everyone speaks Kinyarwanda” (55). This is an interesting
comment which evaluates the disparate cultures which have arrived in Rwanda, and compares
them to the single culture that unites Rwandans. Faustin is critical of the fundamental lack of
communication between Rwandan and non-Rwandan individuals, and his simplistic observations
convey the enormity of the failed discourse between Rwandan and Western actors. While
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Faustin speaks literally, it is evident to the informed reader that his evaluation is astute; there is
no effective communication between these cultures, even as they live and work side by side.
Monénembo deliberately positions Una, the Irish nun who cares for Faustin after the
genocide, and who reunites him with his siblings, as representative of the role of Christian
religion in Rwanda. That Faustin is suspicious of her from the outset, and complies with her
orders only to please Claudine, is telling. Somewhat ironically, Faustin states: “I’m not saying
she wasn’t nice, Miss Human Rights. But her country was unknown under our sun, and frankly,
we were better off without her” (38). He has a strong sense that she is foreign and thus, not to be
trusted, which reflects more generally on the behaviour of Western visitors to the country that on
the perception of religion in Rwanda. His sarcasm towards her work with the poor is
demonstrated by the mocking moniker “Miss Human Rights” (38) and suggests a frustration that
his country needs foreign aid to survive. After leaving the City of Blue Angels with his siblings,
when Faustin tries to buy a gun, his friend Sembé assumes Faustin wants the gun in order to steal
the operating funds for the orphanage from Una. When reflecting on this possibility, Faustin
decides “I don’t like the Hirish woman much, but I would never do that to her. If I weren’t so
ungrateful, I should be calling her Mama” (51). While he never directly thanks her for her
efforts on his behalf, this statement demonstrates the role that she has played in his recovery.
The brief suggestion of sentiment is one of the few moments in the text when Faustin admits
need or dependence. Beyond Faustin, the text makes clear that Una’s work is providing a
valuable place for orphans to recover from the genocide and begin to plan their next steps.
Religion, represented as a social force after the genocide more clearly than before, is shown in
this text to be generically well meaning.
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The author’s representation of the media in this text is compelling and damning. While
religion is shown to be a force of potential recovery, the media is interested only in capturing
trauma. The character of Rodney is introduced into the narrative after the genocide has occurred
and while Faustin in living at HQ with his siblings. Rodney bounds onto the scene, brash and
self-involved. Introducing himself to Faustin, he explains his journalistic work:
There’s an earthquake in Columbia and Rodney’s there. A strong monsoon in India, and
here comes weird Rodney and his strange gear. A massacre in Somalia, they call
Rodney. Rodney is everywhere there’s trouble. Rodney is a doctor who arrives hoping
things are even worse. And as you can see it, Rodney’s fit as a fiddle. Ha! Ha! (59)
Rodney is seemingly unaffected by the horrors he has witnessed and dispatched back to his
producer, and his casual approach to work is summed up in his own words: “‘Pierre’s tears?
Honey for Rodney’” (59). When asked why he is in Rwanda so late after the genocide, Rodney
explains that “I come only when I’m called. And this time no one called me” (59). This
comment is a barbed commentary; the genocide was largely ignored by the media and there were
only a handful of reporters on the ground in Rwanda at any point during the genocide. The
Oldest Orphan is heavily critical of the way the media engaged with Rwandan trauma, and
Western readers are encouraged, through the character of Rodney, to recognize the detachment
from human suffering that is enabled through the use of narrative tropes.
Rodney has been hired by news services to cover the genocide and he is delighted at the
prospect of three weeks of work. He hires Faustin as a local tour guide and the pair set off to
record the impact of the genocide on the Rwandan population. However, this working
relationship itself demonstrates Western disinterest in the lives of Rwandans post-genocide.
Having hired a whore at the local bar, Rodney dismisses Faustin, saying:
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You can see I don’t need your company anymore. Now that you’re rich, go wherever
you want to, sniff your glue or stick a needle in your arm. Do it to your heart’s content,
just don’t do it where I can see you. It’s not morality making me say this. It’s so I won’t
have anything to reproach myself for in case you croak. (61)
This callous disregard for Faustin and the prejudicial assumptions explicit in this statement are
evidence of a media bias that Monénembo develops over the course of the novel. What is
particularly clever is that Rodney, the man sent to get images and narratives in order to make the
genocide more understandable for Western viewers, is himself disinterested in the lives and
suffering of those around him. He does not care, for example, about Faustin’s particular
difficulties; rather, he spends his off hours, much like Serg from Deogratias, indulging in the
attention of local prostitutes. As a representation of the moral character of the media, Rodney
epitomises an enterprising neocolonial spirit who takes what he needs and avoids accepting any
responsibility for those around him.
What these representations of Western actors in Rwanda demonstrate is the danger of
engaging tropes to understand individuals. Western actors have long represented themselves as
heroic and socially productive forces in Africa, while positioning African identity as a foil, a
binary opposite. Here, in the post-genocide literature of Rwanda, binaries of all kinds are
rejected and individual characters are used to explore the range of Western actors involved in
Rwanda, prior to and after the genocide. Readers are encouraged to see that social occupations,
be they militaristic, religious, or journalistic, do not determine identity, just as racial identity
does not determine identity. In adding complexity to the literary representation of Western
actors who played a role in the Rwandan Genocide, these texts remind readers of the dangers of
presuming that social designations can accurately indicate individual identity. By valuing
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Rwandan perspectives of Western actors, these texts allow the periphery to comment on the
centre, channelling a socio-political commentary which is an asset for Western readers who wish
to engage more knowledgeable in cross-cultural politics.
*
The role of memory in genocide is complex. To remember is to remember horror; to forget is to
forget the world as it was before the genocide, as well as to forget the means by which survival is
possible. As Duncan Bell reminds us, “forgetting is not simply a violation of a duty to the dead,
it also endangers the future” (23). Recovery, both individual and national, requires the
experiences of genocide be integrated into larger personal and social narratives. The traumatic
nature of genocide can influence the ways that the self, others, and the world is understood. Of
trauma, Hunt states that “traumatic stress is fundamentally different to ‘ordinary’ stress, in the
sense that there is a fundamental rift or breakdown of psychological functioning (memory,
behaviour, emotion) which occurs as a result of an unbearably intense experience that is life
threatening to the self or others” (7). Hunt explains that trauma often becomes embedded in the
mind to ensure that, if encountered again, the same trauma could be survived, although a
prolonged state of trauma is also likely to cause lasting damage to the psyche. There are three
ways of coping with stress: withdrawal, suppression, and processing (Hunt 8). All of these
reactions are evident in the protagonists of the texts under discussion, even as these children
actively work to construct personal narratives about their experience of genocide. This act of
narration is a representation of trauma as much as a reconstruction of experience.
Discussing the relationship between individual agency and narrative, Bamberg and
McCabe state that “people strive to configure space and time, deploy cohesive devices, reveal
identity of actors and relatedness of actions across scenes. They create themes, plots and dramas.
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In so doing, narrators make sense of themselves, social situations, and history” (iii). Evidence of
constructions in progress occur when an individual’s actions and narrations are at odds with one
another. This can suggest an unresolved internal conflict or confusion over the disparate
worldviews that exist in the aftermath of any large-scale violence. Memory and the construction
of identity through memory also has larger social implications, as personal memory is “central to
the construction of individual and collective identity” (Duncan Bell 2). Social recovery requires
that all perspectives are heard and respected, and so the proliferation of individual narratives and
multiple subject positions become particularly important. As “memories of trauma are,
potentially, a mode of resistance to a language that forgets the essential vulnerability of flesh in
its reification of state, nation and ideology” (Edkins 100), individual narratives of the genocide
can take on a larger political significance.
In Broken Memory, as the title would suggest, forgetting is initially used as a means of
protection. Emma’s mother orders Emma to forget the scene she has yet to witness, knowing
that the crowd on the doorstep promises impending violence: “slide behind there, close your
eyes, put your hands over your ears. Do not make the slightest move, not the slightest noise.
Tell yourself that you are not in this room, that you see nothing, hear nothing, and that
everything will soon be over. You must not die, Emma!” (17). However, Emma does not forget
glimpses of her mother’s murder and is haunted by this memory, even while she cannot
remember her mother’s face or name. For this reason, Emma has shifting emotions about the
role of memory in her life. Early in her recovery, she is bitter about her identity as a survivor
and cannot see the purpose of her life given the horror she witnesses as a five-year old child. She
gives voice to this pessimism, saying “the ones who survived, they might as well be dead, too”
(36) and “not caring whether Mukecuru heard her” (36). In part, she is at war with her mother’s
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final words; she has not moved beyond the moment of her mother’s murder, but is compelled by
her mother’s command to survive at any cost.
As Emma’s adoptive community begins to hold Gacaca courts in order to determine the
guilt and innocence of those involved in the genocide, Emma witnesses several men being
brought to the court and recognizes the voice of one of the men. This voice brings up the
memory of her mother, evidence of the degree of reflexivity between the past and the present in
Emma’s mind. She feels “a sharp pain cut through her chest. She trie[s] to run” (39) but instead
collapses on the ground. In this moment when memory surges over her, Emma withdraws from
her surroundings and returns to her moment of genocide:
The real world faded around her as the roar of the assassins, their blows, the pain of her
mother and her own terror took shape. Then, just as she had done that night, she took
shelter against a nearby wall, crouching down and burying her head in her arms. A few
women tried to lift her up, children poked her to make her react. But it was no use. So
little by little, life carried on around her, and her huddled figure eventually blended into
the peaceful countryside at the end of an ordinary day. (39-40)
This passage juxtaposes the brutal impact of these memories on Emma with the normalcy of the
world around her in this same moment. In part, this demonstrates the complexity of experiences
of genocide; Emma’s panic is fundamental to her experience of this moment, while others are
unaffected. The severity of her response is also important, as it demonstrates how memory can
transform functional into non-functional. Emma cannot be reached at this stage of traumatic
remembering, so deeply is she reliving her initial trauma. The final image of Emma, “blended
into the peaceful countryside” (40), is suggestive; there is a sense that the world around her has
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recovered, or begun to recover, from the genocide, and that Emma can find safety in the
landscape even when she does not find it in her interactions with others.
As the narrative progresses and years begin to pass, Mukecuru consults a local doctor
about Emma’s lack of recovery and gently pushes Emma to see the doctor to help her with her
nightmares. While Emma is distrustful of him, her confidence is won over because he expects
no disclosures from her. Instead, he speaks of his own experiences as a Tutsi during the
massacres of 1963, 1973, 1990, and 1991. It is this active narration of trauma that serves as the
foundation to Emma’s recovery, as she begins to see the historical framework, however horrific,
of the 1994 genocide. The doctor also stands as a model of recovery and proof that beyond
traumatic memory, recovery is possible. However, Emma refuses to discuss her mother’s death
with anyone until she happens across a drawing done by another patient: “Emma could just see
the blood running off the page and over the edge of the desk to form a bright red pool on the
floor. That’s when she grabbed a fistful of pencils. It was her turn to try to tell her story” (100101). It is not until she engages with the trauma of others on a shared visceral level that she is
able to being to process her own experiences. Her expression is not without cost; once she
begins to draw, she “let the voices, the beating, the crying come back , and she pictured the crime
in her head. What she saw was unbearable. Her breathing speeded up, then stopped. She
thought she was about to drown when the old man’s voice broke into her nightmare. ‘Tell me
what you see, Emma. Don’t keep it to yourself’” (104). This is the moment that Emma’s
recovery begins; this act of narrating, in visual and verbal form, is an act of identification as well.
The doctor’s urging to share her memories is also an encouragement to reconnect to her
community. Through these small narratives, readers are shown that large-scale recovery is
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possible, as shared expression eases the burden of memory that weighs on all survivors and
within the collective memory more generally.
In Deogratias, memory is emphasized by the formal structure of the narrative. The
shifting between timeframes is initially difficult to track until the borders of each image frame
are inspected; memories have no border while events in the present are lightly bordered in black.
Memory intrudes into the present tense narrative consistently, a demonstration of the
fragmentation of the narrator’s mind and his inability to weave one coherent story out of his
experiences. One of the most consistent emotions in Deogratias’s present is rage; in postgenocide Rwanda, Deogratias fixates on those he blames for the violence. Each of these people
played a specific role in the genocide, and as Deogratias is trapped by memories, these figures
loom large for him. In the present, his anger is directed at local characters like Bosco and Julius,
who propagate politically loaded discourses and are themselves trapped by the fact of the
genocide. Bosco, a member of the RPF, clings to a precolonial myth of Rwanda as a country
without any ethnic tensions or divisions, which is inaccurate, but allows him the satisfaction of
blaming the genocide entirely on Western intrusion rather than Rwandan politics. While colonial
influence had a massive impact on the politicization of ethnicity in Rwanda, Bosco’s ideal of
historically harmonious ethnic identity is a construction rather than a reflection of reality. Bosco
takes false comfort in his imagining, as it allows him to believe that the genocide does not reflect
Rwandan identity, but rather, Western influence alone. Conversely, Julius, a violent member of
the Hutu power movement during the genocide, continues in the present to speak hatefully about
Tutsis and advocate the return of genocidal practices. He pressures Deogratias into joining his
efforts to reinitiate public violence, and while Deogratias refuses, he is also deeply unsettled by
this influence. Finally, Deogratias is troubled by Serg, who has returned to Rwanda and speaks
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in ethnically loaded sentiments, sexualising and denigrating Tutsi women. It is Serg who
troubles Deogratias the most, in part because he seems unable to openly challenge Serg’s
rhetoric or shake the pseudo-friendly attention that Serg pays to him. However, even the
memory of Serg prompts repeated outbursts of “Bastard! French piece of shit!” (24).
What is notable about these three characters is that they all rely on the genocide-era
rhetoric of ethnicity to understand post-genocide Rwanda. This suggests a shared failure to
recover from the political moment of the genocide and develop new, non-ethnic definitions of
Rwandan identity. As these three characters are the only community left to Deogratias, their
political discourse traps Deogratias in the past and leaves him no outlet for discussions of his
personal trauma. Although recovery is dependant on coherent personal narratives, Deogratias
has no one with whom to share his memories and explore his trauma, and so he withdraws from
those around him. In part, these failed avenues of recovery demonstrate to readers how
important collective recovery is to the individual, as well as how important individual recovery
can be to the greater collective.
Deogratias is trapped by his memories of the past, and at times, he is only faintly aware
of the world around him. While Deogratias’s transformation into a dog is intended to visually
represent the onset of his memories of the genocide, others in the text witness it as well and their
response is often mocking. Remembering his earliest advances towards Benina, prior to the
genocide, he seems oblivious to the taunts of “Arf! Arf! Hey, Deogratias, doggie! How’s it
going? Still see too many stars?” (14) from passing schoolchildren. As the reader understands
the importance of these memories in defining Deogratias’s pre-genocide identity, this type of
taunting seems callous, but the children cannot understand his trauma because he is unable to
vocalize his thoughts and feelings. The text emphasizes the importance of collective
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understanding and shared experiences in recovery, but shows that even when recovery is
underway within a community, individuals can find it difficult to claim a place in their society.
The novel delays the revelation of Deogratias’s memories of the genocide until the end of
the narrative, as his terror while a dog grows. As some local children throw stones at him, he
begins to panic and relive some of his memories of the genocide, revealing them to the reader for
the first time: “my head’s spilling out into the day: the insides of bellies are blending into the
inside of my head…and sharp, sharp, blades plunge into women’s genitals…” (53). This
statement, striking in its violence, does not clarify Deogratias’s role in this memory, but does
begin to express the violence that Deogratias is wrestling with. More importantly, this
declaration marks a shift in the narrative as it prompts more visceral memories and more erratic
behaviour by Deogratias. The novel makes clear that his contact with Bosco, Julius, and Serg
unsettle Deogratias, making it harder for him to contain his memories of genocide. However, it
is the return of Brother Philip that forces Deogratias to face his actions most directly. Asking
after Venetia, Apollinaria, and Benina, Deogratias is thrown back into the earliest moments of
the genocide, and begins to narrate his experience: “We had done good work. Our roadblock
was here, in front of the hotel” (70). It becomes clear that despite Deogratias’s resistance, Julius
successfully pressures Deogratias to join the Hutu militants on April 6 th, the first night of the
genocide. The use of the word “our” is notable, as Deogratias rejects Julius’ earlier attempt to
recruit him with the words “I don’t work for you, Julius” (59), which establish a clear division
between these two individuals. One of the victims at this roadblock is Augustine, a friend of
Deogratias. When Augustine asks Deogratias where Apollinaria and Benina are, Julius begins to
brag of their murder:
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Julius: “What? The two little whores?...The black one, Deogratias had already fucked
her, so he left her to us. But the mulatta, he kept her pussy for himself. That’s the kinda
guy Deogratias is: he likes refined stuff!”
Deogratias: “Julius, stop.”
Julius: “Aw, c’mon, Deogratias, don’t be modest. You did good, that little whore got
nicely fucked. And the best part is, the little whore was a virgin!...Ha! Ha! The whore
was a virgin!”
Augustine: “Deogratias, what is he saying?”
Deogratias: “Augustine, you don’t understand”
Augustine: “You filthy dog!”
Deogratias: “They forced me, don’t you see?” (71)
This is a powerful confession, and a moment when Deogratias, a clear victim of the genocide, is
also identified as a perpetrator. Like the character of Ndoli, Deogratias defies the simple
distinction between victim and perpetrator and becomes a perpetrator under duress. While it is
clear that there were other victims at the roadblock, Deogratias is devastated by his complicity in
the rape and murder of two close friends, particularly as he and Benina had had consensual sex
for the first time hours before. This scene also reveals the inception of Deogratias’s sense of
being a dog, as Augustine demarcates Deogratias’s failed humanity with the expression “you
filthy dog” (71). As a young man surrounded by forces he cannot resist or understand,
Deogratias can find no way of redeeming himself after this moment. Although he tries to
explain to Philip “they wanted to die…I loved them” (74), it is clear that he feels his guilt as a
fundamental aspect of his life post-genocide. Augustine’s reaction to the splayed bodies of
Venetia, Apollinaria, and Benina is one of rage and horror, and to silence him, Julius murders
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Augustine as well. It is at this moment that Deogratias resists Julius and refuses to be involved
in anymore violence. Because Augustine functions as a voice of reason amidst the wild violence
of the moment, ultimately enabling Deogratias to escape Julius’ authority, Augustine’s murder
weighs heavily on Deogratias as well.
Deogratias is defined by his own guilt, precluding the possibility of a future. This guilt
marks Deogratias as distinct from other characters in the text who perpetrate violence and
survive without evidence of remorse. Julius, Bosco, and Serg all witness and are complicit, to
some degree, in the violence of the genocide, and Deogratias has no doubt about their guilt. In
an effort to right the balance of good and evil in his world, Deogratias channels guilt into
revenge. Although it is not clear until the end of the text what he has been achieving with each
visit, Deogratias travels to each of the people he believes to be guilty and poisons them through
the ritual of sharing banana beer. In his rapid confession to the astonished Brother Philip,
Deogratias explains
for the sergeant, he’s white, so it was easy…I just put the poison in the beer bottle. He
didn’t worry that it was already opened…For Bosco, I had to play it smarter: I had to put
the poison in the empty bottle I’d brought to take Urwagwa to go. He tasted and after I
left I emptied out the rest of the bottle. For Julius…. (69)
What is clear to the reader is that Deogratias, unable to coherently narrate his experiences and
without any productive social supports, cannot move past the violence of the genocide.
Moreover, that violence is beginning to spill over into the present. In killing Serg, Bosco and
Julius, Deogratias tries to exact retribution on those who continue to propagate divisive rhetoric
within Rwanda. This can be seen as a misguided attempt to regain social harmony by rejecting
those who represent social discord. His confession, which begins spontaneously when he re-
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encounters Brother Philip after the genocide, suggests that he wants to explain his actions, and is
an attempt to convey the personal coherency of his recent choices. However, even to Brother
Philip, his narration lacks sufficient context; Deogratias is not able to annunciate the deeper
reasons why he feels that needs to earn absolution through violence because he still cannot face
his complicity in the murder of Apollinaria and Benina. For readers, this text emphasizes the
need for personal and social coherence in order to begin recovery. Deogratias, who lost his sense
of personal identity when forced to perpetrated violence against members of his own community,
lacks the support required to reconcile his pre and post-genocide self. Those around Deogratias,
similarly caught up in the ideology of the genocide, only increase the fragmentation of his
identity. Deogratias’s failure to recover has a detrimental impact on his own life, as well as the
lives of those around him.
The Oldest Orphan is a complex text because Faustin’s narrative tone makes him hard to
trust. Faustin adopts a protective bravado in the aftermath of the genocide, which makes him an
unreliable narrator. The fragmentation which pervades the text is also a sign of memory under
negotiation. While the genocide is the first major action in the chronological narrative, it is not
represented until the final page of the novel. As a reader, it becomes necessary to accept effect
before cause. This formal element of the text accentuates the experience of trauma that Faustin
is grappling with in the aftermath of the genocide. Like Broken Memory, The Oldest Orphan
depicts the importance of memory as a tool of survival; early in the novel, Faustin explains “in
prison you realize that memories serve a purpose. If I’ve survived as long as I have, I owe it to
my soccer games. By focusing my thoughts on them, I can overcome my fears and get some
sleep” (11). Later in the narrative, Faustin’s ability to remember his mother’s tone and
movements allows him to comfort his siblings by temporarily recreating her presence for them.
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His enactment of family rituals allows him to make an emotional connection with his brother,
and Ambroise’s response to Faustin’s performance further affirms the value of memory,
especially for children.
In this post-genocide space, Faustin frequently shelters himself from his own experiences
by adopting a glib and sarcastic attitude towards weakness and suffering. This is most
compellingly demonstrated in his relationship with Rodney, the reporter who travels the
Rwandan countryside with Faustin in search of compelling images and narratives. Despite
having been saved from Nyamata church amidst a swath of bodies three days after the militia
moved through, Faustin speaks of trauma with a disaffected air. Worse, he is happy to invent
narratives of his own suffering for the camera, and with Rodney’s encouragement, he performs
traumas not his own with concerning gusto:
When we left the BBC people, I had become as good an actor as those I used to see on
the TV at the Fraternité Bar, writhing and falling off horses as if they had been hit by real
bullets. Swiss television took us to Rebero, CNN, to Bisesero. It’s as if pal Rodney’s
and my renown had become worldwide. The Norwegians dragged us to Musha, the
Australians, to Mwuliré. I didn’t need directions anymore. Rodney would set up his
camera and the film rolled all by itself. In places where I had never set foot, I’d
immediately recognize the charred hovel my parents had been dragged out of; the yard
filled with hibiscus where their hamstrings had been slashed; the church hall where they
had been murdered; the old wooden brewery where their blood had been used to make
banana beer; the stove where their ears and intestines had been roasted and seasoned with
peppers to serve as meals for the attacking forces, who had proved to be the bravest. I’d
remove my cap to show the scars across my head, lift my sweater to expose the machete
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cuts on my shoulders and my torso. Some film directors would shed tears. So then I’d
invent some heroic deeds to move them even more. I’d describe how I had been able to
repel my assailants, to jump on a bicycle lying around and pedal through the bush to the
nearest forest. Then Rodney, with a satisfied smile, would promptly raise this thumb to
show that it was good but it was over, and we’d do it again somewhere else…I was going
to be rich! (66)
What Monénembo emphasizes for readers in this passage is Faustin’s distance from the suffering
which he describes; he performs without seeming to recognize that these horrors are real. His
ability to invent stories about his own wounds and scars also points to the suppression of his own
memories in place of imagined traumas. His fixation on becoming rich through his
performances suggests his dispassionate attitude regarding his actions, although given that this
scene occurs when he is living at HQ with his siblings, there is also a practical element to this
comment.
After Faustin shoots Musinkôro at HQ, he abandons his siblings and disappears into the
city to evade arrest. However, it is clear from the shift in his narrative that this shooting has
unhinged his memory. In order to avoid facing his experiences, he withdraws from the
communities he earlier strove so hard to maintain and convinces himself that he exists outside of
humanity:
Three months went by. You don’t have to believe me, but life as a wild animal isn’t so
bad. The world of refined men and I were now an ocean apart. I was comfortable in my
hole. I didn’t need the outside world. My parents, my sisters, my brother? Their
memory had deserted my head all on its own. I regretted nothing, I felt no blame. I
didn’t need any other place: neither Kigali, nor Tanzania, nor this green paradise in the
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Psalms that Father Manolo had so often promised. I had blotted out the world and
believed that in return the world had done the same with me. (77)
This withdrawal does little to help Faustin avoid the memories of the genocide, which begin to
enter the text frequently once Faustin is arrested and court proceedings begin. It is clear that as
he feels more threatened in the present, he has more trouble suppressing his memories of the
past.
As with Deogratias, Faustin’s experiences with violence are clearly linked to his
memories of the genocide. Narrating his memories instigates considerations of his present day
acts of violence, and conversely, acts or reminders of violence prompt him to recall and narrate
earlier violence witnessed at the onset of the genocide. When he sees his traumatized siblings at
the City of Blue Angels for the first time, he falls into a violent coma, but awakes with a sudden
memory of Italian words: “slowly the fog in my mind lifted, the words became more precise, the
images clearer, more evocative…Salsiche, queija, risotto, café com lette, ciao, certo, arrivederci,
muito obrigado, grazie [Emphasis in the original]” (42). While this is not explained at the time,
it is clear from Faustin’s later memories that this memory is linked to the pre-genocide violence
that Faustin witnesses while still living with his family in Nyamata. This memory is revisited in
far more detail after he is told that he must face the court for shooting Musinkôro:
I was getting ready to go to school when they arrived. Some were armed with clubs,
others with machetes. I don’t know what came over her but she couldn’t find anything
better to do than to go outside to look. They grabbed her on her doorstep. They hit her
on the back of the head. They dragged her to the church. They hacked her into pieces.
(75)
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Without identifying this woman, it is clear that he is referring to the murder of Antonia Locatelli,
an Italian volunteer in Rwanda who was murdered by members of the Presidential Guard for
phoning the Belgian Embassy and the BBC to inform others of the massacres of Tutsis in
Bugesera in 1992. What is significant here is that Faustin’s ability to suppress violent memories
is undone by his own acts of violence; he uses violence to cope in his new life, but this violence
unsettles him and makes it harder for him to ignore his memories of genocide in his family
home.
It is Faustin’s realization that he has been sentenced to death for his crime that unlocks
the memory of his parents’ death in the Nyamata church. This narration is the final memory of
the text, and the horror of Faustin’s experience is revealed:
Thick smoke was rising from the power station. It must have been the signal. The peaceful
small groups I had seen earlier under the mango trees and in front of the service stations
jumped up in the air brandishing hammers, machetes, and studded clubs while vehicles of
militias were entering the village. It was the same scenario as the time before except that,
this time, it was for real. I now understood the meaning of the red crosses on the walls:
those were Tutsi houses. Some of them on fire, others surrounded. Women were trying to
save their kids. They were quickly caught. They were made to lie down in their own yards
and their tendons were slit. Their children’s heads were smashed against the walls. (93)
In this narration, the author consciously makes the reader becomes a witness to the onset of the
genocide in one specific community; Faustin’s need for community throughout the narrative is
instantly more understandable as the reader bears witness to this destruction of his home and
everyone he knows. The final paragraphs of the novel enter into the church and describe the
genocide from Faustin’s point of view:
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We heard someone shout some orders. The stained-glass windows shattered, the icons
crumbled to dust, dozens of mangled brains splashed against the ceiling and the walls. They
were throwing grenades. My memory of the genocide stops here. The rest, I was told later,
or it resurfaced on its own in my tattered memory, in spurts, like muddy water pouring
out of a clogged pump. I don’t know who died first, my father or my mother. Did they die
from a grenade or finished off with machetes or hammers? (96)
The fact that Faustin is finally speaking about the horror that he has worked so hard to suppress
throughout the novel is compelling; either his fear of his fate has made it impossible to ignore his
trauma anymore, or he no longer sees the point in avoiding this trauma when his own death is so
near. Regardless, his trauma finally demands a voice, and his narrative, full of avoidance and
suppression, becomes complete in this moment of narration. This link between old and new trauma
is an interesting one, as these moments in Faustin’s life are directly linked; the massacre at Nyamata
is the beginning of Faustin’s death sentence, protracted as it proves to be. That he withholds this
initial trauma from the reader until his final trauma has occurred serves to highlight this connection
and demonstrate the role of memory in shaping the actions and experiences of those survivors of
genocide.
Exploring the role of memory in the lives of these three children, each text attempts to
demonstrate how memories of genocidal violence propagate further challenges for genocide
survivors. Western media representations of the genocide emphasized the deaths of Tutsis and
sympathetic Hutus but the struggles of survivors to process their experiences and recover from
horror are too complex to be accurately conveyed in brief news segments. Through literature, the
reader gains access to the experiences of protagonists while the formal structures of the narrative
indicate the ways in which memory can become a trap for survivors. The way that each narrator
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discusses or fails to discuss his or her experiences can serve as a telling indication of the degree to
which they have processed their memories of the genocide. This allows the reader valuable insight
into the cascading impact of the genocide for survivors, as media emphasis is generally put on death
tolls and physical destruction during large-scale conflicts. These texts convey the challenges of
integrating lived experiences of genocide into healthy personal and communal interactions, as well
as the invisible destruction of the social fabric that can occur even after genocide has ended.
Survivors are not without deep, and at times, destructive trauma, and while they may survive
genocide, these texts make clear that many do not survive the aftermath of genocide.
*
Recovery after genocide, particularly one perpetrated within a single society, is a complex thing.
While practical elements of recovery are a matter of organization, funding, and execution,
emotional, political, and ideological recoveries are far more difficult to orchestrate. The Rwandan
Genocide was predicated on a fragmented sense of national identity, and at the end of the genocide,
this fracture was even more fundamental to Rwandan identity. Once violence ended, tensions
remained understandably high and ran along ethic lines. The simple binary of the genocide, in
which Tutsis were victims and Hutus were perpetrators, remained a pervasive threat to the
opportunity for a recovery of the social order, but stepping away from this binary, as during the
genocide, remained a risk. The process of social recovery depends on the creation of a new concept
of national identity that can accommodate all Rwandans, and more specifically, all Rwandan
experiences of the genocide. It is essential to keep in mind that “a person traumatised by war is
traumatised via the culture in which he lives, and any treatment or therapy for trauma must take
account of that” (Hunt 198); while individual recovery is personal, it also depends on the recovery
of larger social structures which can help to frame the genocide within a social context. Collective
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memory, which can accommodate multiple perspectives, develops through the act of narrative and
can empower the individual as well as the community. Considering the role of speech in recovering
identity, Smitherman writes that “testifying [is telling] the truth through ‘story’…The content of
testifying, then, is not plain and simple commentary but a dramatic narration and communal reenactment of one’s feelings and experiences. Thus one’s humanity is reaffirmed by the group and
his or her sense of isolation is diminished” (151). This commentary affirms the value of being able
to construct a coherent personal narrative in a post-genocide society, as it can forge connections
between people while also laying the foundation of national recovery.
However, in a country where Hutu-led organizations were actively seeking to exterminate
Tutsis, the integration of Hutu narratives of the collective memory of the genocide can be a fraught
subject. It need not be said that some Hutus rejected the rhetoric of the Hutu Power movement, and
made themselves targets while doing so. Moreover, many Hutus became perpetrators under the
threat of death by militias. These realities, and the testimony that accompanies them, can strain the
process of constructing a collective narrative of the genocide because they cloud the simple
dichotomy on which the genocide was predicated. However, in considering the reconstruction of
South Africa after the end of apartheid, Singh and Chetty agree that “if one’s memory and its
narration are denied within cultural and social spaces, one cannot successfully belong to a nation,
particularly if that memory is of a trauma inflicted by the nation-state” (2). Regardless of the ethnic
tensions that existed prior to the genocide, it is imperative that Rwandans, as well as global citizens,
let go of binary categorizations and consider the web of individual actions that lies at the heart of
every experience of the genocide. One way to begin such a massive project of interwoven
experience is through literature, as writing can bring the dynamic impulses of the individual to the
fore and give voice to complex experiences of genocide for the larger national and international
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community. Such writing can address multiple aspects of recovery, as “trauma cultures may be
doing the work of therapy, in a collective sense, but also in an inherently political one” (Meskell
162).
Despite the challenges that Emma faces in Broken Memory, this narrative emphasizes the
possibility of personal, social, and political recovery. Emma’s artistic breakthrough and ability to
put her experiences into words marks the beginning of her recovery. Moreover, witnessing the
Gacaca courts, while initially traumatic, assures her that there is a public space for expressions of
anger and loss. Particularly important for her recovery is witnessing Rwandan citizens commence
public discussions and instigate restorative justice through the Gacaca court system. This social
acknowledgement of loss and suffering is a means of individual recovery as coherent narratives are
constructed and publicly affirmed but also serves a larger social purpose of demythologizing the
genocide. Seeing the prisoners held for their turn at court, Emma realizes how her fear has
transformed her understanding of these perpetrators: “in the middle of the group, some prisoners
were laughing. Others sat on the edge of the truck, their heads bowed. Emma didn’t know what to
think. She had been prepared to see monsters, men with faces full of cruelty. Instead she saw
simple peasants” (68). For Emma, the rhetoric and experience of the genocide fundamentally
changes the way that she understands the citizenry of Rwanda. The spectacle of violence looms
large in her perception of those around her, making it difficult for her to recognize that humanity
and monstrosity can take the same form. However, this is an important insight; realizing that acts
of genocide do not preclude the possibility of remorse and contrition allows Emma to see
perpetrators as people. Although a small detail, this establishes the possibility of interpersonal
recovery as well as a movement away from the essentialising narratives of genocide.
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In order to claim government aid as a victim of the genocide, Emma must return to her
mother’s village and the site of her experience of genocide. Initially, this is frightening for her, as
she is wary of strangers and of Rwanda as a place, as it carries the stigma of the genocide in her
mind, even nine years later. However, these twin concerns begin to fade as she leaves the safety of
her adoptive village and begins to walk to her mother’s village. As Rwandan roads are generally
filled with pedestrians, she soon finds herself surrounded by others, and “she was surprised at how
free and easy it felt to be anonymous. For the first time ever, it felt good to be surrounded by
people, walking with them or past them, invisible in the crowd” (109). While she has isolated
herself with Mukecuru, this journey allows her to reclaim a place in the broader Rwandan society.
It also has a profound impact on her understanding of Rwanda. Because she has been, up to this
point, consumed by her trauma, she understood her country in terms of genocidal experience alone.
However, having shared her trauma with others, she is now able to see past the events of the
genocide and construct a new vision of Rwanda as a place:
Emma realized just how little she knew about her own country and how inexperienced she
was. At the beginning of the journey, she had been ready for anything to happen, especially
the worst. She never imagined she would be surprised by so much, feel so carefree. She
could see no signs of the past horror, no scars. She saw nothing on the faces around her that
reminded her of the tragedy she had lived through and that had shaped the entire country.
This journey showed her a Rwanda that seemed to be at peace. She could see things with a
positive frame of mind – places and people that had looked blacker than hell to her ten years
ago. And for the first time, she felt strong enough to face the future, as uncertain as it was.
(113)
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This evolving definition of Rwanda is an important element of Emma’s recovery and future and it
demonstrates to the reader the importance of re-defining places of large-scale violence once a
measure of recovery has been achieved. Like Emma, many Western citizens continue to see the
genocide as a defining feature of Rwandan identity. In doing so, they allow this traumatic event to
take precedence over the significant efforts of recovery that have taken place. Emma’s insight into
Rwandan’s emerging national identity occurs only once she has explored the Rwandan countryside
and engaged with other Rwandan citizens, and the text urges readers to also consider the effort
towards recovery which have marked the post-genocide era in Rwanda.
When Emma returns to burnt remains of her mother’s home, her memories return and she is
initially unable to approach this building. However, this journey through a recovering Rwanda has
allowed her to excise her fears, and she eventually builds up the courage to enter the ruins. While
her memory of her mother’s murder is a powerful force in this scene, the memory of her mother’s
life is ultimately more compelling to Emma. Finding a surviving photograph of her mother, Emma
suddenly recovers her memory of her mother. The weight of this remembrance is difficult for
Emma to bear, but the fact that she regains her memory is a testament to the fulfilment of her
recovery: “exhausted, she lay down on the ground. She had finally managed to rebuild the walls of
the ruined house where she had been born, and where her mother had died. The murderers had
failed to crush her memory” (126). It is in this village that she learns her mother’s name, Pacifique,
and her age at her death, 22. The narrative here demonstrates the importance of exploring trauma in
order to recovery identity, and this journey is ultimately empowering for Emma. Although a
fictional text, Combres includes an epilogue in which Emma’s final recovery is detailed and her
future set out with hope: “today she is twenty-four years old…She is now at peace with her past,
and she looks to the future with confidence” (131). This is an interesting narrative decision which
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helps to emphasize the possibility of recovery and the importance for Rwandan citizens of
integrating the genocide into personal and national constructions of identity. This epilogue makes
an effort to assert, via narrative, the continued survival and success of genocide survivors and to
emphasize that as recovery occurs, Rwanda as a nation, and citizens as individuals, must balance
their identities as survivors with their identities as Rwandans.
In the post-genocide world of Deogratias, Deogratias has no family or community from
which to draw support. He is mocked by local children for his belief that he is a dog. As his
delusions reflect his experiences during the genocide, this mockery suggests that those who cannot
effect personal recovery after the genocide may have a difficult time finding social support.
Deogratias’s recovery efforts are violent; he kills the three men who remain a part of his life in an
attempt to enact justice for their role in his crimes during the genocide. For Deogratias, justice can
be gained through violence and his guilt can be assuaged through further killing. Prior to the
genocide, when Deogratias takes Brother Philip to a local Urwagwa tavern, the Rwandan trust
exercise of sharing Urwagwa (Rwandan beer) is established. However, Deogratias’s use of trickery
in this custom to murder Bosco, Julius, and Serg can be seen as a metaphor for a breakdown in the
larger social customs and traditions of Rwandan culture in the post-genocide era. Deogratias’s
misguided actions demonstrate the dangers of failed post-genocide recovery, as the social and
political environment can become loaded with hate, bitterness, and suffering. Individuals unable to
process the realities of genocide can become liabilities to the larger social recovery. This same
reality can also be applied to observers outside of Rwanda. Western readers should see in
Deogratias’s inability to recover that failing to recognize the efforts and successes of recovery can
perpetuate Rwanda as a nation of genocide and social chaos, which can inhibit the development of
Rwanda as a post-genocide nation.
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Brother Philip’s reaction of disbelief and horror mimics the response of the reader as
Deogratias reveals his actions. What is compelling is that at the end of recounting his involvement
in the rape and murder of Venetia, Apollinaria, and Benina, he openly pours poison into a Primus
beer and slides it towards Philip, saying “drink a beer with me, Brother Philip…Like in the good
old days…Now it’s your turn to drink the poison” (76). It is not clear why Deogratias would put
Philip in the same category as the lecherous Serg, militant Julius, and disaffected Bosco, as these
men actively promoted the ethnic conflict and violence of the genocide. Perhaps as a Westerner,
Deogratias sees Philip as meddlesome and blames him for the genocide. More likely, Philip serves
as a reminder of Deogratias’s world before the genocide began, and Deogratias feels compelled to
silence all such reminders. Either way, Philip is shocked by the change in Deogratias, responding
“oh, God of mercy!...I will pray to the Lord and ask Him to forgive you, Deogratias…and beg Him
to give me the strength to forgive you – for today, I cannot” (76). Deogratias’s response is
revealing: “I don’t need your forgiveness! Nor the mercy of your god! I’m only a dog! It wasn’t a
confession!” (76). His disassociation with reality in this moment demonstrates his more
fundamental break with his society. He no longer feels human, and seems confident that this fact
will exempt him from further punishment. Compellingly, he transforms in this frame into a dog,
demonstrating the chaos of his memories in physical form. His participation in the genocide has
confused the concepts of right and wrong, good and evil in his mind, and he is consumed with the
need to reinstate order by executing those he deems guilty.
Moments after this confession, the Rwandan authorities arrive and arrest Deogratias, who is
still a dog, and still violently urging Philip to drink the poison. This arrest initially suggests a return
to social order, as these killings are being brought within a larger system of justice. However, one
of the policemen explains that it is for the Sergeant’s death that Deogratias is under arrest; as a
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French tourist, his death is termed an “assassination” (77) and so receives the full weight of
Rwandan and international attention. There is no mention made of the deaths of Bosco and Julius,
who are both Rwandan. This is a moment when the text demonstrates for the reader the existence
of neocolonialism in Rwanda; Western lives, however despicable, are protected, while Rwandan
lives are not. In the effort to recover civilian systems of justice, Western actors are deemed more
valuable than local individuals. Deogratias leaves the final page as a dog, fully immersed in his
trauma and likely never to recover. It is clear that his actions, no matter what inspired them,
identify him as a perpetrator of violence, and that the crime of killing a Westerner will weigh more
heavily against him than his role in the genocide did. The internal logic of his actions is not
recognized by those arresting him, and one policeman asks Philip, “friend of yours, that madman?”
(77). In this moment, the person Deogratias was before the genocide is gone, and in his place is a
“madman” (77) who is seen as a danger to himself and others.
The final words of the text belong to Philip; holding the hand of little Marie, Augustine’s
daughter rescued from the genocide, Philip can say only that Deogratias “was a creature of God”
(78). While subtle, this reminder of Deogratias’s identity before the genocide draws attention to the
complex ways that good people, facing inhumanity, can themselves become inhuman. Deogratias’s
personal recovery is stunted by a lack of community and the perceived absence of justice for those
who committed crimes; trapped by memories which he cannot address alone, Deogratias is
compelled to enact his own version of justice. However, the text does not make it clear whether the
system of justice will take these extenuating circumstances into consideration when deciding his
fate. Certainly, the reader is encouraged to recognize that Deogratias’s guilt is mitigated by the
larger circumstances of the genocide. To define Deogratias as a perpetrator without contextualizing
his crimes is to oversimplify these categories, and this lesson reminds readers of the need to
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exercise similar critical thinking when engaging with the discourse of the Rwandan Genocide more
generally. Readers are not offered the assurances of recovery found in Broken Memory, but
Deogratias’s failed recovery demonstrates to Western readers the complexity of recovery for
individuals and their communities.
As in Deogratias, The Oldest Orphan is a text with a complex representation of trauma and
recovery. While Faustin attempts to recreate a stable family structure in the years following the
genocide, once he shoots Musinkôro and is arrested, Faustin loses all interested in connections to
his society. Claudine, an advocate for a number of young men in prison, asks Faustin “if you all let
yourselves go, then who’ll build Rwanda?” (17). His disaffected answer demonstrates the degree to
which the genocide, and his struggles to reclaim family and community in post-genocide Rwanda,
have alienated him from his nation: “I don’t give a damn about Rwanda! If I’d been asked, I’d have
been born somewhere else” (17). This comment becomes even more biting when Faustin’s position
is considered closely. While it is not clear until late in the text how Faustin came to be in Kigali
prison, the entire narrative is told from a jail cell on death row. The fact of his impending death is a
pervasive detail in the text; in his opening introduction, Faustin defines himself by his fate as a
death-row inmate. This initial identification raises the complex issue of how justice should be
asserted in a post-genocide society, with particular regard to children considered guilty of crimes
during genocide. By providing context to explain Faustin’s fate, this text reminds the reader of the
need to draw distinctions between genocidal and post-genocidal violence.
The court scenes late in the text establish Rwandan justice in action; post-genocide, the rule
of law must be reinstated in order to escape the chaos of mass violence. The pursuit of justice here
demonstrates a collective effort to rebuild Rwanda society but the complexity of determining
genocidal and non-genocidal crimes presents a significant challenge. As Faustin’s lawyer Bukuru
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says: “he is a minor even if the law isn’t very clear on that. In fact, there’s no more real law.
There’s nothing authentic left. We’re on the threshold of a new life. The whole thing needs to be
redone: history, geography, government, customs, so why not the way we understand children?”
(81-82). The text draws the reader’s attention to the impact of genocide on the categories of guilt
and innocence, and the fact that older models of justice cannot be arbitrarily reinstituted in a society
fundamentally changed by collective violence. Rather, the new Rwandan justice system must
reflect the complex definitions of guilt and innocence produced by the genocide. In Faustin’s case,
the prosecutor is determined to define Faustin as an underage génocidaire. Conversely, Bukuru
argues that “this child is not a génocidaire; he simply avenged his sister. Crime of passion, family
honor!...Just because there’s been a genocide, it doesn’t mean Rwandans have lost all moral sense”
(82). These conflicting ways of understanding Faustin’s crime points to the larger challenge of
understanding violence and enacting justice in Rwanda after the genocide. For Western readers
who were encouraged by media coverage of the genocide to see Rwandans as either victims or
perpetrators of genocide, this statement is a powerful reminder that the fact of genocide cannot be
assumed to compel all post-genocide actions taken by Rwandan citizens. That Faustin is seen to be
a génocidaire for a crime committed three years after the genocide should strike the reader as unfair;
as such, this text exhorts readers to see that allowing the genocide to entirely frame Rwandan
national identity is a similarly dangerous injustice.
While Bukuru and Claudine urge Faustin to be respectful in court, the attention paid to him
by the judges and the presence of so many observers inspires an extended demonstration of his
bravado. Asked if he regrets his actions, Faustin says to one judge:
‘You, if I slept with your sister, you’d do what I did to this swine, wouldn’t you? Family
honor isn’t debatable anywhere in the world, at least not with the Nsenghimanas.’ Some
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people were laughing, others were applauding. Bukuru was nervously yanking on my shirt
and gesturing madly. And Claudine’s face was beaded with perspiration; she was on the
verge of fainting. On the other hand, I was pretty proud of myself. (82-83)
Faustin’s insolence has protected him in the five years since the genocide, and particularly his two
years in prison, but to the judge, it appears as unrepentant arrogance. Faustin refuses to admit regret
for his actions, and for his unshakable performance of self-assurance, he wins the approval of the
crowd. He overhears one man say “that’s one who knows how to defend himself. The little guy’s
not afraid to speak up for himself” (83) and takes pride in his provocation of the judges. His quick
wit, which has been essential to his survival up until this point, suddenly has a captive audience.
Undaunted by the power of the court, perhaps because it had little power to protect himself and his
family at the onset of the genocide, Faustin goads the three judges, glibly answering their questions
with little thought to how he is representing himself. As one of the observers warns him to watch
his words, Faustin glancingly replies: “all I’ve done these past few years is save my neck. If I get
my head cut off, I’ll regret only one thing, that I didn’t take more advantage of the good times”
(83). In this moment, Faustin mischaracterizes himself, not realizing that the bravado which has
protected him to this point only clouds the very understandable motive for his actions. For Faustin,
this moment in court is yet another challenge he must overcome, and with consequences far too
complex for him to understand.
Faustin’s honest but ill-considered replies to the judge’s questions serve to highlight the
antagonistic nature of his relationship with formal structures of authority in Rwandan society. Trust
in a socially enforced system of justice was destroyed for Faustin during the genocide; living as an
orphan in Kigali for three years taught him to rely on his own understanding of right and wrong in
order to stay alive. While alone, he relies on his wiles to protect him but the recovery of his family
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increases his need for security. He purchases the gun to protect his sisters because he does not
believe that they are safe on the streets of Kigali, despite the end of the genocide. For Faustin,
Rwandan society has not recovered sufficiently for him to trust in the safety of his precious family.
While this fear speaks more to his own sense of insecurity than the real threat to his siblings, the
threat becomes very real for Faustin when he finds Musinkôro and his sister together. In this
moment, witnessing what he perceives to be a sexual attack, Faustin acts instinctively, just as he did
to survive the genocide. However, survival tactics such as these have no place in a society
reinstituting the rule of law; in this instance, his actions undermine the authority of the state to
dictate right and wrong. Although arrested, jailed for two years, and brought to trial, Faustin seems
genuinely unaware of the power that the court holds over him, having been his own authority for so
long. So disconnected is he to this proceedings that he accepts the verdict of death without seeming
to understand what it means. It is not until he witnesses the most feared inmate in Kigali prison, the
brutally violent Ayirwanda, crying openly over Faustin’s conviction that Faustin begins to
understand the severity of his punishment. In this moment, the novel demonstrates the complexity
of individual recovery within wider national recovery. The reinstitution of the rule of law escapes
Faustin because he does not experience the recovery of other institutions of society, such as
education and religion. Instead, he maintains his faith in his own authority, as this enabled him to
survive the genocide. Ultimately, his ability to survive genocide places him at odds with the formal
efforts of recovery in Rwandan civil society.
Faustin’s conviction says a great deal about the recovery of Rwandan society post-genocide.
In an effort to reassert justice and social order, both necessary for recovery, the law is enforced
aggressively. However, this text shows how the legal system can also work antagonistically. The
assertion of law in Faustin’s case seems to victimize someone whose actions are a response to the
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genocide more than a reflection of inherent violent tendencies. Because Faustin does not present
his actions as a complex response to the violence and loss of the genocide, he is treated as a threat to
the wider society of Rwanda. Ultimately, Faustin is twice victimized by the state, as his inability to
recognize the recovery of larger systems of social order on which he can rely, such as the law, is the
reason that he commits murder. It is, in the end, the trauma of contemplating his own death that
instigates the narration of his near-death in the Nyamata church 1994. This suggests that fresh
trauma can serve to unlock old trauma; ironically, his death sentence in the present is directly linked
to the death sentence he survived in the church:
When I regained consciousness, I noticed that their bodies were in pieces except my
mother’s chest whose breast still in perfect condition were dripping with blood. And
old woman was standing over me. She found the strength to smile at me amid the
swarms of flies and the piles of decomposing corpses. ‘I rescued one yesterday and
one this morning,’ she whispered. ‘Both times, I thought I heard someone groaning
but I wasn’t sure. But once I was back home, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I
came back to make sure. I had to dig for a long time; I certainly didn’t think it would
be a child. You were gripping your mother like a newborn and you were nursing at her
breasts. You’re not a man like others. You were born twice in a way: the first time you
were suckling her milk and the second time, her blood…Oh, God, three survivors and
seven days after the massacre! There’s always some life left, even when the devil has
passed through’. (96)
That this young body, a miraculous survivor of a direct and brutal attack, is now himself a
convicted murder powerfully demonstrates the pervasive nature of genocidal violence if recovery is
not made a priority of the individual and the nation.
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Far from the hope of Broken Memory, The Oldest Orphan ends with the horror of the
Nyamata massacre, assuring the reader that Faustin, one of three who escaped death in the murder
of 10,000 people within that church, will not survive the recovery of the nation. The shape of this
narrative presents the genocide as an ever-present event for the reader, as every moment of the text
demonstrates the impact, and develops towards the ultimate revelation of, Faustin’s experience of
genocide. In this text, efforts towards recovery lead to the retelling of trauma, demonstrating how
difficult it can be to move past massive events like this. Much like Deogratias, Faustin lives by his
own understanding of justice and instigates a personal sense of justice in order to protect those he
loves. The lives of both young men are destroyed by the genocide, and their sense of self undergoes
a radical change as they attempt to claim new roles within their society. What is clear from both
Deogratias and Faustin is that violence becomes a means of self-protection from further loss,
employed precisely because they perceive that the state cannot or will not act on their behalf. In
part, this representation of the failed recovery of two protagonists is a reminder to readers of the
complexity of societal recovery. As the cameras left Rwanda within the year, there has been
insufficient consideration given to the way that recovery has occurred in Rwanda’s post-genocide
era. While The Oldest Orphan does not suggest that the recovery of justice is fundamentally
dangerous to citizens, it does show how difficult a system of justice is to reinstitute when
overburdened with navigating the crime of genocide. Deogratias demonstrates an effective system
of law but reminds readers of the hierarchies of justice that continues to exist in neocolonial spaces.
In both texts, the recovery of the individual is at odds with the recovery of the state.
*
All three texts undertake the important work of exploring individual identity during and after
genocide, the impact of violence on family and community relations, local perceptions of Western
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aid, the social context of trauma and memory, and efforts towards recovery. For English-speaking
audiences, these texts make the Rwandan experience of the genocide more understandable because
they do not rely on the common tropes that were used by Western media outlets to describe
Rwandan suffering. The authors present well-developed characters and multiple subject positions
in order to nuance the reader’s understanding of this event. The trauma of the Rwandan people
becomes accessible in these narratives and it is trauma that provides the opportunity for greater
understanding of Rwanda as a nation. Cathy Caruth defines trauma as “the confrontation with an
event that, in its unexpectedness and horror, cannot be placed within the schemes of prior
knowledge” (153), and the trauma of these narratives reveals to readers the need to develop new
“schemes of prior knowledge” (153) about Rwanda. Such an undertaking, as managed here through
literature, would allow for a critical engagement with the colonial and neocolonial constructions
which have defined Rwandan national identity in the Western imagination. These texts demonstrate
the experience of trauma in the lives of the protagonists, and simultaneously broaden readers’
understandings of the genocide and assert the value of Rwandan narratives within socio-political
understandings of the genocide. Presenting the genocide within the context of Rwandan identities
establishes a more well-rounded understanding of the impact of this event for local, national, and
international actors, undercutting the depiction of the genocide as an isolated event.
While individual responses to literature can be powerful, these texts have an important role
to play in the international socio-political discourse of Rwanda. Written by non-Rwandan authors,
these texts take care to present the genocide within the larger context of Rwandan society. As very
few Rwandan writers have written about the genocide, because the novel form is not native to
Rwanda, and because Rwanda does not have a strong forum on the international stage, complex
understandings of the genocide as an event in Rwandan history has been marred by a lack of
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productive social discourse between Western and Rwandan speakers. While national reconciliation
and recovery have been a primary concern for the Rwandan government over the past eighteen
years, the international understanding of this effort has changed very little. These literary
narratives, with the emphasis on memory, undertake a complex task: to develop understanding of
the genocide within an international community of English-speaking readers. The nuanced
representations of individual experience is pivotal to this project, as “collective memory is
generated by the group, is multivocal and is responsive to the social framework in which it is
created, i.e. the social discourse” (Hunt 99). By representing the memories of Rwandan genocide
survivors in literature for Western readers, these texts are attempting to change the Western public
discourse on Rwanda. Jenny Edkins writes that “a study of practices of memory thus provides an
insight into political community, and the forms of temporality and subjectivity that necessarily
accompany contemporary forms of political authority” (101). Certainly, the media willingness to
rely on tropes and colonial narratives of Rwandan identity in coverage of the genocide was evidence
of a fundamental disinterest in Rwanda as a socio-political space. These texts, among others,
demonstrate a concerted interest in situating the genocide within an accurate historical and cultural
context, emphasizing the human experience of the genocide. By changing the way that the
genocide is remembered, these narratives implicitly challenge the larger political narratives about
Africa and the role that Africa is accorded in global social, cultural, and political systems.
Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word genocide in 1943, affirms that “it would be
impractical to treat genocide as a national crime, since by its very nature it is committed by the state
or by powerful groups which have the backing of the state. A state would never prosecute a crime
instigated or backed by itself. By its very legal, moral and humanitarian nature, it must be
considered an international crime.” ("III: An international crime"). While this mandate was largely
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ignored during the genocide in Rwanda, this emerging literature demonstrates Rwandan experiences
of genocide and particularly the sustained experiences of those who survived the genocide,
providing productive insight into the many costs of genocide and the efforts Rwanda has undertaken
towards collective recovery. In this way, readers become witnesses of a period of profound
importance in Rwandan history. These texts engage readers in narratives of Rwandan loss and
recovery, an act which itself undercuts the colonial and neocolonial trend of disempowering African
voices. Moreover, these texts provide the opportunity for an emotional education about Rwandan
identity as a sustained lived experience rather than as fleetingly depicted in media publications and
broadcasts during the genocide. For readers whose understanding of the genocide has been shaped
by media coverage alone, these texts establish meaningful representations of Rwandans struggling
to contextualize the genocide within their lives. In so doing, these texts urge and enable readers to
similarly recontextualize their understandings of the Rwandan Genocide, and Rwandan identity, in
their own social discourse. Contrary to the myriad of ways that African narratives have been
disempowered throughout history, these texts assert the humanity of Rwandans even through the
horror of this genocide, and demonstrate both violence and recovery for the Western reader. These
are narratives of Rwandan empowerment, even when recovery fails, because they insist upon the
value of Rwandan experiences and perspectives. These texts, even when written by non-Rwandans,
demonstrate is decolonizing discourse the value and complexity of Rwanda as a nation.
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Chapter Five: Affirming Recovery and Demonstrating Cross-Cultural Activism
through Literature
Tragically, the emotional valency of testimony has little to do with the intensity
of the suffering or pain that it carries, and it has everything to do with the cultural
and political milieu it encounters and its capacity there to command witness.
Gillian Whitlock, Soft Weapons: Autobiography in Transit, 79.
Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it
withers.
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, 101.
The representation of post-genocide Rwanda in literature and drama can serve as a
profound form of social, cultural, and political education for Western, as much as for Rwandan
readers and audiences. These narratives explicitly and implicitly explore the promise of
restoration, drawing attention to the changes that have taken place in Rwanda since the genocide
ended, and the ways in which these changes have been mobilized. For readers whose knowledge
of the Rwandan Genocide ended with the Western media coverage in late 1994, these
productions offer the opportunity to explore the nation’s practical and ideological recovery. By
exploring how the genocide has been integrated into local constructions of identity and selfhood, these texts contextualize the interests and concerns of local citizens within the sociopolitical discourse of the genocide, thereby affirming the value of Rwandan voices. Rwanda’s
recovery has been dependant on the cultivation of a new collective identity for citizens, and these
texts permit readers to engage with this emergent national identity. Identity politics have long
been a significant stumbling block for citizens on both sides of the neocolonial divide, but postgenocide recovery literature can allow for effective communication because these texts
emphasize the need for new modes of interaction across cultural and political boundaries. As
Fardon comments, “the development of literacy and the circulation of ideas through print
[provides a] capacity to imagine identity in terms of a community larger than that of the
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immediate circle of fellows” (177). By offering insight into the objectives and challenges of
genocide recovery for a specific community of citizens, this subset of genocide literature allows
the reader to more closely engage with post-genocide Rwandan identity .
There is always a danger that literature will misuse the opportunity for education and
simply reiterate antiquated or racially motivated stereotypes in representing the experiences of
post-genocide citizens. Autobiography, though not wholly objective or bias-free, offers the
promise of accurate insights into the lives being traced within the narrative, and when conveying
life experience, autobiography has the benefit of exploring both private and public worlds. As a
means of exploring different societies and cultures, these texts offer a powerful potential for
Western readers. However, autobiographical subjects who come from non-Western nations are
often exoticized as a means of increasing book sales, even while decreasing the educational
potential of the text. Gillian Whitlock, discussing the role of autobiographical literature in
political discourse, observes that autobiography
can personalize and humanize categories of people whose experiences are frequently
unseen or unheard. To attend to a nauseated body at risk in Baghdad, or to hear a militant
feminist body beneath a burka, to attach a face and recognize a refugee is to make
powerful interventions in debates about social justice, sovereignty, and human
rights…But it is a ‘soft’ weapon because it is easily co-opted into propaganda. In modern
democratic societies propaganda is frequently not the violent and coercive imposition of
ideas but a careful manipulation of opinion and emotion in the public sphere and a
management of information in the engineering of consent. (3)
These narratives require that readers engage critically with the information they are given and
consider the larger political and cultural influences that shape individual narratives. Particularly
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in post-genocide situations, these texts can serve as effective educational tools, empowering
reader engagement within social and political discourse. Nigel Hunt discusses the role of the
storyteller in his consideration of war trauma and memory, and advocates that the relationship
between the storyteller and the reader should be an active one: “storytelling is an interpersonal
exercise. The storyteller needs an audience, and the audience needs to make some sort of
response” (44). Texts which educate the reader about the realities of life in a post-genocide
society are valuable, but this education is far more productive when readers are also shown how
this information can challenge the constructions of antiquated politics or an unspoken national
policy of ignoring rather than engaging in the trauma of other nations. As will be discussed in
this chapter, cultural education is a powerful tool in the renegotiation of global politics on an
individual level.
Among the many autobiographical narratives of individual experiences during the
Rwandan genocide are Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, written by
Immaculée Ilibagiza and Steve Erwin, and An Ordinary Man, by Paul Rusesabagina; these two
texts have been popularly received by Western readers. We Survived Genocide in Rwanda: 28
Personal Testimonies is a text not widely available in Western markets, but was published as a
collaboration between the Kigali Memorial Centre and Aegis Trust, an organization which
strives to aid communities recovering from genocide and other traumas. These texts, and others
like them, are important because they give voice to the experiences of individuals during and
after the Rwandan genocide. However, these texts fixate on individual survival; there are other
texts which more directly explore Rwanda’s recovery. Just as the work of Gourevitch and
Courtemanche contextualized the genocide in terms of colonial and neocolonial history, the
works of Véronique Tadjo and Sonja Linden consider the politics of recovery within the
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neocolonial framework, recognizing that Rwandan identity must be redefined in Rwanda as well
as on the international stage to ensure a productive recovery. The recoveries they explore
emphasize interactions within communities, and in this way, these representations are didactic,
affirming the need for discourse in order to assure recovery. David Studdert writes that
“community is never a fixed state, rightly it should be considered a verb not a noun, and it is
always the outcome of sociality as an action – be that action or speech – and it is therefore
impossible to perform without the presence of other people” (2); embracing this definition of
community as interactive is what sets the works of Tadjo and Linden apart from others than
focus more specifically on individual experiences.
Tadjo’s narrative The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda was written for
the “Duty to Memory” Project organized by Nocky Djedanoum in 1998. It takes the form of a
travel narrative, but bears little resemblance to the travel memoirs which introduced Africa to the
popular imagination in the early days of colonial exploration. As a Franco-African woman, her
narration is an inversion of the trope of the male European observer in Africa. This narrative
form is valuable as a didactic tool precisely because it allows the writer to put her own responses
on display for the reader. At times, Tadjo records her own pleasure, discomfort, fear, and
confusion; at other times, she conveys scenes without commenting on their content. This
accomplishes two distinct objectives: emoting puts her into very close conversation with the
reader’s own emotional responses, while observing without comment creates a space for the
reader’s reactions without authorial influence. Through the adoption of this flexible narrative
form, the text encourages readers to respond to the text in multiple ways.
Tadjo’s specific interests in this text are memorialization and recovery within postgenocide Rwanda. Together, these subjects help to convey a sense of how the genocide is being
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integrated into individual and national identity. The role of genocide commemoration in
genocide recovery is an interesting one to consider because Rwanda’s memorials are a draw for
Rwandans as well as for international visitors. Responses to these memorial spaces vary
considerably from person to person, particularly across national and ethnic boundaries. In part,
responses are shaped by the way individuals understand and relate to the genocide; Ray observes
that commemoration “may take the form of mourning in which subjects are able to confront and
effect reconciliation with the past; alternatively it can take the form of melancholia in which
grief and anger predominate” (140). Aware of the diversity of possible responses to these public
spaces, Tadjo offers her own response to particular scenes or images but also permits room for
the reader’s response through a fragmented writing style which does not allow the reader to
become caught up in any one narrative for long. She tempers this exploration of the victims of
genocide with a focus on those who survive, as progressive literature must look beyond the
horror of the genocide in order to acknowledge Rwanda’s recovery. Nietzsche warns that “there
is a degree of sleeplessness, of rumination, of the historical sense, which is harmful and
ultimately fatal to the living thing, whether this living thing be a man a people or a culture” (62)
and to this end, Tadjo’s awareness of the need to temper the past with visions of the future is
invaluable to her writing.
As Tadjo’s text is a travelogue, she records her interactions with the many Rwandans that
she meets throughout the narrative. In bringing so many individual voices to the fore, Tadjo
explores the complex subject positions created in Rwanda by the genocide and draws the
reader’s attention to a number of lesser-discussed challenges faced by the Rwandan population.
Tadjo also considers how the genocide has shaped the collective national construction of
Rwandan identity. This is a particularly important consideration, as mass violence often
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becomes a profoundly important aspect of post-violence identity, both for national and
international citizens. In the case of the Jewish genocide of WWII, post-holocaust Jewish
identity became a “defining [aspect] of Israeli identity and politics, highlight[ing] the process by
which a social memory is assimilated in the performative acts of a culture” (128). The public
discourse around events of mass violence determines how they will be integrated into the
constructed narratives of identity within and outside of specific nations. In the case of the
Holocaust, the Jewish narrative was coherent; while distinguished by individual experiences, the
Jewish people were united by emergent narratives of post-WWII identity because perpetrators
generally originated from outside of the Jewish community. However, in the case of Rwanda,
the construction of post-genocide identity is challenged by the fact that Rwandans have very
different memories and perspectives on the genocide, based largely on the ethnic distinctions of
the genocide. While simplistic identifications should be avoided, it remains the case that the
perpetrators and the victims of this violence originated from the same society but narrate their
experience from very different subject positions. Hunt concurs with this analysis, stating that in
post-genocide societies, “there is often a dispute regarding the nature of societal memory” (122).
A failure to include multiple perspectives into the narrative record can serve as the basis for
renewed conflict, as “identities forged out of half memories or false memories easily lead to
future transgressions” (Krog 32). It is precisely because of the complexity of narrative
coherence in the Rwandan recovery that Tadjo’s approach is so valuable, as she explores the
recovery of the nation, and not just the victims of violence.
The other text, Linden’s play I Have Before Me A Remarkable Document Given To Me
By A Young Lady From Rwanda, was first published in 2004. This play is based on Linden’s
interaction with a Rwandan survivor in Britain, so while not autobiographical, this is a work
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based on personal experience, much like Tadjo’s narrative. This text takes on a complex subject,
exploring the diasporic community of Rwanda through the character Juliette, who is a genocide
survivor and a refugee in Britain. While ultimately this is a narrative about personal recovery, it
also addresses Juliette’s challenges within a society that is at times hostile and dismissive of her
needs. There are multiple complex factors in play here, specifically race, nationality, and
economics. The decision to locate Juliette’s recovery amidst several very complicated other
issues demonstrates some of the challenges faced by those escaped Rwanda during or after the
genocide and attempted to begin new lives abroad. It also reminds readers that recovery does not
occur within a vacuum, but rather, takes place alongside the complexities of everyday life. This
framing also allows Linden to explore the potential interaction between those who experienced
and those who observed the genocide, offering a compelling social commentary about the
neocolonial influences that shape cross-cultural interactions.
Racial inequality is an important issue addressed in the play precisely because this
inequality was fundamental to the Western failure to respond to the Rwandan genocide in April
1994. In choosing Juliette as the protagonist of this play, originally performed for a diverse
London audience, Linden asserts the value of this youthful, female, Rwandan perspective for the
edification of the audience. As the coverage of the genocide relied primarily on simplistic
explanations for the violence, and the recovery received little attention, performances such as
this one stand as one of the few avenues currently available for Rwandan expression on the
international stage. In part, this omission reflects pervasive racial politics; McKittrick and
Woods note that racial essentialism “situates black subjects and their geopolitical concerns as
being elsewhere (on the margin, the underside, outside the normal), a spatial practice that
conveniently props up the mythical norm and erases or obscures the daily struggles of particular
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communities” (4). While these practices clearly have an impact on the self-representation of
black communities, there is also a larger concern here. By undercutting the importance and
relevance of struggles by black communities in larger social and political discussions, black
communities are further denied a voice in international discussions of many kinds.
Fundamentally, dismissing individual and collective black voices serves to validate the
assumption that these people have nothing to offer the international community. Paulla Ebron
asserts that “for too many, Africa has not yet achieved the status that warrants consideration
within most global discussions” (3). Representations of Africa that undercut its successes and its
potential serve the neocolonial hierarchy that validates the West on the basis of racial and
economic discourses established by the West. As the international community observed the
genocide, however little they may have understood it, discussions of Rwandan recovery deserve
an equal place in international discourse. By bringing Juliette’s recovery to the stage, Linden
instigates an important dialogue in which Rwandans claim a valuable role as educators, not just
of genocide, but of racial politics more generally.
In discussing the use of restorative values in recovery from mass victimization, Finn
Tschudi writes that
a typical reason for the failure of negotiations may be that restorative values such as
humility and respect are not present in the process. A widespread assumption which is
contrary to restorative values is that we are in direct, unmediated contact with reality and
see things the way they really are. This assumption is the core of naïve realism and leads
to poor communication when we encounter others who see people and events quite
differently from us. (54-55)
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He makes the important point that without equality and a willingness to recognize bias, there is
little change in the dynamic of any given interaction and recovery is not possible. Even as
Rwanda recovers from the genocide of 1994, there is an international disinterest in this process
of recovery. This means that constructions of modern Rwandan identity by the international
community will remain framed by the same assumptions which denied Rwanda aid in the first
place. By applying Tschudi’s concept of productive recovery to the relationship between
Rwanda and the international community, it is clear that a failure to critically engage with the
emerging identity politics of post-genocide Rwanda and recognize the complex challenges facing
the population will condemn Rwandans to the simplistic identity categories which have so far
defined the colonial and neocolonial era. In order to pursue a more progressive and effective
interaction, Rwandans must be seen as complex individuals and Rwanda as a nation must
redefine itself. Certainly, Paul Kagame’s government has worked to eradicate ethnic categories
and pursue an inclusive national identity. Now, it is the responsibility of the international
community, both individual citizens and governments, to engage with this new Rwandan selfdefinition and reject jaded racial prejudice. Through public performance, new practices of
engagement with foreign cultures can become a powerful means of fostering understanding and
respect between diverse communities.
The second character in this play is Simon, a middle-aged English man with a single
published book of poetry and a growing fear that he will never find success as a writer. He
works at a Refugee Centre as a writing mentor. Linden’s choice to have only two characters in
this play serves to foreground the interaction between Juliette and Simon, and allows the
audience to witness how they change as a result of their developing relationship. By the very
fact of their initial hesitation, Linden demonstrates the importance of cross-cultural interaction.
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When they first appear on-stage, it is their differences that are most evident to the audience.
However, as the characters begin to confide in one another, their similarities and the productive
energy of their friendship becomes a powerful presence on the stage. This play, deeply political
and engaged with the lived challenges of a diverse London audience, demonstrates the very
lesson it seeks to convey: that honest communication can unite people across racial, cultural,
gender, and class divisions. Linden, aware that “repeated interaction between people holding
different convictions, or having different cultural, ethnic or religious status, will increase one’s
capacity to understand the perspective of opponents and thus will reduce prejudice towards that
group” (Rhone 11), uses her play as a means of educating the audience about the challenges and
rewards of cross-cultural interactions. As they collaborate on Juliette’s novel about the
genocide, both characters gain insight, empathy, and respect for the other’s position and life
experience.
The Shadow of Imana and I Have Before Me A Remarkable Document Given To Me By A
Young Lady From Rwanda are ultimately focused on exploring post-genocide Rwanda in terms
of social and political shifts. While the practical recovery efforts within Rwanda are evident to
visitors and citizens, more fundamental changes to Rwandan identity constructions are difficult
to trace. Both Tadjo and Linden use cultural and cross-cultural interaction in order to show how
Rwandans have incorporated the fact of the genocide into their life narratives, positively or
negatively. The research question that seems to drive both texts asks: how has the genocide
influenced Rwandan citizens in the post-genocide social and cultural landscape and what are the
implications of this change? Both authors examine how the genocide has coloured international
perceptions of Rwanda and its citizens. Their texts are an effort to assert Rwandan selfdefinitions in response to dated or absent constructions of Rwandan identity on the international
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stage. They privilege Rwandan voices in order to undercut a clear bias in representation, and
demonstrate conversations between Rwandans and a wider global community. These interests
provide readers with models of cross-cultural engagement and testify to the value of rejecting
hierarchies in favour of equality.
*
Tadjo’s personal interests drive the narration of In the Shadow of Imana, which traces her
journey through Rwanda. She opens the text with an admission of her sense of duty in visiting
Rwanda, a choice which ultimately discloses the personal and political motivations of her
writing:
It had long been by dream to go to Rwanda. No, ‘dream’ is not the right word. I had
long felt a need to exorcise Rwanda. To go to that place where those images we had seen
on television had been filmed, images that had flashed across the world and had left an
indelible horror in every heart. I did not want Rwanda to remain forever a nightmare, a
primal fear. (3)
It is compelling that Tadjo admits her susceptibility to the popular framing of the genocide for
Western viewers, as it aligns her with her readers while identifying her as someone willing to
question accepted socio-political narratives about Rwanda. For Tadjo, the representation of
Rwanda as a space of horror and chaos motivates her towards further investigation, and she here
urges her readers to join her in this experience. It is clear that her political motivation is to
challenge the representation that took place during and immediately after the genocide, a goal
which requires her to engage directly with Rwandan individuals and communities. Tadjo’s
understanding of the genocide is productive; she recognizes it as a geographically and culturally
localized but socially and politically diffuse event. She writes that “I was starting from a
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particular premise: what had happened there concerned us all” (3), a statement which
personalizes the genocide and Tadjo’s commitment to representing it as an event important to all
Western readers and not just Rwandans.
Tadjo’s writing reflects her experience of traveling across Rwanda, but the organization
of her text is fragmented, a record of events and considerations rather than a clear and contiguous
narrative. Martina Kopf writes of Tadjo’s narrative that “the fragmentary form reflects the
impossibility of telling a coherent, linear story, of making a meaning out of what she
encountered” (10) and there is merit to this analysis. However, it seems to dismiss Tadjo’s stated
purpose in writing this text, which was to offer some basis for a new understanding of Rwanda
that is not entirely dictated by the genocide. This disjointed narrative offers episodic views of
Rwanda: the people, the geography, notable sites. The genocide is present in the text, but not
ever-present. These varied glimpses of Rwanda help to imaginatively recreate the experience of
traveling through Rwanda, and offer the reader space for their own responses and emotions.
Tadjo’s purpose here is to witness post-genocide Rwanda and share that vision, often unmediated
by authorial commentary, with the reader. This process of witnessing for the purpose of
education is fraught with challenges, but by encouraging readers to respond uniquely to Tadjo’s
encounters with various Rwandans, the text is ultimately successful. As Felman and Laub point
out, one “does not have to possess or own the truth in order to effectively bear witness to it
[Emphasis in the original]” (15). Despite not being Rwandan, or having any experience with the
genocide, Tadjo’s text bears witness to post-genocide Rwanda, and engages with a range of
individuals who speak collectively for Rwanda’s citizenry.
Tadjo starts from the premise that the genocide was a global event relevant to all people,
regardless of how many averted their eyes and excused their responsibility. That her text sets
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itself the task of evolving the understanding of Rwanda in the international imagination through
cultural education is productive. Anxious to address the perception that such large-scale
violence is endemic to Africa alone, she writes
Yes, I went to Rwanda but Rwanda is also here in my country…I am afraid when, in my
country, I hear people talk of who belongs there and who doesn’t. Creating division.
Creating foreigners. Inventing the idea of rejection. How is ethnic identity learned?
Where does this fear of the Other come from, bringing violence in its wake? (37)
This sentiment challenges the construction of any space or people as inherently violent and
reminds the reader that complex social and cultural division is a part of all societies. In
admitting to division in her own country, she relieves Rwanda of the burden of being overlydefined by its own history of conflict. It is also interesting that Tadjo does not identify her
country; born in Paris, raised in the Côte d’Ivoire, and having lived as an adult in Paris, Lagos,
Mexico City, Nairobi and London (“Biography”), she could be speaking of any of these places.
This further dismisses the simplistic boundaries so often imposed on the world and its citizens:
the first, second, and third world, the North/South divide, the colonial construction of the centre
and the periphery. All of these seek to define through opposition; they are categorizations that
fundamentally induce rhetorics of disparity.
In post-genocide Rwanda, Kigali is not a site of horror but rather one of recovery and
human action. Tadjo notes that “from a distance, the city seems to have forgotten everything,
digested everything, swallowed everything. The streets are full of people. The flow of cars is
never-ending. Everyone wants to make a place for themselves, begin everything all over again”
(9). This introduction to the geographic space of Kigali helps to establish a context from which
the reader can understand how the genocide influences daily life in the present. The crowds of
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people seem to surprise the author, even as they may surprise readers prepared to confront the
chaos and destruction of the genocide. In moving through this post-genocide space, Tadjo
invites awareness of the recovery which is underway in Rwanda, and which receives very limited
acknowledgement from the international community. Indeed, she seems to be speaking of
herself when she says that “a lot of time is needed to accept that trees planted in this land of
sorrows have been able to bear fruit” (10). Her approach here is valuable because she admits her
own presumptions and describes her own surprise to find Rwanda, at least at first glance,
working towards recovery. Tadjo’s admission that she expected to see evidence of a society
struggling under the weight of the genocide is compelling. By admitting to her own
assumptions, Tadjo demonstrates the value of investigation and discourse in affecting social
change.
Memorial sites, usually churches or communal gathering spaces, draw observers who
wish to understand the lived experience of mass violence in Rwanda. As these sites were usually
spaces where communities gathered, these memorials remain central to recovering communities,
a relationship that can be fraught as well as comforting. Visiting these sites, Tadjo draws the
reader’s attention to the affective nature of memorials, as well as to the facts and experiences of
genocide which define each distinct space. By choosing these sites to be her first introductions
to post-genocide Rwanda, Tadjo draws attention to existence of “dark tourism” (Lennon and
Foley 11) as a recent reality in Rwanda; these spaces of past violence can serve educational and
political purposed for Western observers, but as tourist attractions, they can also affirm
Rwanda’s genocide as a defining aspect of local culture and identity. Jay Winter, discussing
how memories of past violence are put to use in the politics of the present, observes that “starting
in 1918, practices of remembrance have been first and foremost acts of mourning” (54). Official
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memorial sites in Rwanda are linked to the governmental program of remembrance through
purple fabric which denotes them as spaces of violence during the genocide. These sites carry
educational and political weight because they inscribe historical events with national
significance. For international visitors, these sites permit the opportunity to observe the actual
sites of mass killings; there are mass graves incorporated into several of the memorials. Beyond
recognition of the violence which occurred, these spaces also foster understanding and
discussion as guides are employed to explain the recent history of these spaces and to narrate the
events which led up to the killings. Finally, these spaces provide a means of bearing witness to
the genocide in Rwanda; all sites have visitor logs in which visitors can sign their name and
make comments about what they have seen and learned.
Tadjo records her visit to two memorials in Bugesera, Rwanda. She introduces the first
memorial, Nyamata, with the words: “site of genocide. Plus or minus 35,000 dead” (11). These
figures attempt to define a suffering that cannot be conveyed with words. Tadjo, seemingly
aware of this limitation of human comprehension, turns her attention to one individual story
among the many narratives that are contained within this tiny church:
A woman bound hand and foot. Mukandori. Aged twenty-five. Exhumed in 1997…Her
wrists are bound, and tied to her ankles. Her legs are spread wide apart. Her body is
lying on its side. She looks like an enormous fossilised foetus. She has been laid on a
dirty blanket, in front of carefully lined up skulls and bones scattered on a mat. She has
been raped. A pickaxe has been forced into her vagina. She died from a machete blow to
the nape of her neck. You can see the groove left by the impact. (11)
Describing this image, Tadjo accomplishes two things: she invites the reader to engage
imaginatively in the act of observing this preserved figure, and she leaves a space for the reader
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to respond to this image. The image Tadjo paints of this figure amidst so many other signs of
death is a powerful reminder that each skull in the church also represents a story of trauma and
death. Such scenes of death can be overwhelming, causing the reader to disengage, and so Tadjo
encourages the reader to focus on a single human life stopped short after a great deal of
suffering. In the spare narration style here, Tadjo omits her own response to this figure, which
permits the reader to react without influence or guidance. Using direct narration, Tadjo directs
the reader’s eye, but does not attempt to shape the reader’s emotions.
While Tadjo does not share her response to the body of Mukandori, the text conveys the
effect of the enclosed space of the church on the author. While the memorial is an organized and
protected space, Tadjo experiences the church as chaotic: “these dead are screaming still. The
chaos remains palpable. The events are too recent. This is not a memorial but death laid bare,
exposed in all its rawness” (12). This is an important moment of narrative intrusion; Tadjo
describes the factual objects and images of the church, but she also conveys that which is only
palpable to visitors. The chaos that she discusses here is not a fact of the space, but rather a
perception informed by her recognition of the meaning behind these bones and skulls. Focused
on a single body, Tadjo seems impassive, but stepping back to survey the wider scene, she is
overwhelmed by the sheer scale of violence evidenced in Nyamata Church. It defies
comprehension, and so she narrates the chaos, evoking the space of the church in so doing. This
sense of the church as overwhelming is echoed by the author’s difficulty finding appropriate
words to write in the memorial book. Here she reminds readers that responses are difficult but
necessary. This moment of discomposure, narrated for the edification of the reader,
demonstrates the value of attempting to observe and understand, even when such efforts fall
short or fail.
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At a second site, Ntarama, Tadjo turns her focus away from the remains of the dead to
observe the guide whose duty is to preserve this space and aid in understanding. Of this guide,
Tadjo notes that
white-haired and serene, the little old man has a quizzical look. He is observing the
visitor, weighing them up, studying them closely, stripping them of their marks. He can
categorise them straight away: those who will avert their gaze from the spectacle of death
laid out before them, those who will be shocked, those who will weep, those who will
remain silent, those who will ask questions, pen in hand, those who will seek to
rationalise, to understand, those who will give him money and those who will not dare,
those who will write: ‘Never again!’ (14)
Tadjo considers this guide’s relationship to the visitors who witness the aftermath of the
Rwandan Genocide, emphasizing his ability to read the responses and emotions of those who
explore this site of genocide. Her narration attempts to imaginatively capture his experience of
post-genocide witnessing, and in doing so, reveals an interesting consequence of the Rwandan
genocide: because Rwanda has been marked by genocide in the popular imagination, visitors
often turn to Rwandan citizens to understand how such violence, and such recovery, is possible.
By virtue of his experience and accessibility, this man becomes responsible for aiding those who
observe this horror while his own response is carefully held in check. The range of responses
observed by the guide is an exploration of the ways that witnessing manifests itself; Tadjo
clarifies that the effort to understand large-scale violence is complex and distinct for each person,
carving further space for the reactions of her readers.
*
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As Tadjo moves through Rwanda, visiting heritage and genocide sites, she includes in her
narrative the citizens that she meets. This allows her to trace the complex implications of the
genocide on the people of Rwanda, and, like the texts of chapter four, emphasize the diversity of
this post-genocide population. This representation of brief moments of interaction is particularly
important for Western readers; Seyla Benhabib observes that “I can become aware of the
otherness of others, those aspects of their identity that make them concrete others to me, only
through their own narratives [Emphasis in the original]” (14). Having individuals residing in
Rwanda assert their voice in this text allows Tadjo to convey their concerns to the reader more
directly. This is particularly important as many texts about the genocide frame Rwandan
identities as wholly tied up in the genocide. In an effort to resist such characterizations, Tadjo
demonstrates a range of surprising subjects who challenge the popular constructs of Rwandan
victimization and Rwandan violence. Discussing the representation of marginalized experience,
Hall states that “the attempt to snatch from the hidden histories another place to stand in, another
place to speak from – that moment is extremely important. It is a moment that always tends to
be overrun and to be marginalized by the dominant forces of globalization” (184). These stories
stand as hidden histories brought to light within Tadjo’s spare narrative style, respectful of
Rwandan experiences and supportive of a more dynamic view of Rwandan national identity.
The text introduces each interaction with a title and then jumps into the narrative interests
of Tadjo’s subjects. This discussion will explore six of Tadjo’s many interactions in order to
identify important issues facing the Rwandan population. The first narrative under consideration
is Nelly, whose story is entitled “Migina Suburb, Near the Amahoro Stadium in Kigali” (34).
This woman owns a small bar in Kigali, at the back of which is her home. Tadjo describes Nelly
as “wearing a hat that conceals half her face, and a long floral dress. Her body is too slender,
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almost skinny” (34). While initially, Nelly keeps her distance after serving drinks to Tadjo and
Tadjo’s unnamed companion, she surprises them by inviting them back into the house to “come
and see [her] family!” (35). It is within this house that Nelly becomes a complex subject, as her
personal life is revealed:
At the foot of the bed, a girl is washing a child in a large white basin…The girl is
beautiful. She makes very slow gestures to calm the small child. Nelly declares: ‘This is
my daughter. I am a grandmother!’ She goes up to [a] sleeping boy [of about six years
of age] and murmurs: ‘This one is my darling. He is a gift from God.’ Roughly she
seizes his arm and shakes him hard. The child opens his eyes and makes feeble protest
for a few seconds. Then he goes back to sleep lying on his back. Nelly laughs
uproariously and goes to the baby, whom her daughter is now smearing with Vaseline.
She slaps his bottom a few times saying: ‘I don’t want this one. He was born of the war.
What are we to do with him?’ As she says this, she is preparing to hit him. Her daughter
says something without raising her head. Nelly stops short, seizes the child and plants a
smacking kiss on his mouth. (35)
This scene raises the issue of war rape in the aftermath of the genocide, drawing attention to the
very conflicting emotions that can shape a family’s response to a child of rape. 20 Nelly, the
matriarch of this family, here demonstrates her personal pride in her family, as well as her
conflicting emotions about her two grandchildren. Of the child born just before the genocide,
she demonstrates ferocious devotion and pride; for the second child, a child of rape, she admits
20
This issue has been explored in some detail by the Israeli artist Jonathan Torgovnik, who toured Rwanda over
three years, 2006-2009, interviewing and photographing Rwandan women who had been raped during the genocide
and were left pregnant as a result. This work eventually opened as a gallery exhibit in New York under the title
“Intended Consequences: Rwandan Children Born of Rape” in April 2009. The photographs depict these mothers
and children together, and offer an interesting basis for the consideration of how war rape serves as the basis of
complex relationships between mothers and children. One specific image from this exhibition claimed the US
National Portrait Gallery’s Photographic Portrait Prize in 2007.
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she has no love. This child was unwanted, conceived violently, and stands, in Nelly’s mind, as a
reminder of the genocide. Despite her light tone and laughter, this is a serious admission to a
problem suffered by families across Rwanda. Recovery from the genocide is about integrating
the facts and memories of genocide into a larger, coherent life narrative. Children born of
genocidal rape deserve to be integrated into individual and familial recoveries, although they
simultaneously represent the trauma of genocide. Tadjo notes that Nelly was “preparing to hit
him” (35) without reason, aside from the fact of his birth. While rough with her grandchildren,
Nelly is aggressive with this second child. She also poses a compelling question: “what are we
to do with him?” (35). There is no answer to this question; this child, like the burden of trauma,
is the result of the genocide and must be accepted in order to begin the work of individual and
familial recovery.
An additional issue here is the exchange between Nelly and her daughter, the unwanted
child’s mother. As Tadjo enters the house, the daughter is carefully caring for this boy. She
does not speak as Nelly introduces each of the children, nor does she protest the small slaps as
Nelly announces his lineage. However, this young mother defends her child from the threat of a
more forceful attack, murmuring something which compels Nelly to kiss the child instead.
While the reader is not privy to what she has said, three things are clear: first, regardless of the
parentage of this child, the young woman is devoted to him and actively protects him.
Secondly, Nelly and her daughter have conflicting views on this child, and ultimately, it is the
daughter who determines the family’s attitude towards this rape baby. The efficiency with which
she curtails Nelly’s attack suggests that this conflict has been discussed before. Finally, Nelly’s
rough handling of the baby demonstrates that these children of rape may face rejection in their
immediate families and communities. This brief exchange as Tadjo moves through Nelly’s work
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and domestic space demonstrates how the ramifications of genocide can be hidden within the
domestic sphere rather then made visible in Rwanda’s public spaces. While the trauma of war
rape has been recognized as a substantial burden, , this interaction demonstrates to readers the
lifetime consequences of this action for the women and families of Rwanda. This is particularly
the case because in Rwandan culture, rape is a mark of shame and has often caused families to
reject their daughters publicly, denying them support or protection. However, in this instance,
Nelly’s daughter is evidence of a changing social norm in Rwanda, as she retains authority over
Nelly’s treatment of her children. In this case, post-genocide recovery has required Rwandans to
think critically about traditional social practices, and revise enacted tradition in ways that allow
increased freedom for some.
The second narrative under consideration here is entitled “Consolate’s Story.” Tadjo first
offers a physical description to ground her narration of Consolate’s post-genocide experiences.
She says that
Consolate has a face of astonishing sweetness. Her skin gives off reflections of copper
and ivory and her graceful body sways to the rhythm of her steps…her eyes are velvety
and her smile has the taste of mango. Sometimes, if she turns sharply, her silhouette
describes a powerful arabesque. Consolate speaks in a hushed tone, but her words come
out of her mouth with a clarity that makes you shiver. Her manner is not assertive, nor is
her speech emphatic. (28)
These descriptors emphasize Consolate’s vibrant physicality before revealing that Consolate’s
father is dead and her mother is a perpetrator serving a life sentence in prison. Consolate
remains in Rwanda to provide emotional support for her mother, but “no longer recognises her
mother on the other side of the invisible barrier, this broken, damaged woman who looks like
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nothing” (28). In juxtaposing Consolate with the post-genocide circumstances she faces, Tadjo
emphasizes how the individual devastation of the genocide causes ripples into the future.
Accepting her mother’s inevitable decline in prison, Consolate “has mourned the future. The
future no longer exists for her. Her days are nothing but a long anguished wait, a desire to leave
for another place. The world stretches beyond the other side of those hills, far from death, far
from this prison, from her captive memory, fixed, frozen in time” (29). In accepting her
mother’s jailing, Consolate loses her only connection to family; in recognizing that her mother’s
jailing is necessary for national recovery, Consolate loses her connection to her homeland.
Unable to move past this reality, Consolate is waiting to be free of the trauma of genocide,
passed down through families. While stories of Tutsi and Hutu victims are common, this
narrative explores how the families of perpetrators also carry a burden during recovery.
Consolate, a woman of soft sentiments who “cannot tear her gaze” (29) from a cat nursing her
first litter of kittens, reminds readers that the children of perpetrators also suffer for the choices
of their parents, and carry the weight of their parents crimes, as well as the knowledge that they
are unlikely to ever reclaim their families. As much attention is paid to the victims of the
genocide, Tadjo here emphasizes the unseen victims of perpetrators: their families and especially
their children.
In a brief narration entitled “The Pastor,” Tadjo explores the powerful post-genocide guilt
faced by a pastor who was charged with protecting four children as their parents fled during the
genocide. The belief that the churches were safe spaces and that the génocidaires would not kill
people in view of the clergy was prevalent in the early days of the genocide. However, the
pastor’s house was ransacked and the children discovered. The militia ordered the pastor to kill
one of the children himself; the pastor swung the machete once and ran when he saw blood.
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Hiding in a refugee camp until the end of the genocide, the pastor turns himself in to face
prosecution for the murder of this child. When asked by the prosecutor what he feels his
punishment should be, the pastor responds: “I must die” (96). Scott Straus has estimated the
number of perpetrators at 200,000 (“How Many Perpetrators Were There in the Rwandan
Genocide? An Estimate” 95), but there are no accurate estimates of how many of these
perpetrators were forced to kill, either by public pressure or direct threat. This narrative reminds
readers of this complex form of participation in genocide, and more importantly, the extremely
difficult path to recovery after such actions. The pastor, convinced of his guilt, is unable to
forgive himself for his actions under the threat of death. For him, his moral weakness is a crime
deserving of punishment. The pastor’s sense of guilt prevents any thought of his future or any
desire to begin recovery. Through this brief narrative about the burden of guilt in a postgenocide society, Tadjo encourages the reader to recognize both the wide spectrum of those
identified as perpetrators, and also to emphasize the weight of this identity on those co-opted into
the genocide by force.
In “The Man Whose Life Was Turned Upside-Down,” Tadjo offers the story of a
Frenchman who arrived in Africa at the age of twenty-two, and has lived his whole life in
Rwanda. Of his time in Africa, he says “it was the encounter with Africa, this other world, that
turned me upside-down, that gave me birth. What we have to understand is the absolute
necessity of difference. The necessity of difference” (25-26). This connection to a place of
adoptive origin is compelling; his genuine love of Rwanda is an inversion of the common
colonial and neocolonial perception of Africa as the antithesis of European culture and
innovation. This man provides a compelling commentary of the actions of the French during the
genocide: “I know the truth of this, I am a witness to it: France ruined everything. She did not
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keep her promises, she betrayed this country” (26). While this is a truthful statement, supported
by the web of documents that detail France’s shipments of arms and men to Rwanda throughout
the genocide, it is not a view commonly proffered in discussion of genocidal responsibility.
France’s role in the Rwandan Genocide has post-genocide implications; this Frenchman by birth
and Rwandan by choice is now alienated by his nationality in Rwanda. Tadjo describes him as
“a man living on his dreams, on the past of this first encounter – of this revelation, this
impossible love for a land which is now rejecting him. He feels torn, pulled apart by opposing
forces which won’t let him just be a human being” (26). Tadjo wishes the reader to consider
how failure of Western nations to publicly accept their full roll in the genocide has implications
for many, such as expatriates who make their homes in Rwanda. This man carries guilt for
which he cannot atone and a sense of rejection by the local Rwandan population. As such, he is
a displaced person, distanced from his natural and adoptive homes. This depiction also reminds
readers that the post-genocide recovery does not solely involve citizens born in Rwanda, but also
naturalized citizens as well. For non-native citizens, the era of recovery in Rwanda involves a
negotiation of local and international politics.
International interactions within Rwanda are further considered in “The Project
Manager,” which details the experiences of a non-Rwandan man who was working in Rwanda
on an agricultural project before the genocide began. Having fled Rwanda at the first signs of
violence, driven by “fear, physical fear, uncontrollable fear, of being caught in this terrifying
violence that would certainly turn against…the foreigners” (30), the Project Manager returns to
Rwanda during the recovery in order to find colleagues and workers who may have survived the
genocide. He has returned to “pay them their wages, the money that they were never able to get
hold of when the Project closed its doors, amid widespread chaos and fear” (29). The
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explanation of his exit from Rwanda is a reminder of the heightened racial tensions of the early
days of the genocide, as expatriates were removed from Rwanda as Rwandan citizens begged for
protection. These moments, broadcast globally, demonstrated the fundamental divisions of race
and nationality which prioritized some lives over others. The guilt that drives the Project
Manager to return to Rwanda is a mixture of devotion to the responsibilities of his life in
Rwanda, and awareness that his escape was predicated on the good fortune of his race. For
turning his back on his Rwandan neighbours and co-workers, he perceives himself as complicit
in the larger refusal to aid Rwandans facing this genocide, and this guilt compels him to return
and make amends. He believes that “if the Project resumes one day,…the dead will be
appeased” (30). His personal recovery is dependant on aiding the recovery of those he knew
before the genocide; he “is travelling the country from end to end, looking for people and finding
a few” (30). This type of arduous commitment to co-workers long scattered speaks to the depth
of his guilt and also his devotion to this country. Through this story, Tadjo reveals another
permutation of the survivor narrative, and asks readers to recognize the cost of escape when it
means embracing unspoken hierarchies of race to do so. The Project Manager, aware of the
reasons for his survival, seeks to absolve himself by committing wholeheartedly to the
agricultural work which first brought him to Rwanda. He says to Tadjo, “when the Project
resumes,…I can die happy” (30). In this moment, the act of recovery is both public and
personal, and demonstrates a sense of personal responsibility in the face of overwhelming threat.
The final narrative under consideration here is entitled “Seth and Valentine” and explores
the call to return to a home long abandoned. Seth is a Rwandan man raised in Burundi due to the
massacres that occurred in Rwanda in and after 1963, and who now lives in the United States.
His parents were assassinated in Rwanda after ensuring that their children had escaped the
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nation. Seth plans to return to post-genocide Rwanda to raise his own family. His recent travels
into the country have convinced him that “we have hit rock bottom. Now we are going to move
up again” (77). Aware of the destruction of the genocide, he recognizes that Rwanda is a
country full of potential, and as a citizen, he feels compelled to be involved with the recovery
efforts. When Tadjo expresses surprise at his willingness to leave the comforts of the United
States and a life already established, he explains that his wife Valentine “will be able to get a job
there and I will set up a business” (77). He sees their social and economic commitment to
Rwanda as essential to aiding in recovery. This drive to return to the country of birth is one
which challenges the perception of Rwanda as an undesirable space and reminds the reader of
the powerful lure of home. Tadjo describes Seth’s longing for home as “like the life-blood that
pulses through the veins and arteries and makes the heart swell” (77). Seth is a member of the
vast Rwandan diaspora, a testament to the severity of ethnic politics in the decades before the
genocide. However, he also bears the marks of this diasporic existence; Tadjo writes that “his is
an ivory tower existence” (76) and his confidence about his future in Rwanda is based on a
conflation between present-day Rwanda and his own stable childhood in Burundi. What is
important here is the powerful draw of nationality, however blinding that draw can be. Seth’s
faith in Rwanda’s future compels him to return and face the challenges that all Rwanda’s citizens
face as the genocide recedes from memory. This confidence is what Tadjo emphasizes, as it is a
rare emotion in the discussions of Rwanda’s future that have been offered up to this point.
These six scenes excerpted from Tadjo’s wide-ranging interactions with Rwandan
citizens demonstrate the complex subject positions created by the politics of post-genocide
recovery. This diverse cross-section of Rwandan citizenry is an opportunity to affirming the
diversity of post-genocide Rwandan communities while raising issues facing specific segments
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of society. Tschudi notes that during recovery from large-scale conflict, “at the individual level
the objective is to repair harm and thus foster dignity and empowerment for the persons
involved. This requires participation of the local community. At the community level, the
objective is to promote and strengthen a viable community with empathy and trust” (46). This
text addresses both concerns. The portrait of individual citizens creates a sense of community
amongst survivors, loosely defined, by emphasizing the personal challenges that arise out of the
social and political crisis implicit in the genocide. By addressing the challenges of recovery on
an individual level, Tadjo urges the reader to consider how the nation as a whole is affected by
the grieving and recovery process. By raising ignored or unseen issues, such writing attempts to
help Rwandan recovery. Travelogue narration, historically used to exoticize foreign cultures and
spaces, is in this instance a means of renegotiating the international construct of post-genocide
Rwandan identity. As literature that exposes the daily concerns of Rwandan citizens, as voiced
by those citizens, it invites the reader to reject the simplistic construct of victim or villain and
instead see the diversity of Rwanda’s citizenry, and the complexity of their most pressing
concerns.
*
Tadjo includes a section in her text called “The Wrath of the Dead,” which employs a narrative
structure to demonstrate and underscore the challenge of recovering social order after the
Rwandan genocide. The protagonist of this narrative is a soothsayer, a traditional community
guide who connects citizens to the spiritual world of their ancestors. This narrative draws on
traditional Rwandan religious beliefs and emphasizes the potential of local culture to aid the
recovery of Rwandan communities. It also demonstrates the efficacy of speech and narrative in
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reclaiming identity, both for the speaker and for the audience. The text opens as narrative,
describing the post-genocide state of Rwanda:
The dead were paying regular visits to the living and when they were with them, they
would asked (sic) why they had been killed…The dead would have liked to speak but no
one could hear them. They would have liked to say all that they had not had time to say,
all the words whose utterance they had been denied, cut from their tongues, torn from
their mouths. (41)
It is a bold choice to open this long section of narrative with the concerns of the dead rather than
the living, as recovery ultimately focuses on survivors and not victims. However, this narrative
choice dramatises the relationship between the living and the dead in a way that makes the
burden of survival clear to the reader. The voices of these dead are the voices of Rwandan
citizens in the midst of genocide. Their demand for voice in death speaks to their lack of voice
in their last moments of life, and provocatively demonstrates how survivors can be weighed
down by their own survival in the face of so much death.
This narrative focuses on one particular dead man whose soul is discontent and who is
refusing to “quit the earth” (42) because he is angry that survivors are willing to forget the
genocide in order to return to a semblance of normalcy. This dead man, determined to remain on
earth with the living, cannot initiate conversations with the living, as they were “walled up inside
their own pain, deafened by their own tears, and their regrets. The dead man knocked on doors
and windows, but they did not open. He cried: ‘Why are you abandoning me? Now I am a
corpse and you no longer recognise me. Can you not feel my presence among you?” (43). This
failed exchange demonstrates how the memory of the genocide itself creates division in
Rwandan society. The act of grieving is intimately tied up with remembrance of the dead, but
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for survivors, it is also connected to the memories of their own suffering. Thus, the act of
grieving others is inextricably linked to the burden of personal loss. In an effort to recover after
the genocide, Tadjo suggests that some Rwandans have turned their backs on the dead, or
attempted to insulate themselves from the complexity of community engagement. Thus, the
dead seek to remind the living of the importance of remembrance as a communal practice which
affirms loss and asserts change going forward. This engagement between living and dead gives
form to the discussion of trauma in post-genocide Rwanda; the use of traditional narrative details
and spiritual beliefs establishes a framework of instigating discussions of mourning and
productive recovery.
The rage of this dead man manifests in Rwanda as rain, an “angry rain shrieking its
refusal to open the gates to the other world…the rain hammered on, stormed, rebelled, demanded
that the spirit should remain where it was” (42). Within the narrative, the social, cultural and
political disruptions caused by the genocide are mimicked by the disruptions of the natural
world. The questions of this dead man are compelling, demonstrating concern about the
individual and collective future in Rwanda: “Why so soon? Why like this? What will become of
my voice, my eyes? Who will continue what I have begun” (43). The dead, who have only their
deaths to consider, dwell on the past, while the survivors busy themselves with the efforts of
social and personal recovery and try to avoid the past. This fear of engaging with the violence of
the genocide reflects the fears of all Rwandans who survived to rebuild community. However,
even as the dead force this issue forward for discussion, the survivors retreat from conversation
until “everything had come to a halt” (43). Tadjo suggests here that avoidance of the fears and
traumas of the past, divides individuals from their communities and halts effective recovery.
What is clear is that public discourse is in itself the challenge and the solution; opening
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discussion proves difficult for the living and the dead, but will provide the means of recovery for
both groups.
A soothsayer arrives from his home elsewhere in the hills of Rwanda, and before
speaking to the survivors, he “greet[s] the rain, turn[s] to the wind, and beg[ins] to listen to the
angered spirit. He hear[s] the story of his murder, the humiliations and torture which he had
undergone before he was beheaded” (43). His actions demonstrate the value of listening and
engaging in narratives of suffering; his respect and compassion for the dead convey to the reader
the importance of actively acknowledging the traumas of the past. The soothsayer’s humility
before this spirit is notable, as is his respect for the suffering and displacement of the dead.
Appeasing the spirit, he says “even as I weep, I know that my pain can never reach even the
outer limit of your suffering, you who have been mown down by cruelty… I am vulnerable
before you, a wretch of humanity” (43). In a gesture of appeasement, the soothsayer beseeches
the dead to allow the living another opportunity to learn how to recover without shutting out the
dead from the present. This emotional discourse which engages with the loss of the dead serves
as a powerful antidote to the rage demonstrated by this spirit before the soothsayer arrived:
Suddenly, the rain began to calm so that only the regular murmur of its lamentations
could be heard, the refrain of despair. And soon, the first noises of daily life could be
heard: bursts of talking, shouts, objects being moved, engines thrumming, machinery
working somewhere at the end of the street, music coming from a radio. The inhabitants
came out of their shelters and hesitantly set out on the muddy roads. The rolling of
thunder came now only from a distance. Nature seemed to be peaceful again. (44)
This resumption of life on the promise of a recovery based in discourse and memory is a
powerful moment in the narrative, and speaks directly to the needs of Rwandan communities in
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the aftermath of the genocide. The spirit relinquishes his anger and he ceases to be a burden to
the community. The fact that as the rain diminishes, the sounds of work and pleasure become
audible is itself suggestive of recovery. The same can be said for the citizens who emerge from
their homes and begin to travel and engage with others; communication eases the burden of
recovery and draws people together. By actively recognizing the suffering of the past and being
mindful of that suffering in the present, recovery becomes implicit in the acts of mourning the
past and resuming daily life. Without intending to simplify the complex challenge of recovery in
Rwanda, Tadjo demonstrates the role of memory and tradition in reclaiming social order lost
through genocide.
This narrative demonstrates the need to integrate the loss of the genocide into personal
and national identities through collective recovery efforts. To this end, the soothsayer teaches
the crowd gathered to “bury the dead according to our rites, bury their desiccated bodies, their
bones growing old in the open air, so that we keep of them nothing but their memory, heightened
by respect. Memory is like a sword dipped in steel, like rain in the heart of drought” (44-45).
This reminder of the value of shared cultural practices, as well as active commemoration, speaks
to the need for collective engagement in the traumas of the genocide. Far from escaping the
memories of trauma, the soothsayer urges his audience to embrace the fact of the genocide as a
valuable tool for collective action in the future. However, this education is accompanied by a
stern warning; as the diviner’s voice becomes “hard and sharp” (47), he warns the crowd to
“guard against a desire for vengeance and the perpetual cycle of violence and reprisals. The
dead are not at peace because your hearts are still shot through with hatred…you live together,
but look in opposite directions. You co-habit to survive, but no one is willing to take the first
step” (47). This shift in tone is indicative of the real threat to Rwanda’s future as a cohesive and
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productive nation posed by the failure to recover effectively. Rwanda’s long history of ethnic
violence and the division caused by the genocide have forced a social cleavage which has slowed
reconciliation between Rwandan citizens. This warning reminds the citizens that the tensions of
the recovery era in Rwanda will only increase if true recovery is not achieved through
memorialization and effective collective communication. Allowing the traumas of the genocide
to silence post-genocide memorialization and public discourse undercuts the efficacy of practical
recovery and the long-term development of a productive Rwandan national identity.
This narrative “The Wrath of the Dead” is offered as an oral tale and employs traditional
elements from Rwandan culture. The soothsayer is representative of the traditional Rwandan
spiritual system, much like the character of Funga in The Oldest Orphan. His arrival to face the
anger of the spirit world after the genocide demonstrates the value of culture in the face of
destruction; in Rwanda, traditional culture can be used to challenge the colonial and neocolonial
devaluation of local identity, as well as the socio-political divisions of the genocide. The
soothsayer unites citizens through discourse, integrating local experiences of genocide into the
citizens’ constructions of self and nation, and warning that a failure to achieve some degree of
unity could permit another eruption of violence. By considering Rwanda’s recovery through this
modified oral narrative, Tadjo provides the reader with a vision of how traditional Rwandan
culture might serve to aid genocide recovery in Rwanda. This narrative emphasizes the role of
Rwandan culture alongside the pursuit of legal and social justice. Ultimately, the soothsayer
demonstrates confidence in the recovery of Rwanda, as he returns to the hills of Rwanda at the
close of the narrative and allows the community to proceed as they choose. The narrative
establishes the path towards recovery and demonstrates trust that the citizens of Rwanda can find
ways to vocalize their experiences of genocide productively.
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Tadjo’s narrative moves through Rwanda, exploring the role of memorial sites, citizen
narratives, and traditional culture in the efforts of recovery. The form of the travel narrative
encourages diverse reader responses, as many of the author’s experiences are narrated without
commentary. This literary engagement with the genocide is powerful precisely because the
reader bears witness to a post-genocide Rwanda in which the genocide is an important topic of
conversation, but is increasingly a backdrop to emerging definitions of Rwandan national
identity. The movement through the spaces of national memorialization demonstrate both the
horror of the genocide and the way that discourses of genocide have been taken up by the
national government and by local Rwandans alike. Offering moments of interaction with a wide
range of Rwandans and expatriates encourages the reader to see the diversity of the Rwandan
population, as well as the complexity of the process of recovery. Because of Tadjo’s spare
narrative style, Rwandan voices are not mediated by narrative tropes, but rather speak for
themselves and determine their own topics of discussion. The inclusion of the traditional
narrative positions Rwandan culture as a valuable resource for Rwanda in imagining and
working through the post-genocide recovery. As a post-genocide text, Tadjo’s work
demonstrates the vibrancy and life that remains in Rwanda, even as the practical and emotional
recovery continues. For readers whose image of Rwanda was forged during the genocide, this
text offers a very different sense of Rwandan identity. Tadjo engages with the trauma of this
nation, but she also affirms the potential of the recovery process.
*
The final text, Linden’s play I have Before Me A Remarkable Document Given To Me By A
Young Lady From Rwanda is written by Sonja Linden and supported by “Iceandfire,” a
performance company dedicated to exploring human rights narratives. The use of this
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performative format to introduce discussions about post-genocide Rwanda is compelling, as
plays inherently offer the opportunity for increased audience engagement and interaction. Kalisa
emphasizes the need for inclusive social recovery in the face of genocide, stating that “by
definition, genocide annihilates everything, including the myths, symbols and language that
define a community and its people. Theatre has the potential to encourage performers and the
audience to envision new imagery, new language, and to reconnect with rituals” (518). In
addressing the socio-political divisions that prevent interaction, the use of performance is an
effective choice. Performance is a public event, one which requires the audience to make some
response because “the reception of a given work of art is part of the work itself…[it] completes
the whole creative process” (Ngũgĩ 82). Given that the objective of this play is to raise public
understanding about the challenges facing Rwandan citizens in a post-genocide world and about
the politics behind cross-cultural interactions, the emphasis on inciting public discourse is
merited.
This play is inherently political. In the introduction to the play, the theatre company
states that “we passionately believe art has a role to play in communicating one of the most
pressing issues of today – the growing displacement of peoples from conflict zones…we aim to
present to British audiences stories of individuals whose lives have been touched by these
events” (6). The subject of the play is based on Sonja Linden’s own experiences working at the
Write to Life project through the Care of Victims of Torture Foundation (Linden 6). Even the
title offers a political commentary:
Many people have commented on the lengthy title of my play, some thinking it brilliantly
arresting, others finding it annoyingly unwieldy…for Gourevitch, impatience with his
title seemed symptomatic of the West’s indifference to a genocide taking place in a tiny
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country, off the map, in faraway darkest Africa. Similarly, my long title is a deliberate
challenge to our short attention span where Rwanda is concerned. (16)
Warned that having the word “Rwanda” in the title would likely “frighten audiences away” (16),
Linden refused to pacify her potential audience by hiding the subject matter of the play. While
an unpopular topic with global audiences during the genocide, Linden’s play uses performance to
convey the human dignity of genocide survivors and assert the specific value of discussing their
treatment in British society.
This play is significantly the only text which steps away from the physical space of
Rwanda or considers the diasporic Rwandan community. Set in London, England, this play
traces Juliette, a young female survivor of the genocide who claims refugee status in London.
While there, she meets Simon, a writer in his forties and it is through the interaction of these two
characters that the social and political message of the play is generated. Linden’s political
commentary is both general and specific. While she directly comments on the British support
system which provides for refugees, it is clear that the identity politics which inform the
relationship between Simon and Juliette are indicative of the larger tensions between Western
and non-Western citizens. There are two primary issues explored in this discussion of the play:
the challenges and rewards of cross-cultural interactions and the role of writing in recovery from
large-scale trauma. The play affirms the value of communication after mass violence,
demonstrating that communication, either speaking or listening, can form powerful connections
between people otherwise divided by substantial social, cultural, and political barriers. The play,
designed to engage audiences in public discussions of the socio-political superstructures which
shape cross-cultural engagements between Rwandan and non-Rwandan actors, conveys its
message to readers and audiences by demonstrating the complexities of bridging these divisions.
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The vast Rwandan diaspora has significant communities throughout Africa, Europe, and
North America. Approximately six million Rwandese live outside of Rwanda (Mazimpaka). In
the United Kingdom specifically, the Rwandese Community Association UK has been in
operation since the late 1980s and “strives to keep the ties between Rwandans at home and those
in the Diaspora and to keep the Rwandan culture alive by organizing cultural events for both
Rwandans and their friends and by encouraging Rwandan children to learn their language and
culture” (“Rwandese Community Association in the UK”). Juliette is a proud Rwandan woman,
but isolated as she is in London, she must rely on her adoptive community to aid her in her
recovery; it is ultimately Simon’s support that allows her to reclaim a strong personal and social
identity. Hunt suggests that the social aspect of recovery is under-appreciated by many, as “few
authors have explicitly discussed how it is that social support is usually the best predictor of
recovery from a traumatic event and the role of narrative in such recovery” (90). This play,
demonstrating the value of cross-cultural interactions for Juliette, makes a strong socio-political
comment about the nature of interactions between individuals of all races and cultures.
By setting this play in London rather than in Rwanda, Linden is able to explore the
genocide both intimately and at a distance. Juliette’s experience of genocide allows for an
intimate representation of individual recovery while also raising the larger social and political
tensions around the issue of displaced citizens. This decision also challenges the lines which are
often drawn around nations which have experienced mass-violence; Juliette’s life in London
demonstrates that recovery from the Rwandan genocide is not intrinsically located in Rwanda,
but must occur in all diasporic spaces. For new arrivals, and particularly for visible minorities,
forming an identity within a new nation can be exceedingly difficult. Of national identity and
those excluded from belonging, Said writes that
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just beyond the perimeter of what nationalism constructs as the nation, at the frontier
separating ‘us’ from what is alien, is the perilous territory of not-belonging. This is
where,…in the modern era, immense aggregates of humanity loiter as refugees and
displaced persons. One enormous difficulty in describing this…is that nationalisms are
about groups, whereas exile is about the absence of an organic group situated in a native
place. (“The Mind of Winter” 51)
Juliette, who lives in London for months before having any meaningful discussion with a local
Londoner, experiences the unspoken hostility of British nationals who assume by her skin colour
and bearing that she is not British. Displaced from Rwanda and unwelcome in Britain, Juliette’s
daily experiences in the city are an additional burden to a woman already carrying the memory of
genocide in her home nation. Because she lives as a refugee, Juliette is at the mercy of the
British system of governance, which provides for her physical but not her emotional needs. Her
treatment by the government demonstrates the devaluing which underwrites the negative public
perception of refugees, as “one way of ‘managing’ a population is to constitute them as the less
than human without entitlement to rights, as the humanly unrecognizable…‘Managing’ a
population is thus not only a process through which regulatory power produces a set of subjects.
It is also the process of their de-subjectification” (Butler 98). Juliette’s social exclusion
undermines her efforts to recover from the genocide by making a new life in London very
difficult to establish. As Juliette blossoms as a character on-stage, it becomes clear to the
audience that the term “refugee” belies the complexity of lived refugee experiences.
Linden constructs the character of Simon as representative of the British public, while his
lack of understanding of the Rwandan genocide aligns him with many around the world who
watched the coverage of the genocide from a distance and with dispassion. While not
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disinterested in the genocide, Simon’s lack of knowledge stems from the fact that coverage of the
events emphasized the distance between the viewer and those represented on screen. As Juliette
is identified from the onset of the play as Rwandan, and as a survivor very much caught up in her
personal experience of genocide, their interaction is compelling on multiple levels. Most broadly
interpreted, the relationship between Simon and Juliette offers audiences an opportunity to
observe the emergence of a relationship affected by the politics of racial difference, national
difference, and class disparity.
The value of demonstrating and exploring cross-cultural exchanges through performance
is significant given the increasingly porous borders of the current global community. Interaction
between people from different social, cultural, political, and religious collectives allows for
greater understanding of differences. Arsovska, Valiñas and Vanspauwen discuss the value of
diverse social interactions, writing that
‘bridging’ social capital can be much more effective in promoting and installing
democratic values in a society than ‘bonding’ social capital…Interaction between people
from different social cleavages is more valuable that [sic] interaction between people
sharing same demographic characteristics. (447)
The developing friendship between Juliette and Simon is just such an example of this bridging
social capital; these two characters from very different societies discover that they have multiple
shared interests. More importantly, they prove to be immensely important to one another’s
personal growth.
As the play begins, Linden seats both characters on stage, ostensibly in two separate
rooms. Simon is seated in his office, while Juliette waits outside. Simon is relaxed, waiting for
Juliette while considering the room and wondering casually about his next client. Juliette, on the
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other side of the wall, is a study in contrasts: tense from the journey to the office on the train,
unsure about the impression she will make on Simon, and nervously hugging her completed
writing to her chest. While Simon’s dedication to this job is only vaguely evident, Juliette’s
investment in the meeting is obvious to the audience. Her first words betray her fear, and more,
the value she places on this opportunity: “I’m early. I’m always early. I want to make a good
impression. It’s important” (18). The balance of power here is easily gleaned from the way that
these characters prepare to meet one another. What is also interesting is the way that these two
characters construct the other imaginatively before they meet. As Simon scans his preparatory
documents, he sees Juliette’s full name and says to himself “my first client. An African. Juliette
Niy…rabeza. Juliette spelled the French way. Of course, it was a French colony. Better look
that up” (19). It is compelling that for Simon, Juliette’s identity can be summed by her race and
her nationality. In particular, it is the colonial history of Rwanda that spurs Simon’s memory.
He does not wonder about her personality or even personal circumstances. The brevity of his
imagining further suggests his confidence in this meeting, as he demonstrates no concern or
discomfort. Simon’s sense that a quick scan of the internet or an encyclopædia will provide him
with what he needs to know about Juliette’s culture further indicates a degree of cultural
imperialism which Simon does not recognize within himself.
Conversely, Juliette has already constructed an elaborate vision of Simon before they
meet, based on a similarly colonial understanding of British identity. Because Simon is a writer,
Juliette expects to see a British professor:
Glasses. For sure he will wear glasses. Probably those little ones at the end of the nose.
So he will look down at me like this. And he will be dressed in a smart suit, navy or
black, and a white shirt and a tie. Maybe his old university tie. Oh, he must be so
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educated! His English will be perfect – perfect grammar, perfect spelling. I don’t mind
how strict he is, I need to learn. (19)
Juliette’s vision of the learned English scholar demonstrates how false the constructions of
identity can be, and also demonstrates that the assumptions of cultural imperialism travel in two
directions. Unfamiliar with English culture, as Simon is with Rwandan history, Juliette allows
stereotypes to inform her vision of English writers. Juliette’s imaginings also demonstrate how
this English identity is wrapped up with education and authority; Juliette presumes that Simon
will be a commanding teacher rather than an approachable friend, positioning herself as the
uneducated student.
Linden confronts these assumptions and expectations for the benefit of the audience when
Simon and Juliette meet. Their discussion is awkward and fraught with hesitation, as this
situation is new to them both. Juliette is notably thrown by Simon’s lack of a phone, a secretary,
and books in his office; she does not know how to evaluate this man who has none of the
trappings of authority which she expected. Simon is similarly out of his depth in Juliette’s brief
discussion of the genocide, as he is unable even to name the year that the genocide occurred. At
the end of the interview, each character speaks directly to the audience, unheard by the other.
Juliette’s disappointment is palpable:
He’s no good! He can’t help me. I’m not going back there. He had a stain on his
trousers. So he can’t have a wife. He must be an English bachelor. I thought he would
be a proper writer. A man of letters. Not a man with a stain on his trousers. And here
were no books in his room. I thought I would see rows of his books. Some in the drawer
he said. Why hide them in a drawer? What was that new word…scribble? I’ll write it
down. It doesn’t sound too nice – scribble. He’s a scribbler, that man. (22-23)
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As she cannot understand Simon to be a proper writer, she relies on another antiquated
construction to characterize him: the English bachelor. She cannot connect the noble profession
of writing to Simon’s casual presentation in the Refugee Offices and she cannot see her way to
placing her trust in him, as he has none of the trappings of professionalism and academia that she
anticipated. However, Simon’s sense of the meeting is very different. He evaluates Juliette
briefly and mistakes her disinterest in his guidance as nervousness: “sweet girl…bit naïve…shy.
Probably looks up to me: ‘The Writer’. Well, I’ll have to do something about that at our next
meeting, make her more at ease. Huh! ‘The Writer’!” (23). In this recounting, Simon looks at
himself through Juliette’s eyes and proudly assumes that he cuts an intimidating figure. This is
interesting because Simon reveals several of his fears privately. Although he claims to be a
writer, his publications are limited to a single book of poetry. He has not been able to write of
late, and his work at the Refugee Centre is his attempt to shore up scholarly credibility and
distract himself from what he perceives as his dwindling career opportunities. This exchange
demonstrates to the audience how the assumptions of these two characters reflect racial and
national politics. Their failed communication and Juliette’s dissatisfaction with the interview
establishes that initial cross-cultural interactions are often framed by perceived truths rather than
neutral facts. That both characters rely on stereotypes affirms that stereotyping exists on all sides
of a public exchange, rather than being linked to any specific group or social position.
This first meeting, which did not go as either character had planned, is nevertheless a
productive interview, as it highlights how their individual expectations differ from reality. From
this point forward, both characters become committed to exchanging preconceived notions with
fact. Valiñas and Arsovska support this, observing that “as long as the private spheres of
individuals and interpersonal relations continue to be determined primarily and peremptorily by
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political affiliation and group identity, attempts to bring individuals together and create empathy
between them beyond ethnic lines will face extreme difficulty to succeed” (198). In scene five,
both characters appear on stage, unaware of the other and overwhelmed by their sense of failure.
Simon is critical of his work at the Refugee Centre and despondent about his inability to work on
his first novel; Juliette cannot complete the writing assignment Simon gave her and feels bereft
about her future in London. In this staging, they are united by their shared sense of panic about
their lives, as well as their hope that writing will help them to assert new public identities and
claim new futures for themselves.
With only a tenuous relationship established, it is a mutual sense of propriety which helps
these two characters to form a proper friendship. Simon visits Juliette at her rooming house and
in the midst of an awkward moment, he invites her to come with him to a poetry reading. Simon
is surprised by his own actions, asking in an aside, “why did I do that? I just came to see if she
was all right, to apologise” (33). Juliette awkwardly agrees, mortified to commit to such an
extended exchange. Performatively significant, she echoes Simon’s feelings: “why did I do that?
I am so embarrassed to go somewhere with him. And why did he ask me? He feels sorry for
me. But can I tell him, no? I cannot” (33). The technique of having these characters use the
same words and demonstrate the same emotions in shared situations serves to emphasize their
similarities rather than their differences. This performative moment also reminds audiences that
cross-cultural engagements are difficult for all involved, regardless of cultural or socio-political
concerns. The pair travel to the poetry reading in Simon’s car, as he assumes “maybe it’s nice
for her to be in a car for once. A bit of luxury” (33). This effort to give Juliette a pleasant
experience gives light to Simon’s assumptions about Juliette’s life experience to this point.
Whether these are based on Juliette’s experiences in Rwanda or in London is not made clear, but
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Simon imagines that she will be impressed by a ride in his car. Juliette’s private observation
with Simon’s car is that “his car is old. Not like my papa’s. He cannot be rich, Simon” (34).
This yet another moment wherein these two characters use stereotypes to understand the other, to
their detriment. It also serves to remind audiences that Juliette’s race and nationality do not
preclude experiences of luxury, despite Simon’s assumptions to the contrary. However, these
misperceptions are understandable, as they have yet to discover any shared ground and their
interaction is heavily shaped by the circumstances of their meeting.
On the drive to the poetry reading, Simon puts on some baroque choral music to ease the
silence, but privately worries that Juliette will think of it as “fuddy duddy music” (34). Her
silence worries him, but in fact she is enchanted by this sound of “angels singing” (34). As is
done in several early scenes, they both comment to the audience without the other hearing, such
that the awkwardness of their interaction belies their growing connection. That they do not
speak to one another directly also emphasizes how the lack of effective communication
belabours their efforts to establish a friendship. The poetry reading also serves as a point of
connection between these two characters. Although Juliette is a little strained by the crowd and
the quick introductions, she decides that as Simon is a poet rather than a writer, she should
relinquish some of her expectations about his dress and behaviour. She struggles to follow the
meaning of his reading, but the expression “a sea of pain” (37) makes an immediate impression
on her. In part, this expression as it accurately describes her own feelings in London. However,
she also recognizes in this expression a depth of hurt which she did not suspect in Simon. Her
new interest in Simon’s reading is visible, and her careful attention drives him to read with
passion: “My voice is picking up. The room is electric. Here comes the tricky bit, the shock
climax, the jagged edge, I’ve got them now. They didn’t expect that from me. And Juliette? No
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longer smiling but leaning forward, looking at me!” (37). Simon’s excitement in capturing
Juliette’s enthusiasm is reciprocated by Juliette’s excitement to have discovered a depth to
Simon’s experiences. Their mutual love of writing opens their eyes to the other similarities they
share; the stumbling blocks of race, gender, age, and economics shift in this moment and they
stop making assumptions and begin to communicate directly.
Linden makes this interaction a turning point in their lives more fundamentally. For
Juliette, this night marks a break in her long social isolation. She says to the audience “my first
good night here in England” (39), and then recounts the fear she felt at her arrival in Britain.
While this narrative turn seems negative, it is compelling that only after such a night does
Juliette offer her private traumas to the audience. To this point, Juliette has not given any
extended insights into her Rwandan experiences or her early time in London. However, now that
she has forged a connection with Simon, she is more freely able to share her thoughts, and more
confident in holding the audience’s attention. This tenuous connection to Simon also provides
her first sense of community and belonging, feelings that are important if she is to begin her
recovery from the genocide in this distant country. For Simon, this night is equally momentous.
Having not written in months, and beginning to despair of ever recovering his authorial voice,
Simon finds himself powerfully inspired by the evening. In part, his sense that his writings
captured Juliette’s attention empowers him, as their interaction has been, to this point, subtly
fractious. His own performance also excites him, as the attentive audience spurs his confidence.
As he drives away from Juliette’s rooming house, he finds himself brimming over with poetry:
The pockets of poets are never empty, my Iraqi client had said to me at our last meeting.
Mine had been for quite some time. And now here I was, frantically scrabbling for some
scraps of paper to dash down the phrases that were coming to me, trying to keep up.
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Then I stuffed them into my jacket pocket, and headed for home, a pocket full of
crumpled treasure, like old times. (39-40)
Juliette’s engagement in Simon’s poetry allows him to reclaim his poetic voice. For the
audience, it is clear that these two characters are similarly marred by the struggle to express
themselves and find responsive audiences. Despite the fact that they are in these positions for
very different reasons, it remains clear to the audience that their interaction across cultural,
social, and political spheres is ultimately very productive.
The friendship that emerges from this moment of mutual interest allows Juliette and
Simon to communicate more directly and with greater honesty. This increased verbal freedom
affirms the possibility of effective cross-cultural communication, which is one of the central
concerns of the play. As Juliette is from Rwanda, her conversations with Simon are an
opportunity to share some of the cultural differences between them without invoking sociopolitical hierarchies. During a picnic organized by Simon, Juliette laughs to see Simon eating a
banana, and explains that “in Rwanda, only women and babies eat bananas. We think it’s funny
to see a big man eating a banana” (46). This mention of a custom from home allows Juliette to
simultaneously preserve and circulate aspects of her culture in this foreign land. More
provocatively, Juliette responds to Simon’s question “Anything else funny about me?” (46) with
a detailed response that inverts the traditional gaze to represent Simon’s whiteness from the
Rwandan perspective:
Hair. On your arms and maybe on your here…(shy, indicates his chest). Some whites,
they have hair on their bodies. My little sister, Dominique, would run away from them.
To us, they look like monkeys with all that hair. Sorry, Simon. And blue eyes – we think
they are really scary. Dominique called white people, ‘scary eyes.’ (46)
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This Rwandan view of Simon demonstrates a certain degree of conversational freedom between
these two, although Juliette is careful not to upset Simon with her comments. The freedom to
invoke the memory of her sister Dominique, who died during the genocide, suggests that these
pleasant moments with Simon loosen the restrictions of isolation and genocidal trauma. For an
audience who is unlikely to have any detailed knowledge of Rwandan culture, these brief
moments of cultural elaboration also demonstrate the existence of alternative perspectives and
the value of cross-cultural education.
Juliette throws away her first manuscript on Simon’s advice and begins writing a second
text that engages more directly with her own experience of the genocide. Although she struggles
with representing her family through writing, Simon praises her early efforts, and his own
engagement with the project demonstrates how their personal relationship has given Simon a
sense of connection, not just to Juliette, but to the history of her homeland as well:
Simon: Well then! And you must write about your grandparents too. That’s a good way
to bring in some of the history. Specially about the grandfather you told me was killed.
You said that was when it all started – two generations ago.
Juliette: After the Independence.
Simon: In 1962.
Juliette: You know a lot, Simon.
Simon: Yes, well, I know a bit more, now, than I did. (51)
Linden makes it clear that while Simon is humble about his recent education in Rwandan
politics, it is a powerful moment in the play. His relationship with Juliette has provoked him to
engage with Rwanda’s recent political history, and to look past the media framing to consider the
historical facts behind the genocide. This new knowledge allows him to engage more deeply in
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conversation with Juliette about her book, and furthers the development of friendship between
them. It is clear in this moment that education enables an effective discourse to flourish between
them, Simon confident that his knowledge will allow him to engage with Juliette, and Juliette
secure enough in Simon’s interest to speak freely. Both characters bloom under this exchange of
knowledge, as it begins to equalize the balance of power in their relationship.
Simon’s growing knowledge about Rwanda allows him to effectively support Juliette in
her writing; she is burdened by the need to confront her family’s murder in order to write, and
Simon comes to understand the difficulty of this effort. Late in the performance, Juliette learns
that her brother, discovered alive in Uganda, has been denied entry into Britain, and she loses
faith in her writing altogether. She misses several appointments with Simon without
explanation, and he begins to take her absence personally. His dedication to Juliette and her
work motivates his emotions, but when he confronts Juliette, his frustration gives voice to some
complex emotions:
OK, I admit I’m also hurt. Maybe I’ve got no right to be. I mean what’s my little hurt
against yours. I can’t compete with that, can I? Ever. And maybe it’s crazy to expect
you to trust me, to trust anyone every again, or consider other people’s feelings, or say
thank you or please again, all those social niceties, they must seem trivial to you
now…Survivors’ Law. If you’re not in the mood to show up for your appointment –
tough, let him suffer a bit. I mean, it’s nothing against what you’ve had to go through!
(56-57)
This may be an uncomfortable moment for the audience, but here Linden addresses a very real
conflict for those who observe genocide without being touched by it. Simon feels that he cannot
criticize Juliette for her actions because she is a survivor. He has a sense that Juliette has an
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exemption from “social niceties” (56), and he resents the small inconvenience that her absence
has meant to him. Interestingly, Simon’s assumption is that Juliette has been kept away by the
trauma of the genocide. For him, the trauma of the genocide is a permanent mark on Juliette, an
essential element of her identity. This is an internal construction, but once which is important for
the audience to consider, as people from nations or cultures that have suffered mass-violence
must often work to overcome the simplistic definitions imposed by media or political rhetoric.
In this moment, Simon is brave enough to confront what he terms “survivors’ law” (56) and
challenges the construction of genocide survivors as victims by refusing to accept Juliette’s
behaviour without comment. While this scene offers no easy answers, it encourages the
audience to consider how survival and victimhood are often intertwined in complex and difficult
ways.
When Simon learns that Juliette’s brother has been denied entry into Britain, his anger
demonstrates the power of his commitment to Juliette’s happiness. Having become a close
friend through their shared literary efforts, he knows what this disappointment means to Juliette
and how it may impact her further recovery here in London. Shocked that the government would
refuse to reunite two survivors of a murdered family, Simon conveys his sense that his
government’s policies are inadequate. This commentary is intended to provoke audience
awareness of the formal complexities which refugees face in foreign nations. However, the
weight of this loss is also a turning point in the play; while they have danced around the topic of
Juliette’s experience of genocide, they have never discussed it directly. Gently questioning
Juliette about her brother, Simon creates the space necessary for Juliette to speak about her
experiences:
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They told us, ‘Don’t move, don’t do anything, stay there.’ My mother said to us, ‘Now
please pray, pray, pray.’ They asked my father how he wanted to die. They told him if he
wanted to die with a bullet, he would have to pay money, otherwise they would cut off his hands
and then his arms and then his legs, take off everything slowly. My father begged them to take
everything and leave. He gave them money but they asked for more. They asked for the rest of
his money. My father went to his safe. As he was showing them the safe, one of the soldiers cut
off his leg from behind. My father fell. While he was screaming they cut his throat and
then sprayed him with bullets. My little sister Dominique was near my father and one of
the bullets killed her. Then they cut my brother above the ear with a blade. He fell
down. Then they said it will take too long, ‘Look, look for place is crawling with these
Tutsi cockroaches.’ They used their pistols and they shot all my uncles and my other
brother. Then they said to me and my cousin and my older sister and my mother, ‘You
come with us in our car’. And then they took us where there is other women. (Pause) We
survived too much, me and my mother and sisters and then finally they said, ‘Now you
must go with us to another place.’ We were about forty women and they shot us one by
one, by the side of a big pit. Only me, I was alive, the bullet didn’t hit me. I was just
lying there with the dead bodies about me, the blood running into my nose and my ears. I
was the only one alive. I tried to climb out but I kept falling down. I tried for hours.
Then I did it. It was night time now and I escaped into the forest. I will never forget this.
Never. This is what happened to me and my family. (58-59)
Linden uses this narrative, though oppressive in its subject matter, to demonstrate an important
breakthrough in the relationship between Simon and Juliette. While the fact of the genocide has
been a palpable thread throughout their relationship, they have never discussed Juliette’s
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personal memories of her family’s death or the trauma she suffered as a survivor. However,
because he is invested in her recovery, Simon is also the first person Juliette confides in. This
performative decision suggests to the audience that recovery is not necessarily found within
one’s home community, but rather can take place in any community so long as there is mutual
understanding and respect. This narrative breakthrough in which Juliette gives claim to her
experiences demonstrates to the audience how cross-cultural interactions can aid individual
recovery. Since they met, both Simon and Juliette have had to recognize their own reliance on
stereotypes and actively engage in each other’s identities and cultures. These efforts eventually
forge a relationship in which both have the freedom to speak honestly, even concerning subjects
like the genocide.
In the following scene, Simon narrates his return home after his discussion with Juliette.
He is so distraught with what he has heard that he immediately confides in his wife, warning her
that “it’s pretty awful but I’ve just got to say it, get it off my chest” (59). His need to unburden
himself of this story emphasizes the weight of the burden Juliette has been carrying during her
time in London. Confused by such an announcement, Maggie, Simon’s wife, assumes he has
been having an affair with Juliette and they fight bitterly, as infidelity was an issue in their
relationship many years prior. Shocked at his wife’s assumptions, Simon becomes “hysterical”
(59) and begins “screaming Juliette’s story at her” (59). This is a compelling moment, as the
audience witnesses how profoundly Juliette’s trauma has affected Simon and infers from his
response how much Juliette’s friendship has come to mean to him. Simon’s suffering in this
moment is a mark of solidarity between himself and Juliette, as he feels the oppression of her
history as powerfully as she does, despite their many differences. The confession made, Maggie
comforts Simon and they begin to talk about his “first poems for five years. [His] breakthrough”
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(60), inspired by Juliette. This juxtaposition of topics: Juliette, trauma, and writing, suggest that
Simon’s friendship with Juliette, his emotional engagement in her trauma, and his growing
global awareness have all inspired his new writings. As they are the only change in his life,
Linden suggests that new cultural knowledge and cross-cultural connection have provided
something that he previously lacked. His own reward for his relationship with Juliette, aside
from friendship, is a deep sense of personal satisfaction and confidence in himself. By engaging
in cross-cultural discussion, Juliette gains the confidence to relinquish her hold on her trauma,
while Simon’s growing understanding of Juliette’s experiences inspires him to express himself
more creatively. This interaction has profound benefits for each character, both in their
interaction with each other and with others in their lives.
After Simon falls asleep, Maggie wakes him in the middle of the night because “she
couldn’t sleep she said, she’d been thinking about Juliette and her brother, their terrible story,
and she had a suggestion. An inspired one” (60). Maggie suggests that she and Simon give up
their summer plans in order to afford to send Juliette to Uganda to find her brother. Maggie is
compelled by Simon’s emotional investment in Juliette, and is inspired to be generous and
compassionate to a woman she has never met. With a small sacrifice in her own life, Maggie can
see how significant a change she can make in Juliette’s life. This insight and generosity suggests
to the audience that awareness and a willingness to make sacrifices in order to solve problems
can be a powerful basis for change. It reminds viewers that recovery from trauma, personal or
collective, requires the engagement of others. Linden shows that cross-cultural awareness, once
initiated, can be self-sustaining and encourage further engagement. The connection between
Juliette and Simon offers profound rewards for multiple lives: Juliette’s increased freedom as the
burden of the genocide lightens, Simon’s pride and recovering his poetic voice, Claude’s reunion
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with his sister, and Maggie’s reclaiming of intellectual and emotional intimacy in her marriage.
Ultimately, this play demonstrates the value of forging connections across political, social,
cultural, and economic divides as an effort which can profoundly change lives through the
domino effect of human connection.
The relationship between Simon and Juliette demonstrates that cross-cultural interaction
can be fraught with fear, hesitation, and missteps. However, this relationship ultimately shows
the audience that individuals can overcome social, cultural, and political difference to claim
profoundly important friendships. Both characters grow as a result of their interaction, and are
empowered by the insights they gain from one another. The constructions of race, gender, age,
and class divide individuals by framing such differences as fundamental. Linden’s production
alternatively suggests that these categories of self-definition should not be used to preclude
interactions with others. The assumptions that these characters make about each other remind
the audience that social constructions are not helpful for building strong relationships. As a
performance, this play emphasizes the importance of spoken communication and the difficulty of
direct communication when trust is absent. By demonstrating the productive value of empathy
and honest engagement, this play offers a model of cross-cultural interaction which negates the
possibility of “compassion fatigue” (Moeller 2) through education, empathy, and social
engagement.
*
In form and focus, Linden’s play explores the role of writing in reclaiming a public voice. This
is particularly relevant to the character Juliette, as she has experienced multiple forms of trauma
as a survivor of the Rwandan genocide and a refugee in London. Juliette’s desire to publish a
book which explains the Rwandan genocide to a broad audience is a central theme in the play.
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Scene one opens with Juliette arriving at Simon’s office at the Refugee Centre to discuss her
book about the genocide. She has written a book in Kinyarwandan in which she recounts every
clash between the Hutu and Tutsi population, as well as the political tensions which existed in
the prelude to the genocide. While unsure of herself in some moments, Juliette’s ultimately
powerful character is evinced by her aspiration that Simon “will take one look and he will pick
up his phone to speak to his secretary. And he will say, ‘Miss Smith, get me the best publishers
in London please. I have before me a quite extraordinary and remarkable document given to me
by a young lady from Rwanda’” (19). The reach of her expectations are matched by the depth of
her need for support in this endeavour. She has dedicated her time in London to writing in order
to educate others about the causes of the genocide, and her success in this matter informs her
sense of success in this new nation. Juliette is anxious to improve her writing skills in English,
as she is aware that she needs to write in English in order to reach her desired audience. In her
third meeting with Simon, she requests additional assignments from him in order to improve her
writing. This is not done at Simon’s prompting; rather, Juliette fears that her writing will not
meet British standards. This inferred hierarchy demonstrates the impact of neocolonial ideology
in Juliette’s confidence. Distanced from the European centre of power, Juliette has internalized
the belief that her best efforts may still be seen as sub-par by this new audience. Her deference
to the British system demonstrates her awareness of the fragile position she occupies within
British society, made worse by the fact that her confidence in her own national identity has been
marred by the horror of the genocide.
Juliette is extremely proud of having her book translated from Kinyarwandan to English,
as she correctly identifies this as the first step towards sharing her story with the Englishspeaking public. She manages this by asking a favour of a Rwandan man she knows in London:
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Oh! It’s so beautiful. It’s typed, like a proper book. He is a good friend to do this. I
didn’t want to approach him because he is a Hutu but we have to believe some of them
are human beings, some of them were against the killing and anyway he was here when it
happened. Oh the pages are so clean. I hope it is a good translation. How will I know? I
don’t have any English friends. (23)
Buoyed by determination, Juliette is able to overcome the genocidal ethnic politics which drove
her from Rwanda to London. Her collaboration with this unnamed Hutu allows Juliette to share
her writing with Simon and then find a publisher for her book. However, it also demonstrates
how writing can serve as a means of recovery between individuals. While the politics of
ethnicity in Rwanda make Juliette wary of approaching this man, her desire for recovery drives
her to trust him. Her decision to trust him teaches her that the politics of ethnicity do not define
all people, and that acts of trust can be productive. This is a moment where Juliette rejects the
ideology of the genocide and embraces a post-genocide view of Rwandan identity. As a didactic
moment, this exchange demonstrates to the audience that writing can be an activity which creates
community and breaks down the barriers erected by violence and mistrust.
As Simon is first and foremost Juliette’s writing mentor, she is very interested in his
opinion of her first draft. Written in her early days in London, this work represents a very
substantial effort. However, Simon’s evaluation of Juliette’s work reveals an interesting aspect
of her writing. Despite the fact that Juliette is a genocide survivor who witnessed the murder of
her family, her work on the genocide is detached and written without emotion: “Look, what
you’ve written, there’s nothing actually wrong with it, it’s detailed, shocking of course, terribly
shocking, awful – lists, dates, facts…As a document of what happened it’s very factual, but…it’s
dry, there are no feelings there, it’s impersonal, there’s no suggestion that it’s actually been
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written by a survivor” (29). As Juliette struggles to weave the threads of her own narrative into
her history of Rwanda, it seems likely that she is not yet ready to convey her personal story in a
public forum. It may also be a reflection of her assumption that the hard facts of the genocide
will be more convincing to this new audience than her own story. As her refugee experience has
been one of self–effacement, she may have internalized the belief that her individual suffering
will not capture the attention of the British public, even as her lonely face has not encouraged
strangers to speak to her. In order to improve her writing, Simon counsels her to allow her
personal voice to come through in her book: “good writing is not about fancy long words. Good
writing makes you see what the writer wants you to see. And feel of course. Writing is about
feeling, Juliette” (24). While this advice is accurate and helpful for a person looking to write
professionally, for Juliette, this advice is a complex challenge. In order to convey the emotion of
what she has witnessed, she must channel her experience onto the page.
Linden emphasizes that despite her early dedication to this work, the emotional cost of
dwelling on the genocide in her homeland eventually become too much for Juliette. She starts to
avoid her meetings with Simon to discuss the book, despite Simon’s efforts to assuage what he
presumes is her personal sense of failure at not producing anything since their last meeting. She
resists Simon’s urging to continue writing, explaining that “I need to…I need to do things,
Simon. I can’t only do writing. Is no good. I need to start my life, get a job maybe, so I can get
a place…” (52). Her resistance to writing indicates the convergence of two powerful desires: to
ignore the painful memories of the genocide, and to begin a new life in London. When she first
arrives in London, Juliette thinks of nothing but her writing, making no efforts to establish a life
for herself beyond what is provided to her by the government. However, she has a growing
belief that writing about the genocide is preventing her from establishing a new identity in this
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new space. When Simon pushes her to remain focused and productive, she resists him
forcefully: “Simon, you don’t understand. I need to start my life, I need to live now, but every
time I write, I’m there, I’m there! I don’t want that no more. I want to be here!” (52). Juliette’s
resistance draws attention to the challenge of being a keeper of memory, especially for memories
fraught with trauma. For Juliette, struggling to find a reason to survive in a city which offers few
opportunities for human connection, a life immersed in the past and without promise of a
positive future becomes untenable. For Western audiences, this conflict between
memorialization and personal recovery reveals the challenges faced by individuals and
communities seeking to move past violent events. The need to record events can connect
individuals through shared expression, but alienated from her community, Juliette’s writing
becomes a burden, reminding her only of what she has lost.
While the hope of her brother’s discovery spurs her enthusiasm for the future, the
knowledge that his application into Britain is denied makes all work on the book impossible.
Juliette abandons her writing sessions with Simon and shirks all efforts to broaden her world in
London. Simon reminds Juliette that “you made [your family] come alive again through your
writing! And now you’re nearly there” (56) but Juliette’s response rejects this accomplishment
firmly: “I don’t care!” (56). Her commitment to remembrance is challenged by the loss of her
brother, a new hurt which undercuts Juliette’s commitment to the book. This suggests that the
potential for recovery depends on hope. For Juliette, hope is extinguished when her brother is
denied entry to Britain, as it ends the promise of a future which is linked to her past in Rwanda.
This also demonstrates that no matter how powerful the project, writing cannot fulfill all of her
needs or provide the hope that she is searching for. Writing is a solitary occupation, and while it
does develop her relationship with Simon, it does not take the place of community engagement.
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The loss of the potential companionship of her brother Claude leaves Juliette without hope and
without the motivation to write, either for the edification of others or for her personal recovery.
Simon shares Juliette’s loss with his wife Maggie in a scene near the end of the play, and
Maggie suggests that they fund a trip for Juliette to go to Uganda and find her brother Claude.
The audience does not witness Simon offering this gift to Juliette, or ever hear her response.
What follows this suggestion is a simple letter from Juliette to Simon, written during her time in
Uganda:
Dear Simon, the smell of Africa is all around me now as I write you this letter…My
brother, I find him on the second day. I can’t describe you how it was, like a miracle, we
was so joyful. He is very big now, tall like our father…We cry a lot but also we laugh
sometimes. I want that he goes to university. I will send him money if I can to help him.
Maybe he will go to Canada – if they take him…The most important thing for me is that
he is alive. Now I want to finish my book very soon, so when I come back to London I
will try to finish it with your help. Thank you for everything you do for me Simon, and
thank you a million time for sending me to Uganda. You are like father to me, really.
(60)
This letter promises a version of Juliette that has not yet taken the stage. Her joyful conversation
about her brother and her easy mention of her father contrasts the struggle she faced to conjure
memories of her family while in London. Her enthusiastic discussion of her brother’s future
affirms her confidence in her own recovery, as well her belief that she will be able aid in the
further recovery of her brother. Her dedication to completing the book is the product of renewed
hope and a clear sense of self. It is clear that in achieving a measure of personal recovery by
reclaiming family, Juliette’s desire to write with purpose has re-emerged. While writing cannot
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serve as the sole means of emotional recovery, it is a part of Juliette’s recovery effort, and makes
it possible for her to re-dedicate herself to the education of others through narrative.
Linden uses the final scene in the play demonstrates the value of performance in
affirming personal and social recovery from trauma. Set months after Juliette’s letter to Simon
from Uganda, Juliette and Simon have completed their book and are about to present it at
conference entitled “Literature and Social Exclusion” (61). Simon introduces the discussion of
the “power of writing” (61) and invites Juliette to the stage. The very act of standing at the
podium marks a significant reversal in Juliette’s experience as a displaced citizen in London.
While she arrived in Britain without identification, unknown to anyone, and disempowered by
her social and political status as a refugee, her efforts towards her own recovery and her
willingness to forge a connection with Simon have profoundly changed her status and relation to
power in this moment. She is about to claim the rapt attention of the gathered audience, and her
story will be heard and considered by this crowd. As Ebron observes, “power is effective when
people are enrolled in the rhetorics, the stances, and the subject positions of its projects.
Through these performances, subjects take up social statuses in the world” (5); this public
discussion is a moment in which Juliette’s social authority is made manifest through her writing.
Although she is nervous in front of this audience, she has the confidence to begin her speech, and
when her nerves overcome her, she waits, and makes the audience wait, until she is ready to
begin again. This “awkward silence” (62) reflects Juliette’s fear at this claiming of social
authority, but also marks her belief that the audience will give her the time she needs to prepare
herself for this public exploration of her experience of genocide. As a woman who was invisible
to the citizens of Britain only a few months ago, this marks a dramatic change in Juliette’s sense
of participation in London society.
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In introducing the book to the crowd, she explains “my book…is the story of what
happened to me and my people. It was very hard to write, very painful, but now I have finished
it, I feel clean. (looks at Simon) I can sleep. I can eat. I can walk in the park. I can see the
flowers, see the sky” (62-63). This statement suggests a very clear relation between the act of
writing and the restoration of internal calm. Juliette’s examples of her recovery manifest in daily
life are simple pleasures, but importantly, she names private as well as public pleasures. That
she can “see the flowers, see the sky” (63) indicates a recovery which allows her to engage with
the world around her, a far cry from the isolation of her first arrival in London. Furthermore,
Juliette’s repeated “I” statements demonstrate a renewed confidence in her own voice,
particularly as it commands the attention of this gathered crowd. It is clear to Linden’s audience
that the act of writing has renewed Juliette’s sense of self and helped her to establish a sense of
community in which she has a clear perspective and voice. This personal recovery through
narrative is a victory because it enables the beginning of a broader social engagement with the
Rwandan genocide through Juliette’s public discussion and personal narration.
Juliette hopes that the book will support a collaborative and international engagement
with the suffering of the Rwandan people, one that will foster greater understanding and
communication across social, cultural, and political identifications:
I wrote my book to take the pain from my heart. But also I wrote this book to help all
people in the world who feel hopeless, who think they have nothing to live for. When I
finished to write this book, two things happened to me: my headaches and my nightmares
which I had for five years stopped and I found an answer to the questions: Does life have
a meaning? That was a question I asked myself all this time because if it has a meaning,
why has all this happened? And now I think I have found the answer, through writing
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this book. So please when it is published I ask you to read it so that what happened can
go a bit into your hearts and away from ours and so the people who were killed will not
be forgotten. (62-63)
Juliette’s purpose is personal as well as political; she offers these two motivations as equally
important to achieving her ultimate goal of recovery. She positions writing as a means of crosscultural recovery, suggesting that collective social and political engagement in the facts and
experiences of genocide can instigate education for observers and recovery for survivors.
Juliette suggests that increased international awareness about the suffering in Rwanda during the
genocide will aid in the recovery for her nation. It is significant that Juliette assumes the
authority to request such intellectual and emotional engagement from her audience, and
ultimately, it is productive that she does so. As Doris Sommer points out, “the boundaries
between informing and performing are porous” (115); in this moment, Juliette’s speech enacts
the very education that she espouses in her writing. For the audience of the play, this scene is
similarly didactic. Linden’s audience witnesses Juliette’s assertion of voice but also observe
Juliette’s audience, compelled by her words and invested in her message. The representation of
Juliette’s authority amongst this gathered crowd is the literal representation of the play’s ultimate
objective: to assert the value of Rwandan narrative and subsequent discussions of the Rwandan
Genocide to a broad global audience, refuting the perception that Rwandan genocide does not
have real-world consequences for the citizens of London.
The play closes not with Juliette standing proudly at the front of this crowd, but rather
with Simon and Juliette standing together. Simon reads from Juliette’s book in English, and
Juliette follows after in Kinyarwandan; together, they read Juliette’s retelling of the history of
Rwanda:
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Simon: Once upon a time…in the heart of Africa…there was a small paradise, a
beautiful country of forests and lakes and mountains…which we called the land of
milk and honey…and the country of a thousand hills.
Juliette: Chera…umutima wa africa…harijihoogoo chamatanawbootchi
ijihoogoo…chimisawzi ijihumbi. (63-64)
This tandem reading demonstrates a shared dedication to this topic, and emphasizes the
collaborative nature of writing and political engagement. Although Juliette has gained a voice in
England, she has not lost her native Rwandan voice. Furthermore, the reading of the narrative in
Kinyarwandan is a performative choice that asserts the value of Rwandan language and culture
on the British stage and within British culture more generally, a compelling rejection of colonial
hierarchies imposed by Britain and other Western nations. The choice to offer audiences a new
vision of Rwanda in this scene also conveys the message that although the genocide is relevant to
the future of Rwanda, it should not define all aspects of national identity and discussion. Juliette,
a survivor of the genocide, is an advocate for a renewed definition of Rwanda on the global
stage.
*
Both Véronique Tadjo’s The Shadow of Imana: Travels in the Heart of Rwanda and Sonja
Linden’s I have Before Me A Remarkable Document Given To Me By A Young Lady From
Rwanda explore the pressing issues of post-genocide Rwanda, and these texts are determined
that readers will understand the genocide as only one facet of modern Rwandan identity. The
authors adopt literary approaches that encourage strong reader responses; the fragmented
structure and observational tone of Tadjo’s travel narrative allows readers the space to construct
their own responses without being overly influenced by authorial response. Linden’s play
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demonstrates the value of cross-cultural interaction and, by representing a personal narrative of
genocide survival on stage, encourages a greater discussion of issues of socio-political concern in
public forums. Both narratives emphasize the potential of honest interaction to offer solutions to
complex problems. While neither text stays true to the genre of life narrative, both texts are
particularly invested in representing lived experience in order to educate their audiences. The
potential strength of this approach should not be under-estimated, as “life narrative plays a vital
role in the public sphere as it deals in and through private lives. It renegotiates and redefines
how we imagine ourselves in relation to others” (Whitlock 10). In asking readers and viewers to
undergo just such a renegotiation, the authors assert the value of interactions between cultures
and nations.
As demonstrated by the media coverage of the genocide in 1994, “testimonial narrative
does not always prick the conscience: it can languish unremarked and unwitnessed when its
public becomes estranged and unsympathetic” (Whitlock 73-74). The reasons for these ignored
narratives can be attributed to compassion fatigue, which occurs when glimpses of other lives are
offered without any grounding in the larger cultural and political realities, and no clear course of
action is offered to the reader. In contrast to these narratives, which occur most often in news
reports, both Tadjo and Linden focus on providing intellectual and emotional traction for their
audiences. Their shared interest here is in aiding individual and collective education by
representing Rwandan culture and Rwandan citizens with as much nuance as possible. This
action is inherently political, and challenges the tropes which maintain inequality. Finn Tschudi
praises Eveline Lindner’s work on egalisation as establishing “a movement towards equal dignity
in our global village. Egalisation is about whether we use fear as the glue for coercive
hierarchies or prefer to live in creative networks held together by mutual respect [and] equal
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dignity” (Tschudi 51). Certainly these texts affirm the value of equality during cross-cultural
exchanges, and encourage their audiences to recognize the social, cultural, and political
hierarchies imposed by the forces of neocolonialism and racial discourse in international
exchanges.
Suffering contextualized by cultural, social, and political knowledge enables recovery
with greater dignity for those involved. However, it is important to remember that in a
globalized world, the Rwandan genocide was a trauma which touched a diverse population.
Allowing Rwanda to remain a space of genocide in the collective imagination is a further trauma
to witnesses and survivors of the genocide. Just as trauma can be transmitted through cultural
productions, so too can recovery be passed along the same lines of transmission. Recovery from
an event as significant as the Rwandan genocide can occur only once global citizens have an
awareness of the cultural, social, and political causes of the violence, an understanding of the
long-term implications of the violence for survivors and witnesses, and an acceptance of equality
among all people. Both Tadjo and Linden demonstrate their commitment to these aspects of
recovery in their texts. In Linden’s play, the audience recognizes that Juliette’s recovery is
powerfully strengthened by Simon’s interest in understanding her cultural identity, both before
and after the genocide. Their friendship, a model for the cross-cultural recovery that Linden
aspires to, ultimately gives rise to a powerful and coherent cultural statement of unity, one which
inspires the audience to see the productive potential of such engagements.
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Chapter Six: Decolonizing the Western Mind through Western Literary Engagement
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood
and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the
endless immensity of the sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
The texts which explore the Rwandan Genocide for Western readers are significant
because as one half of the imperial-colonial binary, they develop awareness of an event which
remains poorly understood in Western society. Public knowledge about Rwanda prior to the
genocide was informed by three pre-existing discourses: the nineteenth century construction of
African identity as an inversion of Western identity, the tropes of the colonial encounter which
undermined African social order and development, and the late twentieth century framing of
Africa as a continent unable to sustain itself and requiring Western aid. As an African nation,
Rwanda is framed by centuries of Western public discourse which negate African value.
Specific knowledge of Rwandan national identity in the Western public forum prior to the
genocide was limited to media coverage of the following events: Rwanda’s independence, a
spate of massacres in the 1960s and 1970s, and the economic hardships which challenged the
nation in 1989. These events established Rwanda as a socially, politically, and economically
turbulent nation in the Western imagination.
Rwanda became independent in 1962, and ostensibly this independence should have
permitted the nation to take an assertive role in the political discourse of the African continent
and the wider global community of nations. However, decolonization in many African nations
was offered as a half-measure; countries became internally independent while external relations
retained the exclusionary politics of the colonial regime. Rwanda and other African nations were
given the freedom to enact their own politics within their borders, but were not involved in
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international discussions. Rwanda was not elected as a non-permanent member of the UN
Security Council until 1994, and has not been permitted a second opportunity 21. In terms of
political involvement in global affairs, Rwanda has not played a significant social or political
role in any non-African event.
In part, this lack of involvement both reflects and reifies the neocolonial superstructure, a
system of racial and cultural inequality which emerged to fill the vacuum created by the end of
colonial rule in the 1960s and 1970s. Like the colonial project, the neocolonial superstructure
maintains inequality by propagating the perception of difference between global citizens.
Moreover, the neocolonial superstructure naturalizes detachment between global citizens by
controlling the discourse about “others” and limiting the audibility of “other” voices in local and
global discussions. Nations that claim militaristic or economic authority can influence global
socio-political discourse, while nations with a history of colonial imposition and limited
economic recourse remain excluded from self-definition on the global stage. Despite becoming
an independent nation, Rwanda has not been integrated in the larger socio-political community
of nations. In the global imagination, the construction of Rwanda has not changed significantly
from the colonial to the neocolonial era. Just as the colonial construction of Tutsi/Hutu ethnicity
remained in place within Rwanda even after decolonization, colonial-era constructions of
Rwandan identity remained in place for Western citizens in the neocolonial period. Given that
21
By comparison, Canada, a massive former colony, rich in resources, has been made a non-permanent member of
the Security Council six times since the formation of the council in 1946, spaced at approximately even intervals
each decade (UN Security Council Details, online source). Ireland, a former colony three times larger than Rwanda,
but with less than half of Rwanda’s population, has been given three opportunities to serve on the UN Security
Council, beginning in 1962 and reoccurring approximately every twenty years (“UN Security Council: Members”).
The UN has recently introduced a new means of selecting non-member nations by dividing the nations of the world
into five regional groups and choosing one nation from each group according to the traditional two-year schedule.
In this new arrangement, the African group accounts for 28% of the member nations, making it the most populated
group among the five. This high percentage means that African countries must wait longer between opportunities to
sit on the council. Conversely, the Eastern Europe and Western Europe + others groups have 12% and 15% of the
global member nations, respectively, meaning that individual countries from these groups are more regularly
appointed to the council (“Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS”).
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Rwanda is such a small African nation, it may well be that constructions of Rwandan identity
prior to the genocide were reflections of African identity more generally conceived. What
remains is that the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 was perhaps the first significant point of contact
between Rwandan and global citizens. Influenced primarily by the neocolonial superstructure,
the Western coverage of the genocide constructed a concerning image of the independent nation
of Rwanda for Western audiences. Rwanda’s recovery efforts have largely been ignored by
Western media, meaning that post-genocide Rwandan identity in the Western imagination does
not accord with emergent post-genocide identity within Rwanda. Rwandan recovery has
involved an innovative engagement with the construction of national identity, and as such, has
the potential to re-define Western constructions of Rwandan citizens, and Rwanda as a nation.
As the genocide has become a primary signifier of Rwandan identity for Western
citizens, it is important to consider how knowledge of the genocide has been and continues to be
disseminated. Evidence presented in chapter two demonstrates that there was significantly more
Western interest in the humanitarian crisis than in the genocide, and that Western audiences and
actors valued Western recovery efforts over Rwandan recovery efforts. The coverage of the
ICTR is evidence of this, as Western media have reported on the findings of the ICTR over the
past eighteen years, while coverage of Rwandan judicial proceedings has been extremely limited.
Many books have been written to clarify the facts of the genocide, detailing killing rates and
major sites of death, and to evaluate the justice of Rwandan and international recovery efforts.
However, the texts under exploration in this dissertation represent a change in the way that the
Rwandan Genocide is represented to Western readers. These texts are distinct because of the
nature of their exploration and representation. This emerging body of literature conveys to
readers a vision of the Rwandan Genocide contextualized by Rwandan history and culture,
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providing Western readers with complex representations of Rwandan identity and community
interactions, and demonstrating Rwanda’s recovery while advocating for increased cross-cultural
interactions between Rwandan and Western citizens. Taken as a collective, these texts establish
the basis for new definitions of Rwandan national identity. By examining the shared concerns of
these texts, the nature of this literary ethnography becomes clear. Then, its social and political
uses can be explored in greater detail.
Creating space for a new understanding of Rwandan national identity begins with
education. Colonial and neocolonial enterprises rely on the perception of difference to maintain
colonial and neocolonial control. Authorities from the centre construct the citizens of the
periphery in ways that are internally consistent with pre-existing public narratives. This
discursive control prevents accurate understandings of the “other” from being generated by the
citizens of the centre. Permitted representations affirm the discourse of difference and so
discourage further engagement between central and peripheral citizens. Providing citizens with
accurate historical, cultural, and political information about a former colony allows for
understandings based in fact rather than supposition and politically motivated constructions.
Gourevitch makes a particular effort to provide such an education in We Wish To Inform You
That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, interspersing his movement through
Rwanda with discussions of Rwanda’s long political history and complex social structure. His
travels also allow him to explore traditional elements of Rwandan culture, establishing for the
reader a continuum of Rwandan identity which is not wholly defined by the colonial and
continued neocolonial encounter. Furthermore, Gourevitch details for readers the development
of ethnic tensions between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, emphasizing the colonial origin of these
divisions and tracing the development of ethnic rhetoric alongside shifts in Rwandan
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constructions of personal and political identity. Significantly, voices from all segments of
Rwandan society are represented in Gourevitch’s text.
Facts about “other” spaces have long been proffered, without context, in order to affirm
difference. The interpretation of history is not neutral; all events occur within a larger social
framework and are then interpreted and understood within that framework. To ensure that
Western readers understand how Rwandan history has shaped current Rwandan identity,
historical facts need to be framed by the social context in which they occur. Courtemanche’s A
Sunday at the Pool in Kigali highlights the interplay between historical realities and lived
experiences for Rwandan citizens. Courtemanche uses local narrators to recount Rwanda’s
history from a personal perspective. The narrative about how Gentille’s great-grandfather
recognized the colonial manipulation of ethnic categories and paid to become legally Tutsi to
escape the imposed limitations on Hutu citizens illustrates the diversity of responses available to
local actors when encountering local realities. Courtemanche uses human experience, traced
through four generations of a Rwandan family, to illustrate the personal cost of the politicization
of Rwandan identity. As the reader witnesses the decimation of this family because of their
attempt to embrace colonial politics, the complex colonial realities of Rwandan history become
clear. This narrative also addresses the tensions between traditional and emerging culture in
Rwandan society; Courtemanche discusses the AIDS epidemic as a social and medical challenge
for citizens of Rwanda as cultural tradition and modern knowledge offer conflicting perspectives
on safe sexual conduct. This stark representation of a significant medical crisis demonstrates a
culture in flux, an important task for literature about colonial and neocolonial spaces, as colonial
representations emphasized stagnant and static local cultures. While these books take differing
approaches to increasing their reader’s understanding of Rwanda’s history, culture, and social
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organization, their emphasis is on accurate information which provides a firm basis for
understanding post-genocide Rwandan identity.
These two educational texts also demonstrate new modes of interaction between
Rwandan and non-Rwandan citizens. Valcourt’s tour through the local hospital demonstrates the
fallacy of international aid and undercuts the rhetoric of protection which is common in framing
international engagements with Africa. Courtemanche challenges the binary representation of
Western actors as saviours and African citizens as victims, juxtaposing the discourse of
international aid with the reality of global disinterest and demonstrating the tenacity of Rwandan
citizens in facing their own challenges. Finally, Gourevitch’s powerful descriptions of the
beauty of Rwanda and Valcourt’s decision to remain in Rwanda once the genocide ends denies
lingering perceptions of Rwanda as a dangerous space, particularly for foreigners, and
encourages readers to see Rwanda as a space of potential. Having characters and subjects
demonstrate such feelings about a space which is popularly defined by the Rwandan Genocide
challenges the colonial-era discourse of Rwanda as a dark and chaotic space and instigates a new
rhetoric about Rwanda for Western citizens.
Contextualizing Rwandan history, cultural organization, and political dynamics provides
readers with a factual basis for understanding Rwandan identity. However, factual knowledge is
not sufficient evidence from which to instigate an understanding of Rwandan identity which
demonstrates depth as well as breadth. For this reason, texts which evolve Western perceptions
of Rwandan identity must also provide readers with the opportunity to hear the voices of citizens.
Developing reader empathy and understanding at a distance requires authors to pay attention to
three specific goals: making the lived experiences of citizenship accessible, exploring and
validating difference, and encouraging shared mourning. By offering an in-depth portrait of
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Rwandan citizens, supported by local voices, such literature has the power to forge an emotional
understanding between citizens divided by distance and a structurally imposed sense of
difference.
In attempting to convey the lived experiences of Rwandan citizens, there is a great deal to
consider. The genocide is, without question, the most widely recognized feature of Rwandan
national identity. The coverage available to many international viewers emphasized destruction
and mass violence, ignoring the impact of the genocide on the lives of survivors and the
challenges of Rwanda’s recovery at the community level. Mapping individual experiences
before, during, and after the genocide can develop informed empathy by making it clear to
readers how the experience of genocide impact individual identity. Broken Memory, Deogratias,
and The Oldest Orphan centre on how young Rwandan citizens attempt to negotiate their way
through the powerful social forces unleashed during the genocide. Emma, the protagonist from
Broken Memory is a simple victim of the genocide, and her struggle for recovery is indicative of
the struggles of many Tutsi and Hutu Rwandans genocide survivors. Deogratias and Faustin are
more complex characters, as they are perpetrators as well as victims of the genocide; their acts of
violence are spurred by the social chaos of genocide rather than any innate acceptance of the
rhetoric of the genocide. Immediately, this characterization rejects the simplistic binary of
victim/perpetrator which was so commonly imposed on Rwandan citizens during and after the
genocide. Both Stassen and Monénembo make clear that these two young men are products of
their environment, deeply scarred by their experiences in and after the genocide. Deogratias,
committing rape during the genocide under severe pressure from the local Hutu militia leader,
Julius, becomes a conscientious murderer after the genocide, poisoning those he holds
responsible for the genocide. Faustin, a survivor of the Nyamata massacre, hardened by his
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isolation after the genocide, and desperate to protect his family, murders a friend for having sex
with his sister. Deogratias’s intermittent breaks with reality and Faustin’s aggressive bravado
challenge the reader to see past the stereotypical representation of Rwandan identity as framed
by the genocide and understand the distinct forces that motivate these young men to act as they
do. Seeing Deogratias and Faustin as victims as well as perpetrators helps readers to understand
the complexity of post-genocide Rwandan identity. As Kaplan posits, “painful personal
memories…expose the complex interrelatedness of the subject with the powerful and inevitable
historical and political forces in which [they are] inescapably caught up” (20). Tracing
individual experiences within the larger context of the genocide allows the reader to find
compassion for these characters by observing the emotional realities which motivate each
character’s actions.
Literature that seeks to undercut preconceived notions of national identity must
demonstrate the complexities of civilian identity. Diverse representations of Rwandan
citizenship undercut the ethnic binary of Tutsi and Hutu, and the social and political affiliations
which these terms denote. In post-genocide Rwanda, these terms are no longer an element of
public discourse, banned in an effort to avoid continued social inequality. However, narratives
that explore the genocide itself must necessarily employ these terms, as they were the organizing
principle behind the genocide itself and a fundamental aspect of genocide-era citizen
experiences. Representations that employ this ethnic discourse must demonstrate the real
diversity which these terms elide. The text which best undertakes this objective is Deogratias, in
which Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa citizens with varying social and political allegiances interact.
Categories of ethnicity are evident here, but no significant overlap between ethnicity and social,
economic, or political status is traceable within the narrative. While the discourse of Hutu Power
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is demonstrated in the text, the simple binary which Hutu Power advocates is not reflected in the
responses of citizens to genocidal violence. Bhabha reminds us that “what is theoretically
innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial
subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of
cultural difference” (2). While Bhabha intended this in reference to the differences between
nations or collectives, it can also be applied to the parsing of difference within a nation’s
population. By peopling these texts with complex and distinct Rwandan characters and subjects,
the authors demonstrate and ultimately celebrate the inherent diversity of all nations, regardless
of any discursive coherency. Affirming differences between characters, both within and across
national borders, reflects the larger postcolonial objective of celebrating diversity through the
increased understanding of individual identities. By depicting how ethnicity fails to account for
allegiances and estrangements between ethnically similar individuals, these texts reveal how
discourses of ethnicity can fabricate identity categories and universalize diversity within any
given population.
The final task of these texts of identity and community is to promote shared mourning.
The need for international recognition of large-scale traumas to encourage collective
remembrance and understanding has been well documented. Productive mourning requires that
citizens understand the historical, social, cultural, and political impacts of a given event, insights
which can be conveyed through literature. Addressing the politics of distanced mourning,
Kaplan states that “it’s healthy that Western artists are mourning great injustices done to
innocent peoples, but this may have little benefit for indigenous peoples and could seem an
indulgence” (114). This is a helpful reminder, as mourning without informed understanding only
affirms the need for accurate emotional and political engagements across distanced populations.
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However, enabling emotional engagement alongside productive factual understanding of
Rwanda as a nation ensures the productivity of this interaction. Audrey Small observes that the
first stage of comprehension in an event like the Rwandan Genocide is to “recognize that
mourning—and the sharing of mourning—is not a finite task” (“The Duty of Memory” 98). It is
important that texts lay bare the pain and suffering of Rwandan citizens to allow constructive
collective mourning to begin. In The Oldest Orphan, the text opens and closes with Faustin’s
statement that he will soon be put to death by the state. As an introduction, this is a shocking
detail, but not one that profoundly affects the reader emotionally because this character is a
stranger, notable only for his careless bravado. However, at the close of the novel, this same
admission from the mouth of a young man who has witnessed the murder of his parents and the
dissolution of his family, against his best efforts, compels sympathy as well as mourning for the
loss this life represents. Faustin confides in the reader that he has been sentenced to death, and in
the same breath, his memory of the initial trauma of the genocide is offered to the reader for the
first time. This juxtaposition of effect and cause precipitates mourning because it so effectively
demonstrates the cascading human loss implicit in the Rwandan Genocide. Faustin is a survivor
of genocide who does not survive the reestablishment of social order in Rwanda. For distanced
readers, his is a life that can be mourned because it can be understood. By collectively
recognizing the real challenges that face the Rwandan nation throughout recovery, readers
become invested in shared recovery.
While reading is a solitary practice, reading can also connect individuals and foster
collective knowledge in ways that make it a powerful source of social and political change. This
can occur in two ways. In Tadjo’s The Shadow of Imana, the author serves as a conduit to the
knowledge of distant individuals and communities. Tadjo moves among a diverse Rwandan
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citizenry and offers the reader an intentionally unmediated view of Rwanda as a nation emerging
from genocide. This approach emphasizes the possibility of connection as the local environment
of Rwanda becomes understandable for a distanced reader. Moreover, it demonstrates the need
to see past the genocide to the genuine efforts of the Rwandan people to create a new nation with
a new national identity. Conversely, I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by
a Young Lady from Rwanda dramatizes an interaction between international citizens,
demonstrating for audiences the tensions and difficulties of cross-cultural interaction. In
particular, this interaction forces the preconceptions and prejudices of both actors to the fore,
revealing how the neocolonial superstructure can also influence individual interactions between
citizens. Both of these approaches have merit, fostering understanding and demonstrating the
productivity of interaction. Each text addresses the difficulty of instigating interactions; Tadjo’s
early narration avoids Rwandan citizens in favour of non-confrontational memorial sites. This
organization suggests that Tadjo must confront and address the genocide before she can begin to
forge connections with the survivors who remain. However, the horror Rwanda initially holds
for Tadjo fades as she comes to know the land and people, suggesting to the reader that
contextual understanding of the genocide can permit more productive cross-cultural interactions.
Similarly, Simon and Juliette’s early interactions are marred by preconceptions and
disconnection, a fact beautifully demonstrated on-stage as they speak their frustrations to the
audience in alternating asides. For Juliette, the burden of the genocide is eased as her crosscultural interaction with Simon empowers her sense of self in her new nation. In each text, the
act of interaction relieves the burden of the genocide by creating community.
Texts which aspire to engage readers politically must assert the potential of collective
action. Change is the product of many voices united around a single cause. Events like the
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Rwandan Genocide are difficult to broach because of the scale of their destruction, and the racial
prejudice embedded into the current system of international interaction makes them even more
so. Horror and disinterest are powerful sedatives. However, as Simon and Juliette’s interaction
demonstrates, there is significant potential in the creation of politically engaged communities. In
coming to understand Juliette’s experience, Simon is moved to sacrifice his pleasure for her; he
foregoes his vacation to afford to reunite her with her brother and assure her emotional recovery.
While this seems a small act, it is a significant change for Simon, who is ignorant of even the
smallest detail of the genocide at the start of the performance. This willingness to know and to
act liberates Simon as much as Juliette; Simon reclaims a productive social voice alongside
Juliette, and it motivates his continued engagement in the socio-political discourse around the
Rwandan Genocide and the treatment of refugees within his nation. This demonstrates that local
interactions are not bound to follow the hierarchies of the socio-political order. Although
Juliette’s needs and desires are ignored by the British authorities, her voice and experiences are
shown to have value in her local community. Indeed, the crowd gathered to hear her speak
suggests that there is a public interest in socio-political discussion concerning Rwandan identity
beyond the genocide. In reading and speaking aloud, Juliette asserts her voice and her
fundamental right of equality. Moreover, Juliette’s decision to read in Kinyarwanda claims
space within English society for the concerns of a Rwandan writer. Ultimately, the play’s
conclusion demonstrates the potential for productive social and political discourse within local
communities.
While it is clear that each of these seven texts have individual interests and concerns, they
share a significant social and political objective: conveying to Western readers the nuances of
Rwandan national identity. Each of the aspects of Rwandan identity raised in these texts is
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important. Exploring history and culture affirms Rwanda as a distinct nation, empowering
Rwandan voices promotes empathetic engagement and recognition of Rwanda’s internal
diversity, and demonstrating recovery through interaction encourages Western readers to see
Rwandan undertakings as valuable. As a whole, each of these discussions convey to readers and
audiences a sense of Rwandan identity which is socially and politically informed. Tracing
Rwanda’s history and cultural development simultaneously reveals how broad understandings of
Rwandan identity have been marred by the colonial and neocolonial encounter. Conveying the
internal complexity of Rwandan identities and community organizations reveals how Rwanda’s
citizenry have been consistently homogenized for Western audiences. Demonstrating the
productive potential of interaction across cultures and nationalities in recovering from large-scale
conflict challenges the discourse of African ineffectuality and social chaos. Thus, these
representations of Rwandan identity demonstrate the internal and external influences which have
shaped Rwanda, knowledge which can be mobilized for socio-political purposes.
Establishing a sense of Rwandan national identity through literature is a productive
endeavour. These texts convey Rwandan national identity as dynamic rather than fixed; as a
collective, these texts show Rwandan national identity over time, and as comprised of multiple
subject positions. There is no single identity affirmed here, but rather, multiple fluid
constructions which are shaped by the most prominent aspects of Rwandan history, culture,
society, and politics. Furthermore, these texts locate each character or subject within the larger
social collective, so that each narrative interaction serves to develop the reader’s sense of
Rwanda’s emergent national identity. As such, I propose that the understanding of Rwandan
identity developed through this literature is better termed reflexive national consciousness.
These texts produce a sense of Rwandan identity by mapping a web of Rwandan history, culture,
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local voices, and ongoing recovery efforts. This identity becomes consciousness when it is
understood in light of local, national, and international socio-political pressures. Offered to
Rwandan readers, these books would accurately affirm the complex and diverse reality of
emerging Rwandan national consciousness. Offered to Western readers, this national
consciousness becomes reflexive, as it enables Western readers to grasp the breadth and depth of
Rwandan identity within local and international forums.
Reflexive national consciousness is fostered primarily by understanding the practical
realities which define the national space. It is imperative that literary productions which seek to
develop reflexive national consciousness in readers explore the history, culture, and politics of
the nation in light of the colonial and neocolonial relations that have existed and continue to exist
between former colonial subjects and former colonial authorities. While the perception of
difference often shuts down communication between citizens from different nations, literature
which facilitates understanding of historical and cultural differences ultimately narrows the gulf
between citizens. Forging connections between people of disparate cultures enables such
“combat literature” (Fanon 173) to become particularly powerful; by demonstrating the actual
differences between citizens and nations, this literature reveals the construction of difference
which is at the heart of the neocolonial enterprise. The superstructure, which manufactures
difference in order to legitimate inequality, is momentarily imperilled when this mechanism of
cultural difference is exposed. While the value of this education may seem fleeting, recognition
of how the superstructure functions to shape “other” identities in daily life is an imperative step
towards negating the neocolonial gaze, which is a pervasive element of citizenship in nations
which exert influence on other nations through cultural, political, or economic means.
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The literature of the Rwandan Genocide offers engaged readers a clear sense of Rwandan
national consciousness. This is valuable knowledge, as the barriers between Western and
Rwandan citizens, such as language, mode of communication, and access, can limit the
opportunity for personal experiences between citizens which would supply this knowledge.
However, this information can also be used to deconstruct Western socio-political discourse in
three potentially powerful ways. First, Rwandan national consciousness can undercut limiting
Western representations and discussions of Rwandan identity propagated through media and
political discourses, providing readers with a more informed sense of Rwandan national identity.
Second, the complexity of Rwandan national consciousness can be considered alongside the
media and political discourses which have shaped Western perceptions of Rwandan identity,
revealing the divergences between Rwandan and Western representations of Rwandan identity,
and so, the ways in which Western representations have sought to reshape and “other” Rwandan
identity. Third, such divergences in national representation enable Western readers to recognize
the neocolonial superstructure in action. As the neocolonial superstructure maintains its
authority by naturalizing its hierarchies, enabling readers to recognize the methods of the
superstructure has significant political advantages. Taken together, these narratives instigate a
decolonization of Western readers. Using strong and accurate understandings of Rwandan
national consciousness to interrogate the neocolonial system which continues to undercuts the
value of Rwandan identity, Western readers can recognize how the neocolonial superstructure
maintains its authority. Empowered by this knowledge, these readers can challenge the use of
neocolonial politics to affirm colonial era hierarchies of race within socio-political discourse.
*
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The representation and discourse surrounding the Rwandan Genocide has been discussed in
chapter two. However, in asserting the potential of literature to enable more critical
engagements with the popular framings of the genocide, some of the tropes and trends of
Western media discussions of the genocide will be briefly reviewed: the use of tribal framing to
explain the genocide, the dismissal of the genocide as insignificant, the reliance on essentializing
discourse, and the use of the genocide to codify Rwandan identity for Western viewers.
Analysis of the coverage of the Rwandan Genocide in the United States and other
Western nations has demonstrated that very specific frames have been used to explain the
violence to Western audiences. The most dangerous trends concern ethnicity and race. The
socio-political tensions between Tutsis and Hutus were explained as tribal hatreds, the cause of
which was said to be unknowable rather than the clear result of oppressive power structures and
inflated public rhetoric. Dallaire, a witness to the initial violence of the genocide, describes the
public perception of Rwanda as “just a bunch of tribes going at each other, like they always do”
(“The Media Dichotomy” 13). Many reports on the genocide offered basic facts about the
violence without providing the context necessary for audiences to construct the information into
an accurate understanding of the issues motivating the killing. Instead, reporters relied on tropes
which would be familiar to their audiences, validating rhetorics of racial essentialism reminiscent
of colonial-era oppression in order to most quickly convey stories of Rwandan suffering. Susan
Moeller recognizes this tendency to simplify and invoke questionable rhetoric in the coverage of
crisis events, particularly in lesser-known countries, as an increasingly common trend in Western
reportage: “as disasters multiply and compassion runs thin…the disasters all run together in
people’s minds because they are all covered in the same way” (314-315). The Rwandan
coverage was framed as yet another African conflict, and with no clear way to parse the actors of
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the genocide from vague Western news reports, audiences were encouraged to accept simplistic
narrative offered by the loudest media machine.
The voice of the media is a powerful tool, setting the agenda of public discourse by
covering or avoiding specific stories. Rwanda’s diminutive size and location, land-locked in the
African continent, was emphasized in order to make its crisis seem less relevant to global
audiences. Because the scale of the genocide was not accurately understood by broadcasters in
the first three weeks, despite reports emerging from inside the country, attention was not
redirected onto Rwanda until late into the one hundred-day event. The limited coverage of the
Rwandan Genocide suggested to viewers, through the geographic, racial, and economic details of
the narrative, that the genocide was not worthy of Western attention. African voices were not
sought out with any regularity to comment on or contextualize the violence, and when Rwandans
spoke, they were consistently framed as victims in need of aid rather than citizens in need of
support to end the violence. John Eriksson’s “The International Response to Conflict and
Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience” report on the media coverage of the Rwandan
Genocide states that “inadequate and inaccurate reporting by international media on the genocide
itself contributed to international indifference and inaction” (69) and concludes that media
outlets should review their coverage of the genocide in order to develop more judicious
approaches to covering future conflicts. What is clear in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide
is that the genocide coverage by media outlets affirmed colonial-era constructions of Rwandan
identity rather than developing nuanced Western understandings of the conflict between Tutsis
and Hutus in Rwanda. The coverage of the Rwandan Genocide, as presented to audiences,
offered very little to compel further investigation or public discussion.
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As Western interest in the ICTR far outmatched Western interest in the genocide itself,
the post-genocide representation of Rwandan perpetrators has been the most consistent element
of post-genocide representations of Rwandan identity for Western viewers. However, this
emphasis on Hutu perpetrators without accurate understanding of the way in which Hutu
participation in the genocide was mobilized through extreme propaganda and social pressure has
had negative ramifications on Western understandings of post-genocide Hutu identity.
Eltringham offers the words of an exiled Rwandan academic, five years after the genocide, to
explain this problematic reality: “there is a globalisation of guilt for Hutu, when not all of them
are guilty. The international community has never globalised guilt, but emphasised the principle
of personal guilt and that each person should go before the ICTR depending on their individual
responsibility” (72). To have the inaccurate rhetoric of the Western genocide coverage parlayed
into Western perceptions of one-dimensional ethnic identities is to re-inscribe the colonial
assessment of Rwandans with social authority. It also means that even eighteen years after the
genocide, Rwanda remains mired by inaccurate Western perceptions of the genocide which
overlook Rwanda’s efforts to become a productive, recovering nation, building on local
potential.
Considering the impact of the Western media’s disinterest in covering post-genocide
Rwanda, Jennifer Parmelee observes that “ironically, Rwanda’s 15 minutes of infamy – which
confirmed the clichés in the minds of many foreigners that Africa is doomed to an eternal hell of
ethnic violence – may consign it to an even deeper oblivion” (qtd. in Moeller 223). Parmelee is
circling an essential point here: the way that Rwanda was portrayed to Western viewers during
the genocide affirmed colonial-era stereotypes of Africa, and the Western media’s disinterest in
acknowledging Rwanda’s substantive post-genocide recovery undermines the potential for
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emerging Rwandan self-definitions to be recognized by Western citizens and governments alike.
While there is a substantial benefit to exploring Rwanda’s recovery within the public discourse,
Rwanda has never been rehabilitated in the Western imagination. Instead, the genocide is only
“recalled in the end-of-the-year wrap-up pieces, not to surface again on the front pages or on the
nightly news until war crimes charges are brought or until violence on a massive scale starts
anew” (Moeller 232). Thus, the genocide remains the defining feature of Rwandan identity
outside of Rwanda, reinforcing the stereotype of African nations as perpetually mired in social
and political conflict.
It is clear that public discourse in Western nations concerning the Rwandan Genocide has
not enabled effective understanding of the causes or the actors of the genocide. Considering
these discursive trends alongside the understanding of the genocide that is developed thought the
literature of the Rwandan Genocide productively demonstrates the distinctions between these
two representations of Rwandan identity. While the media coverage and political discussion of
the genocide relies on colonial-era narratives of Rwandan tribalism, the texts make clear that the
ethnic discourse of the genocide was imposed by the colonial Belgian authorities, ultimately
creating social division in Rwanda along ethnic and class lines as this discourse of ethnicity
became antagonistic. Western media coverage suggests that Rwanda is not an important nation,
and that the genocide there was not the concern of Western nations. To that, the literature of the
genocide conveys how totally the ethnic divisions and the subsequent genocide destroyed
individual lives and communities, implicitly refuting the suggestion that such suffering is not
worthy of Western attention. The use of essentializing discourse in discussing Rwandan identity,
specifically the generalization of Hutus as perpetrators of genocide is challenged by the multiple
subject positions explored in-depth in the literature of the genocide. Finally, the use of the
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genocide as a key signifier of Rwandan identity is rejected by the literature of the genocide, as
Rwanda’s long history and post-genocide efforts to reassert a new national identity are powerful
elements of the literature under consideration. The socio-political ramifications of these
comparisons will now be considered.
The literature of the Rwandan Genocide undercuts the media and political discourse of
the genocide. This is significant because it demonstrates the way that false framing or inaccurate
representations can be mobilized within public discourse to legitimate or normalize questionable
courses of action. This same effort has been at the heart of much academic scholarship in gender
theory, critical race theory, and postcolonial theory, among others; enabling citizens to critically
engage with socio-political discourses can instigate productive changes to local, as well as
national, spaces.
Texts which allow readers an alternative understanding of Rwandan identity enable readers to
recognize the formal social and political structures which play a part in naturalizing the
hierarchies which exist in global interactions. Conflicting representations of the Rwandan
Genocide can spur readers to further examine the public discourse which is constructed,
recognizing the social and political objectives which may lay behind these narratives.
The trends in Western representations of the Rwandan Genocide previously discussed
can be clearly mapped onto the subsequent socio-political actions of Western governments. The
use of the word “tribal” to explain both the citizens and the conflict in Rwanda asserted a
fundamental difference between Western and Rwandan actors. Pursuant to this point,
Eltringham argues that
the term ‘tribal violence’ suffers from the same weakness of the supposedly global
phenomena of ‘ethnic violence’, suggesting identical ‘reoccurring scripts’ rather than
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context-specific processes…Although the positive concept of a ‘multi-ethnic society’ is
prevalent in Western Europe (ethnic groups can live together) no one speaks of ‘multitribal societies’ with the same positive sense [Emphasis in the original]. (65)
The use of this word, and the references to Rwanda’s supposed “ethnic hatred” positioned
Rwanda’s conflict as fundamental to the construction of Rwandan society. Mistaken reports that
the genocide was a civil war suggested to viewers that there were no clear victims to this
violence, only two groups who equally perpetrated violence against one another. As many
scholars have noted, this misrepresentation of the nature of the conflict discouraged Western
viewers from engaging on either side of the conflict. Subtly invoking the colonial trope of
African violence, Western governments avoided action on behalf of Rwandan Tutsis by
implicitly suggesting to citizens that there was no way to end the violence.
The media discourse about the genocide was limited. Rwanda was not generally seen as
an important nation, and news of a violent genocide within Rwanda’s borders was given limited
attention. By dismissing the genocide as an insignificant news story, and by minimizing
coverage offered to Western viewers, the neocolonial superstructure which continues to shape
Western opinion of non-Western nations achieved two objectives. First, limiting the attention
given to the news story over the one hundred days of killing minimized the public discourse
about the event; citizens were discouraged from paying attention to Rwanda because the media
similarly seemed to ignore the story. Second, avoiding circulation of the details of the event
enabled Western governments to delay their own entry into the conflict; uninformed citizens
cannot challenge the decisions of their government. More fundamentally, the fact that Rwanda’s
genocide could so easily be overlooked amidst the O. J. Simpson trial and the democratic
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elections in South Africa, marking the end of apartheid offers further clues about the continuing
impact of neocolonialism in global interactions.
The media’s use of essentializing narratives to explain the genocide, and the imbalanced
attention paid to Rwandan perpetrators over Rwandan survivors offers readers further insight
into the way that public Western discussions about Rwanda reflected and affirmed the
neocolonial superstructure. The lack of nuanced depictions of Rwandan identity demonstrated
the media’s disinterest in parsing the social and cultural differences between Western and
Rwandan citizens in order to uncover the diversity of Rwandan identity. Moreover, the postgenocide interest in assigning guilt and blame to Hutus generically rather than judiciously is
indicative of Western prejudice, and affirms an already circulating narrative about violence in
African nations. Recognizing how fabricated or manipulated narratives in media discourse can
reify constructs that are already in social and political circulation is particularly valuable to
readers.
That the Rwandan Genocide remains the defining element of Rwandan identity in
Western nations is itself a result of the neocolonial superstructure. As mentioned at the
beginning of this chapter, Rwanda was given almost no specific attention by Western media or
political discourse until the genocide. In part, this is because media attention is determined by
social and political importance, and Rwanda has never been seen as particularly important to the
West. The attention given to Rwanda prior to the genocide asserted its internal chaos, both
social and economic. Thus, the shocking images and confusing narratives of the genocide have
not been evolved in the minds of Western citizens. Regardless of Rwanda’s internal recovery,
the genocide continues to define Rwanda. Eric Kabera, a Rwandan filmmaker who has made
two films about the genocide for Western audiences, observes that in the era of post-genocide
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recovery, “ten to fifteen films were made about the genocide and that sort of became the
defining, iconic element of the Rwandan film industry” (Lillian and Weihl). Maintaining a
discourse of Rwanda as a space of genocide negates Western citizens’ awareness of Rwanda’s
post-genocide development, and so affirms the neocolonial system once again. Readers who
come to recognize the use of socio-political narratives to shape the Western worldview thus have
the potential to offer resistance to this system of subtle control.
Reflexive national literature is ultimately a concerted effort to use cultural productions to
politicize Western readers. These literary engagements educate readers about the history,
culture, and social organization of a particular nation, encouraging understanding and empathy
for the citizens of the nation, and compelling increased political engagement by revealing the
neocolonial superstructure, and the other hierarchies that shape international engagements. This
construction of national identity is reflexive because it makes the national consciousness of
Fanon’s postcolonial recovery available to an external audience. Local knowledge and local
voices are exported from postcolonial and neocolonial spaces and enter into the cultural, social,
and political discourse of nations with neocolonial authority. These representations of the
traditional ‘other’ illuminate the politics of the neocolonial system of control, providing the
reader with a new understanding of their own position within the larger socio-political system of
international exchange. While reading such literature does not compel political action, it fosters
political understanding and recognition of the lived costs of socio-political hierarchies for those
whose value is so easily negated within the current political environment. In sum, it fosters
reflexive national consciousness.
Western readers who are empowered to critically identify problematic media and political
discourses and recognize the role of the superstructure may begin to affect change. The first
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objective in challenging a superstructure is to reveal its function in the space of interaction.
Homi Bhabha, writing about the way power is reified through its very enactment, observes that
demonstrating the construction of authority “radically revalues the normative knowledge of the
priority of race, writing, history” (130). Within the international community, there is a long
history of unequal interactions, of which the relationship between Rwanda and the colonial
powers is only one. While Rwanda was never ruled directly by nations other than Germany and
Belgium, there are only ever two positions within the colonial relationship: colonial authority or
colonial subject. While there were varying enactments of these roles, particularly for colonial
subject nations, colonial interaction was a superstructure which empowered all colonial
authorities over all colonial subjects through a shared hierarchical rhetoric. This framework for
international relations did not conclude at decolonization, but has instead morphed into a less
visible but still powerful superstructure recognized by postcolonial scholars as neocolonialism.
Most practically observed in economic interactions, this superstructure remains as an unseen
aspect of political discourse. During the Rwandan Genocide, it was the unspoken neocolonial
hierarchy which permitted powerful nations and the UN Security Council to excuse themselves
from the responsibility of acting to prevent the deaths of 800,000 Rwandans. This sin of
omission was similarly enacted by Western citizens who did not challenge the inaction of
governing bodies by engaging the political discourse concerning Rwanda. Such notable silences
only affirm the validity of the hierarchies which the neocolonial superstructure imposes on all
international interactions, regardless of scale.
It is a liberating realization to find that the discourse of politics, even on an international
scale, is fundamentally linked to the discourse of citizens. While superstructures thrive on
anonymity, the public recognition of hierarchies has enabled diverse citizens to collectively
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challenge social organization. One clear example is the racial prejudice which enabled African
slavery as a social and economic reality within European nations, colonial spaces, and in the
United States throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth century. While the
initial racial discourse of slavery brooked little resistance, gradually citizens with the authority to
exercise their own voices began to challenge the commonly held perception that race and colour
were indicative of a fundamental humanity, or a lack thereof. Public discourse raised the issue
for national and international debate, and as the hierarchy of the racial superstructure was
rendered visible and ceased to seem a neutral fact, the practice of slavery became socially
untenable. While it would be naive to suggest that public discourse was the sole cause of the
change, or that this discourse negated all racial inequality that supported the system of slavery,
the voice of citizens can undercut the viability of social and political hierarchies in international
discourse. Uncovering the superstructures of current international politics through literature
empowers informed citizens to reject the constructions that maintain exclusionary political
authority.
*
As the objective of conveying Rwandan identity to Western readers is to produce Western
citizens who are politically aware of the superstructures that shape international politics,
literature that is intended to develop this consciousness must similarly explore the impact of the
superstructure on local, national, and international identity. Because superstructures shape
human interactions, whether on the individual or international level, their construction is often
perceived as a fundamental of the space of exchange rather than a construct imposed on that
space. Superstructures permit hierarchies to colour the identification of individuals based on
aspects of identity such as race, gender, class, and age. Such superstructures are commonplace
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throughout human history, always supporting an imbalance of power in favour of one group over
another.
Literature which fosters reflexive national consciousness in readers is, at its heart,
political. Western readers who engage with the literature of the Rwandan Genocide are
empowered to evaluate the alternative narratives that circulate about this event and recognize in
the points of disparity the efforts of the neocolonial superstructure to maintain control of Western
socio-political discourses concerning Rwanda’s genocide, and the Western role in that genocide.
Understanding how social media and political discourses can be used to shape public knowledge
is fundamentally valuable to the development of a more productive and dynamic public
discourse. However, for Rwanda, and for other nations similarly marginalized through faulty
representations, there are even greater benefits to the education and politicization of Western
citizens. Simply put, the neocolonial superstructure is a force which shapes “other” nations by
maintaining a discourse about those nations which can change internally without affecting its
relation to the centre. Just as the colonial mission disguised some elements of its control by
naturalizing hierarchical discourses within subject populations, it also disguised these elements
of control from its own citizens. Support for the colonial endeavour in Africa relied on the
constructed perception that African citizens needed governance. When the implicit devaluation
of African identity embedded within this discourse was widely realized, support for the colonial
project among Western citizens slowed.
In the literature of the Rwandan Genocide, there is a similar potential for change. By
educating Western citizens about Rwandan identity, and framing that identity within sociopolitical structures, Western readers begin to understand how pervasively Rwandan identity is
mediated through Western lines of communication. In realizing that this mediation is in place to
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limit Western responsibility to action and to allow Western nations to control socio-political
discourse, Western readers become aware of the neocolonial superstructure as a force which
limits the potential of other nations by denying the existence of that potential. The neocolonial
system of control is a pervasive system of frames and rhetorics which influences how many
Western citizens understand the world. However, I propose that Rwandan national
consciousness can empower Western readers to recognize the neocolonial superstructure which
shapes Western discourse and enactments in other nations, and simultaneously enables those
citizens to reject the control of neocolonial system. This, in effect, achieves a socio-political
change that is long overdue: the ideological decolonization of Western citizens.
To express this proposal more thoroughly, let us consider Rwanda’s post-genocide
recovery in greater detail and then examine the following question: how might this emergent
Rwandan identity function to challenge perceptions of Rwanda on the global stage? Despite
being largely ignored in Western social and political discourse, Rwanda’s national recovery has
been achieved through innovation; collective changes to the organization of Rwandan society
have allowed Rwanda a means of escaping the colonial and neocolonial influences which have
powerfully shaped Rwandan history. Rwanda’s recovery efforts have hinged on addressing the
internal causes of the genocide. There were three issues that enabled violence to spiral out of
control in April, 1994: a culture of social division based on exclusionary ethnic constructions, a
virulent system of public discourse with no strong oppositional voice, and economic tensions
caused by falling global coffee prices and wide-spread poverty. Each of these shifts alienated the
Rwandan population internally along ethnic lines and degraded the possibility of effective
national discourse. The colonial-era ethnic categories of Tutsi and Hutu undermined the shared
national identity which fosters inclusivity in most national environments. The radio and print
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media were used to spread hate and silence public resistance; Radio Rwanda and Radio
Télévision Libre des Mille Collines made violent discourse against the Tutsi population part of
daily social engagement. Finally, the strain of poverty exacerbated cultural divisions by limiting
the opportunities available for education and success. The system of public discourse in place in
the early 1990s made it simple for Hutus to publically blame Tutsis for tensions created by
economic and social need.
Enric Castelló, discussing the practical efforts of nation-building, argues that “promoting
symbols (flags, anthems, national sports or images), using the educational system for purposes of
socialization or establishing political institutions and executing a cultural policy…involves an
ideological view of the community, [and] is known as nationalism” (305). In its efforts to
support social, cultural, and political recovery, Kagame’s post-genocide government has directly
addressed the tensions of national discord by attempting to recreate a strong sense of collective
national identity within the Rwandan population 22. Given the divisive nature of the Rwandan
Genocide, this emphasis on shared identity provides the basis for an inclusive national discourse.
The first effort undertaken to refute the division of the genocide was to challenge the problematic
colonial discourse of identity politics. Kagame has made the terms “Tutsi” and “Hutu” illegal,
and Rwandan citizens are strongly discouraged from using language that creates divisions within
the population23. Instead, the population is encouraged to think of themselves as “Rwandan,” a
term which asserts national identity as the primary means of personal identity construction.
22
The national motto of Rwanda reflects the emphasis on collective civilian engagements: “Ubumwe, Umurimo,
Gukunda Igihugu” (“About Rwanda”), which translates as “Unity, Work, and Patriotism.” This motto, adopted after
the genocide, demonstrates a governmental commitment to the development of a collective national consciousness,
one which can serve as a means of recovery from the genocide as well as from the colonial history which preceded
the genocide. The education provided in secondary schools about the genocide, the construction of memorials, and
the application of traditional systems of justice to address the crimes of the genocide are all efforts which help to
integrate the genocide into Rwandan identity.
23
After the genocide, when current President of Rwanda Paul Kagame took power in March 2000, he challenged the
discourse of ethnicity which permitted the genocide by abolishing identity cards and the terms “Tutsi” and “Hutu”
from Rwandan public discourse. In its place, he encouraged citizens to think of themselves as Rwandan.
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Susanne Buckley-Zistel supports this course of action, writing that “arguably, Rwandan
citizenship assists in dissolving the hostile perceptions of the identity groups since it neutralises
the weight of fear and of differences over historic developments which lie at the heart of the
conflict. Due to its inclusive and egalitarian nature, it has the potential to erase the injustices of
the past” (103). Buckley-Zistel goes on to observe that Rwandanness constitutes “a “deep
horizontal comradeship” or a “fraternity amongst equals”, expressed in national sentiments”
(108). By removing the colonial terms of division and adopting a shared identity which affirms
the nation as an inclusive space, Rwandan citizens engage in active genocide recovery and assert
a national identity which does not rely on colonial terminology. While removing the terms of
politicized ethnicity from the social discourse may seem a small step, this new emphasis on
“Rwandanness” as a uniting element of identity also marks a turning inward to find selfdefinition within the Rwandan community, something what was not evident after decolonization
in 1962.
Post-genocide education in Rwanda, in conjunction with the efforts of local writers, has
focused on clarifying the causes of the genocide and developing a public discourse that can
prevent future violence by encouraging social cohesion. The genocide education program
implemented in Rwandan secondary schools addresses the imbalance of power between Tutsi
and Hutu instigated by colonial rule, as well as the politicization of ethnic identity which took
place as decolonization began. The facts and consequences of the genocide are covered in the
curriculum, emphasizing the social, cultural, economic, environmental, and human cost of the
genocide (“Rwanda” 157). Rwandan students are encouraged to see themselves as responsible
for the recovery of Rwanda as a productive nation through education and efforts towards unity.
The development of public memorials are also important tools of education, demonstrating the
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government’s dedication to memorializing the loss of 800,000 citizens. While six of the main
memorial sites are situated in the communities most violently affected by the genocide, there is a
central memorial centre in Kigali which educates visitors and citizens alike about the genocide
within the larger context of Rwandan history. This memorial contains evidence and detailed
records of the genocide, from written testimony to recorded statements and public responses to
the violence of 1994. This public space asserts the belief that these memories and artefacts are
valuable and productive in the redevelopment of a strong Rwandan identity. This collective
identification with “sites commemorating mass death are especially potent since the rhetoric of
national identity emerges particularly through the pathos of remembrance” (Ray 142).
Simultaneously, such educational memorialization can instigate public discourse about the
recovery of the nation.
New definitions of national identity in post-genocide Rwanda help citizens to recover
from the genocide, as well as from the older divisions of colonialism. Ethnic divisions,
established by colonial rule, were at the heart of the genocide. By rejecting colonial ethnic
discourse, genocide recovery simultaneously addresses the need for colonial recovery. Recovery
from both events requires the development of collective national identity which can affirm the
unity of citizens. This collective identity, rooted in the nation, also enables the development of
productive political discourse. As Brown observes,
first, nationalism is particularly able to offer individuals the ideological myths of
ancestry, kinship, permanence and home, which promise a sense of identity, security and
moral authority to individuals faced with the complexities and uncertainties of modernity.
Second, individuals are more likely to need this form of ideological support if their face-
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to-face communities and authority structures of family and locality are being attenuated
or disrupted. (22)
Given that both colonial imposition and genocide are disruptions to local social order, Brown’s
definition offers a helpful starting point for considering how the discourse of national identity
can enable both Rwanda’s ideological decolonization and recovery from genocide. Fanon argues
that decolonization requires the development and assertion of a collective national
consciousness, through which citizens can gain political authority. The emergence of national
consciousness in a decolonizing population is, for Fanon, the mark of a productive socio-political
discourse and an engaged citizenry. Similarly, genocide destroys productive collective discourse
within a nation, and recovery requires that citizens reclaim a shared sense of identity through
collective identification and shared public discourse. While Rwanda has been engaged in this
recovery of national consciousness through public discussion and education, this development
has not been meaningfully conveyed to Western citizens.
The relationship between the colonial authority and the colonial subject is predicated on
the acceptance of hierarchical rhetoric which naturalizes the colonial encounter through
language. While the rhetoric imposed in colonial spaces counters the construction of local
authority, this same rhetoric is active within the colonial centre, affirming for citizens the view of
colonial subjects which is most conducive to maintaining support for the colonial project itself.
The colonial centre asserts a hierarchy which is naturalized through the use of power for subject
citizens as well as for the citizens of colonial authority. When the narratives which support this
encounter are challenged, either in the centre or the periphery, colonial authority is destabilized.
This foundational principle of postcolonial theory is helpful in considering the current
neocolonial control of Rwanda. Rwanda did not properly decolonize in 1962. While Rwanda
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claimed independence, the nation did not reject the social structures imposed by the colonial
regime. The discourse of ethnicity which fractured Rwandan national identity during colonial
rule was not recognized as a divisive colonial tool, and in fact became fundamental to
independent Rwandan identity. Similarly, these categories of identity were also maintained for
the citizens of colonial authority. Within Rwanda and within Western nations, the rhetoric of
ethnic difference imposed on Rwandans as a means of asserting colonial control remained
fundamental to Rwandan identity in the postcolonial period. Thus, Rwanda’s decolonization did
not foster a recovery of precolonial Rwandan identity, nor the construction of a new
understanding of Rwandan identity reflective of Rwanda’s burgeoning independence. When the
genocide occurred, the colonial narratives of ethnicity were at the heart of the conflict in
Rwanda, and were fundamental to the framing of the genocide for Western citizens.
As earlier discussions have shown, the coverage of the genocide in Western nations
emphasized the ethnic tensions as fundamental to the genocide without ever acknowledging that
ethnicity was a discourse cultivated as a means of colonial empowerment. This mechanism of
colonial control also served to control the discussion of the genocide within Western nations,
enabling authorities to delay acting in accordance with international agreements by mobilizing
the perception of Africa as a space of social chaos, and the more specific constructions that
Rwandan citizens had always been divided along ethnic lines. These two frames discouraged
Western citizens from engaging with the genocide in informed, productive ways. While
scholarship has shown the Western response to have been contingent on a number of factors,
such as the imbalance of attention to international events, and the compassion fatigue implicit
with fleeting, uncontextualized news reportage, the colonial framing of the Rwandan conflict as
fundamental to Rwandan identity further enabled Western citizens to dismiss the Rwandan
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Genocide as a reflection of African instability and internal divisions. As with the colonial
project, Western governments ensured public support in their actions in Rwanda by mobilizing,
through the rhetoric of the media and political actors, colonial stereotypes. What this affirms is
that, despite Rwanda’s then thirty-two year independence, Rwanda was never properly
decolonized in the Western mind. It is with this knowledge that we now turn to consider the
ramifications of Rwanda’s post-genocide recovery on Western understandings of Rwandan
national identity.
Rwanda’s post-genocide recovery has made use of Fanon’s framework for
decolonization; asserting a new collective identity which is informed by political as well as
cultural and social concerns enables the emergence of politicized citizens 24. Fanon offers
national consciousness as a means of refuting the colonial system of control by engaging citizens
in the construction of independent national identity. This approach links the self-constructions of
the nation with its emergent political will, thereby mobilizing a political discourse that is
fundamentally representative of the people. Rwanda has finally rejected the discourse of
ethnicity as fundamental to self-identity, incorporated the genocide into the national discourse
through memorialization and education, and made massive strides towards practical, social,
economic, and political recovery. These efforts achieve what Fanon deemed necessary for real
independence: national consciousness. Rwandan citizens are beginning to recognize the external
24
Fanon’s text, The Wretched of the Earth, explores the psychological trauma of colonization on Algerian citizens
under French rule and maps the steps necessary to escape colonial control. One of Fanon’s arguments is that
colonized citizens must be empowered in order to reclaim a productive sense of national identity; well aware of the
violence of the colonial project, Fanon does not shy away from advocating violence as a means of selfempowerment in the battle for national autonomy. He suggests that “violence is a cleansing force. It rids the
colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. It emboldens them, and restores their
self-confidence” (51). While I agree with Fanon’s view of violence as a means of restoring a subjugated population
during colonial imposition, challenging the neocolonial framing of Rwanda is ultimately less about recovering
Rwandan authority, and more about revealing the nature of the superstructure to Western citizens. Western citizens
who buy into the narrative of fundamental and inexplicable difference ultimately empower the neocolonial
superstructure, and there is no violence which can challenge this ignorance more effectively than education.
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forces that have shaped their nation, and it is this understanding of the nation from within and
without that enables national consciousness to begin. However, the neocolonial superstructures
has limited acknowledgement of Rwanda’s recovery by Western nations.
Rwanda’s emerging national identity breaks with the colonial framing of Rwandan
identity for Western citizens. In rejecting the discourse of ethnicity, Rwandan asserts
independence; for Western citizens, engaging with this new construct of Rwandan identity
requires two things: recognition that the colonial imposition of ethnicity was a tactic to maintain
colonial control, and recognition that the same construct permitted Western inaction during the
genocide. Fanon argues that knowledge of the mechanics of colonial and neocolonial control is a
powerful opportunity, and in the case of Western understandings of the Rwandan Genocide, this
is true. Engagements with an independent and decolonized Rwandan national identity reveal the
inaccuracies of the neocolonial discourse about Rwanda which continue to shape Western
perceptions of Rwanda. Moreover, the act of attending to Rwandan self-definitions affirms
Rwandan independence and so further supports the value of changing the nature of social
discourse about Rwanda so as to support Rwanda’s development within international discourse.
Rwanda’s recovery from the genocide has been startling, and while this newly
independent nation is still in a process of self-definition and self-assertion, both nationally and
internationally, there is tremendous value to be gained from strong Rwandan voices on the global
stage. Rwandan self-representation, in all its complexity, refutes the continued use of colonialera narratives to limit or deny Rwandan identity. Accurate articulations of post-genocide
Rwanda enable Rwanda to step out of the shadow caused by the genocide; to this day, Western
media discourse frames Rwandan identity within the simplistic narrative of the genocide which
has been popularized for Western citizens, or uses the genocide as a reference point for
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understanding Rwandan identity. I believe that the literature of the Rwandan Genocide has the
potential to convey to Western readers an historically informed, well-rounded understanding of
Rwandan identity which positions post-genocide Rwanda as a productive emerging nation. This
vision of Rwanda, contrasted with the construction of Rwanda by media discourse during the
genocide, empowers citizens to recognize the tropes which negated Rwandan identity and thus,
the way that colonial hierarchies are still used to shape access to power within international
relations.
*
While this proposed system for addressing endemic inequality across national boundaries
through education, empathy, and political engagement is productive, it does require some
compromises on Fanon’s original concept of national consciousness. There are three particular
limitations that should be considered when evaluating the potential of this method of enabling
productive Western engagements with emerging post-genocide Rwandan identity: distinctions
between internally and externally generated constructions of national identity, the use of
collaboration rather than Rwandan authorship in creating these narratives, and the use of Western
literary forms to represent African identity. Each of these concerns will be addressed below and
considered in light of the net gain and loss they offer to the discourse.
The first concern centres on the use of the term “national consciousness” to reference the
understanding of the nation which these books can provide to Western readers. Fanon’s use of
the term refers to the development of a renewed definition of self and nation which occurs after
decolonization. Such a definition positions national consciousness as the product of daily
experiences within the nation, daily experiences informed by the history of colonial imposition
which shaped the nation. During independence, dramatic changes can occur within the social,
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cultural, economic, and political of the nation, and an emergent national consciousness would
reflect both the fact of and the nature of these changes. However, as reflexive national
consciousness is constructed outside the nation, it is not based on the aggregate details of daily
experience within the nation. Furthermore, the vision of the nation offered by authors, regardless
of their efforts towards inclusivity, cannot offer the perspective of every citizen of the nation,
and so cannot be seen to reflect the full dynamism of an emergent national identity.
While authors represent a variety of subject positions in their writing, their work cannot
capture the constantly evolving nuance of national identity. Authors should strive to represent
the diverse realities of lived experience within the nation, but their output is eventually fixed by
the fact of publication; their publications can only explore the sense of national identity available
to them during the process of writing. There is no way to resolve this without exploring forms
other than the printed word. This limitation could be overcome by the use of written
technologies, such as blogs and web pages, which can be updated more regularly to reflect the
developments of national identity underway within the nation. It should be accepted that
national consciousness within the nation and of the nation are two distinct constructions which
are forged from the same raw material: the realities of life within the borders of the nation.
While reflexive national consciousness endeavours to convey the national consciousness of one
nation to the readers of another nation, it remains that this representation will not ever be a direct
reflection of the national consciousness in the source nation. While reflexive national
consciousness cannot directly convey the realities of local national consciousness, this weakness
does not discount the value of representing local definitions of national identity to non-local
readers.
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A second concern for consideration is the fact that these texts are collaborative rather
than written by the citizens of the nation under discussion. Fanon notes that it is in the act of
creating “inventive cultural manifestations” (179) that citizens and collectives begin to assert
themselves and claim a new identity. Reflexive national consciousness does not call for the
writings of the nation, but rather, the collaboration of authors from diverse nations to address the
interests and concerns of the nation. Here, I take my cue from Fanon’s language. Literature
born out of collaboration is fundamentally “inventive” (179) in nature; the form of collaborative
writing challenges the construction of the author as an authority over his or her own subject, and
instead affirms the value of both author and subject. The literature written about the Rwandan
Genocide demonstrates collaboration, ranging from direct research and interviews with Rwandan
citizens to lived experiences informed by the citizens of Rwanda. These international authors
write with a clear understanding of the social, cultural, political, and historical facts of Rwandan
identity, and their work reflects the voices and concerns of Rwandan citizens. While the value of
these voices cannot be overestimated, there is also a great value to be gained from embracing
collaboration.
Informed writing that is produced through discussion with the author’s subject remains a
valuable approach to the circulation of knowledge within an international readership. As a form
of engagement, it demonstrates the productivity of cross-cultural connections across the myriad
boundaries which can limit individuals and communities. Several of the texts here create space
for the voices of extremely marginalized individuals; Tadjo’s interaction with Nelly, who
survived the genocide and now cares for the baby of her daughter’s rape, is perhaps the most
compelling exchange offered in Tadjo’s text. Without the collaborative form, Nelly’s story
would likely remain her own, and the complex realities of her existence would not inform the
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understanding of Rwandan national identity for international readers. Furthermore, the use of
collaboration unsettles the concept that ‘authentic’ knowledge of the nation can only be created
by citizens of the nation. While accuracy is paramount within the production of these narratives,
their ultimate goal is to foster cross-cultural interactions, and so the use of collaboration serves to
affirm the interaction between the citizens of different nations as productive and authentic to an
emergent cross-cultural identity.
Perhaps the most obvious concern is that these texts, intended to convey a sense of a
specific local identity, rely on Western literary forms. Fanon warned against using Western
forms of production, which he saw as complicit with colonial control in undercutting local
production. Certainly, his anxiety around the use of Western forms to express local identity and
experience is well-founded; the colonial encounter destroyed local culture and tradition.
However, in the neocolonial era, and given the mandate of reflexive national consciousness, the
risks here have evolved. While the concern about supporting local cultural forms remains in
place, the audience of this production is different from the audience of Fanon’s cultural
manifestations. While Fanon’s productions were intended for local consumption, these texts are
destined for an international audience. English is an increasingly global language and market
demands mean that texts that take the novel or play form can be translated across many borders,
making them highly productive as a means of circulating new understandings of national
identity.
There are benefits to using a range of literary forms to convey local understanding. As
discussed, the potential market penetration for a novel is very high in the centres of former
colonial authority. As this is where the hierarchies of the neocolonial superstructure are the most
pervasive and difficult to recognize, this ease of circulation is a strength of the project of
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reflexive national consciousness. There is great value in enabling other cultural forms to enter
into international discourse, particularly as Fanon’s concern around creative forms accurately
indicative of the power they possess. However, there are some forms which do not translate
easily across distance and cultural distance. Rwanda’s oral culture is productive within Rwanda,
but as this form is not common within the centres of former colonial engagement, it is difficult to
effectively translate local productions. Rather than permitting this limitation to impede increased
understanding, it is better to adopt the literary form to convey instances of other cultural
expression. Linden’s play does this very well when Juliette’s narrates Rwanda’s history in her
native tongue to a diverse audience. Tadjo’s work offers a similar instance of orality, as she
includes a traditional narrative in her text. While these are both compromises in representation,
they demonstrate a willingness to engage with different means of cultural expression. In both
cases, these inclusions also push the reader to see the value of cross-cultural expressions within a
public discourse.
Literature is a cultural manifestation particularly well suited to address the political
inequalities maintained by the neocolonial superstructure. To be productive, such literature must
accurately reflect and explore the daily realities of a given nation, it must convey local voices
and local concerns, and it must be diverse and inclusive with its representation of the nation’s
citizenry. However, while Fanon calls for local authors to take up the call for such cultural
productions, reflexive national consciousness is not necessarily developed by the exchange of
local texts and productions between nations. This is not about creating political will and identity
within the nation, but rather, about fostering cultural understanding between citizens with
unequal access to social and political authority. Collaborative constructions best foster the
development of invested understanding between citizens of distinct nations. Co-authoring or
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informed authorship ensures that depictions of the nation and its citizens are informed by local
realities while avoiding the limitations that often plague cross-cultural exchanges between
distinctly different nations; differences in language, differences in forms of cultural production,
and economic factors can all impede the circulation of discourses which can generate cultural
understanding. The choice to encourage collaborative and locally guided narratives has the
added benefit of precisely demonstrating the type of invested interactions which such writing is
intended to encourage between citizens and nations.
Fanon identified cultural manifestations as the most productive means of unifying the
nation and initiating political engagement. Literature has proven particularly powerful because it
allows for diversity of perspective while encouraging unity through a collective readership. It
can displace external power structures by asserting the authority of local voices. Chilton,
considering the use of language in redressing longstanding conflict, writes that “verbal
communication is essential to the initiation and conduct of conflict, so it is essential to its
prevention, resolution and conclusion” (188). As colonial and neocolonial systems have long
legitimated themselves, both for colonized citizens and the citizens of colonial authority, through
discourses of racial, cultural, and political inequality, it is particularly appropriate that the
rejection of these often discrete discourses should be offered through language as well.
To recover Rwanda in the Western imagination fundamentally requires that the nature of
the social, cultural, and political relationships between Rwanda and the larger international
community change. Although formal decolonization occurred within Rwanda’s borders in 1962,
the decolonization of Rwanda outside of its borders has not yet occurred, as Rwanda is still
defined by colonial and neocolonial constructions in Western social and political discourse. As
colonization is a process that shapes the colonizer as much as the colonized, decolonization is not
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fully complete until the colonizer relinquishes all means of colonial control. The tropes and
narratives used by the colonizer to define the colony must be rejected and replaced by the
colony’s self-definitions. Decolonization must include serious measures to refute the naturalized
discourses of inequality and racial prejudice within all spaces of colonial authority. This process
is complicated by the fact that the postcolonial era has witnessed a shift in global power
balances, with authority now tied to economic and military authority rather than to traditional
spaces of colonial control25. The lines between former colonies and colonial authorities are no
longer clear and the web of socio-political influence in global politics is more complex that it
was prior to decolonization. The only productive approach to eradicating the superstructure of
neocolonialism is for all nations to examine their construction of former colonial spaces,
particularly former colonial spaces that are consistently dismissed within international
discussions, and ensure that such constructions are based on self-representation rather than
biased external formulation.
Literature attempting to generate reflexive national consciousness in its readers must
encourage readers to understand the complexity of specific social, political, and cultural
situations for specific foreign citizens. Narratives which explore local identity within the context
of the wider community allow distanced readers to see beyond surface differences to recognize
local identity as multifaceted and shaped by specific local realities. This representation also
undercuts the popular use of tropes to define local identity. This shared sense of social and
cultural understanding creates “imagined communities” (Anderson 7) which motivates further
25
All of these nations are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which provides one rubric
for assessing the relative international authority of specific nations, although this is hardly conclusive. Each of these
nations holds significant military power, as well as nuclear capability. It should be noted that a seat at the Security
Council can offer a notable power to nations working collectively, as the Security Council is the only UN body
whose decisions regarding the actions of member states are absolutely non-negotiable (“UN Security Council:
Members”).
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cross-cultural engagements. In a world connected by technology, and yet still distanced by
cultural, political, and religious difference, it is important to remember that nations are
“conceived in language, not in blood, and that one [can] be ‘invited into’ the imagined
community” (Anderson 145) of the nation. Particularly in countries attempting to recover from
systems of colonial and neocolonial control, this means of engaging external citizens in emerging
definitions of national identity is potentially very productive. Imagined communities allow
escape from the political hierarchies of nationhood by connecting citizens from difference
cultures to understand one another outside of the terms imposed by socio-political
superstructures. Imagined communities can support further recognition of the neocolonial
superstructure and serve as the basis for a united political response to such hierarchies in a way
that affirms the value of cross-cultural differences.
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Chapter Seven: Conclusion
The Rwandan Genocide was a significant event. For Rwandan citizens, the genocide was
the culmination of ethnic tensions which had been fragmenting national identity since the
colonial era. For African nations, particularly those surrounding Rwanda, the genocide caused a
massive influx of Rwandan citizens, and instigated humanitarian crises as refugees from Rwanda
settled in temporary camps with insufficient resources. For Western governments and
international organizations, the genocide tested the resilience of the neocolonial framework to
control the discourse about “other” nations disseminated to Western citizens. For Western
citizens, whose understanding of the genocide was mitigated by the use of colonial framings in
an otherwise dismissive media discourse, this event served to affirm the tropes about African
nations that circulate pervasively in Western culture and politics. While these framings set out
only the broad strokes of the event, what is clear is that the genocide carried different social and
political meaning for all of the actors involved. As genocide has been defined, since its
inception, as an international event, all reactions to the genocide should be considered in
discussions of the Rwandan Genocide.
Of particular interest in this dissertation is the way that post-genocide literature about
Rwanda explores the genocide and elaborates on some of the discourses mentioned above. This
project explores the emerging literature of the Rwandan Genocide produced for Western
audiences, mapping the shared concerns of the authors in representing Rwandan history, identity,
and recovery. These areas of concern line up with the aspects of the genocide most commonly
overlooked in Western media and political discourse, suggesting that this literature is actively
attempting to educate readers about the complex nature of Rwandan citizenship as a response to
existing understandings of Rwanda. However, I argue that this education also provides Western
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citizens with the tools to recognize how public discussions about the genocide in 1994 were
mobilized to discourage citizens from demanding political involvement in Rwanda’s genocide.
Socio-political discourse is a powerful tool of the neocolonial superstructure, and enabling
Western citizens to recognize this means of control has the potential to enlighten Western
citizens about the way that the neocolonial superstructure continues to shape Western
perceptions of “other” citizens and nations.
To begin this examination, chapter two offers readers a factual overview of Rwanda’s
history, from the precolonial to the post-genocide period. As Rwanda’s culture, social structures,
and even history have been subject to the influence of colonial rule, tracing the internal and
external forces of change in Rwanda is productive. There are four distinct periods in the modern
history of Rwanda available through oral or written records: pre-colonial, colonial,
independence, and post-genocide. By considering the internal and external forces which shaped
each period, Rwanda’s current national identity is more easily understood. The importance of
this survey is to establish how colonial rule, and subsequent neocolonial rule, destabilized
Rwanda as a nation, establishing the potential for genocide. This chapter also maps the Western
response to the genocide; the media discourse and the political response from Western nations is
particularly problematic, and as the mis-framing of the genocide enabled Western governments
and citizens to stand by as 800,000 Rwandan civilians were murdered, the nature and accuracy of
these framings must be considered.
The literature of the genocide is divided in this dissertation into three core chapters, each
considering two or three of the texts. Chapter three examines how Gourevitch’s We Wish To
Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families and Courtemanche’s A Sunday
at the Pool in Kigali educate Western readers about Rwanda’s long history and complex culture
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in an effort to contextualize the genocide as an event with a clear and knowable cause. What is
central to both texts is the discussion of the colonial and neocolonial impact on Rwanda.
Gourevitch and Courtemanche show how Belgian colonial rule imposed essentializing ethnic
identities on Tutsis and Hutus who had formerly considered such definitions to be social and
economic identifiers rather than ethnic and political identifiers. The colonial rulers dismantled
Rwanda’s religious system and monarchy, undercutting national unity and instigating a sense of
antagonism between Rwandan citizens. Upon exiting, the colonial rules inverted the existing
power structure, marginalizing the Tutsi population through a rhetoric of Hutu empowerment.
These texts offer both facts and personal histories in order to demonstrate the chaos of this
colonial influence on Rwanda’s national unity. In so doing, these texts refute the narrative of
tribal conflict which was a pervasive frame of the genocide. By revealing the colonial role in the
genocide, and by tracking the social and political shifts which spurred division between
Rwandan citizens, these text undermine the Western dismissal of Rwanda as another African
nation engulfed by conflict. Moreover, these texts demand that Western readers acknowledge
the role of the West in instigating the genocide, and in refusing to help end it.
In chapter four, three texts are discussed: Broken Memory: A Novel of Rwanda,
Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda, and The Oldest Orphan. These texts explore the Rwandan
Genocide as an immediate reality; the reader witnesses the protagonists as they experience the
Rwandan Genocide. Of particular concern for these authors is the need to explore personal and
communal experiences of the genocide for Western readers who, in the coverage of the genocide,
were shown only helpless or murdered victims, or threatening perpetrators. These texts convey
the genocide through the eyes of simple victims, individuals who are solely victims of genocidal
violence, or complex victims, individuals who are victimized by the genocide, but who also
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perpetrate crimes during or stemming from the genocide. This emphasis on multiple subject
positions allows the authors to convey a far more nuanced understanding of genocide to their
readers, and destabilizes the overly simplistic rhetoric of Rwandan identity propagated by the
Western media and political discourse. These texts collectively interrogate the rhetoric and
actions of Western military, religious, and media actors, challenging Western readers to
recognize that the discourses that frame Western military and religious involvement in other
nations as productive is not always indicative of local perceptions of these actors. Likewise, the
portrait of media involvement offered in The Oldest Orphan is a condemnation of the Western
media as a tool which constructs passive victims in order to reify the self-perception of Western
actors as heroic. These texts assert to Western readers the depth and complexity of Rwandan
citizens, and further emphasize the importance of community and unity for Rwandan citizens.
The texts of chapter five move into the post-genocide era, exploring the recovery of
Rwanda and its citizens. Tadjo’s narrative The Shadow of Imana and Linden’s play I Have
Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda are two texts
which assert Rwanda’s recovery for Western readers. While these texts are structurally very
different, as one is a travel narrative and one is a play, and are set in different nations, the first in
Rwanda and the second in London, these authors are led by the same objective, which is to
represent the challenges and the successes of Rwanda’s post-genocide recovery. Demonstrating
this process of recovery to distanced readers asserts the scale and importance of this effort for
Rwandan citizens. Public and political discussion of Rwanda in the West all but dropped off
after the humanitarian crisis of Rwandan refugees ended, but these texts assert that witnessing
recovery enables a degree of personal growth. Similarly, both texts emphasize the value of
cross-cultural interactions, demonstrating for readers that while such interactions can seem
308
daunting, these connections can have profound impact on the lives of individuals and
communities, both Western and Rwandan.
Individually, the literature of the Rwandan Genocide offers compelling narratives which,
through their depth and power, try to inform and engage Western readers. Collectively, these
texts emphasize the historical and cultural context of the genocide, the dynamism of Rwandan
citizens and communities, and the efforts of Rwandan citizens to assert their own recovery.
Chapter six considers how these texts re-educate readers about the Rwandan Genocide as a
national and international event in very provocative ways. These texts, which convey an
emerging sense of Rwandan national identity, can provide for Western citizens an understanding
of national Rwandan identity unmediated by the superstructure of Western neocolonialism. This
reflexive national consciousness is fundamental to the decolonization of Western discourse about
Rwanda because it enables two additional socio-political changes. First, Western citizens,
empowered by accurate and nuanced knowledge of Rwandan identity, are able to recognize the
discursive tools employed by the media and political actors to limit Western citizens’
engagement with the Rwandan Genocide, and so recognize the existence and function of the
neocolonial superstructure. Second, with this knowledge, Western citizens are empowered to
engage more critically within social, cultural, and political discourse, and particularly to respond
to the prevalent role of the neocolonial superstructure in shaping national and international
discourse. The insights offered by the literature of the Rwandan Genocide can increase Western
citizen engagement in all aspects of public discourse, and particularly with regard to the
representation and treatment of non-Western citizens.
While reflexive national consciousness is not without limitations, it demonstrates the
potential of literature to organize productive social and political responses to events of national
309
destruction and mass-violence. Developed as an external compliment to Fanon’s internal
strategy of national consciousness, reflexive national consciousness is ultimately intended as a
model for the development of productive literature for international readers in the wake of widespread conflicts. Its objective is simple: to empower readers outside of the national boundaries
of the conflict to instigate socio-political discussions about the implications of the conflict and
the larger superstructures which inform both the conflict and its reception in the international
community. Such discussions must be informed by factual, emotional, and contextual
understandings of the citizens of the nation in conflict. The application of reflexive national
consciousness as a means of achieving a more invested and engaged citizenry is not limited to
the literature of Rwanda, and could easily be applied to other instances of neocolonial influence.
This literary effort towards decolonizing the centre empowers citizens from the various “centres”
of neocolonial control to recognize the hierarchies which impede effective cross-cultural
understanding, providing them the means to challenge the reification of racial hierarchies
through national and international policies.
This consideration of the literature of the Rwandan Genocide builds on established
scholarship which has found compelling trends in the discussion and representation of the
Rwandan Genocide for Western audiences. Melvern and Wall argue that these framings were
intended to undermine the efficacy of Western public discourse, thereby minimizing public
pressure on Western governments to meaningfully engage with the genocide. As the analysis of
rhetoric and public discourse has long been productive in clarifying the subtle pressures which
circulate through populations, this dissertation engages in a similar analysis of the post-genocide
narratives which circulate in Western nations. The seven texts considered here, representing a
range of literary forms, offer detailed and complex considerations of Rwandan history, identity,
310
and post-genocide recovery. These narratives, by their very nature, are profoundly important, as
Rwandan voices and concerns have rarely been recognized as valuable in Western popular
discourse. However, these texts also provide the basis for a more productive Western
engagement with Rwanda; they reveal, through comparison, the faulty representations and
discourses surrounding the Rwandan Genocide which have shaped the popular understanding of
Rwanda for Western citizens. In demonstrating the slippage between official Western narratives
of the genocide and the self-representations and collaboratively generated representations of the
genocide by Rwandan citizens, the function of the neocolonial superstructure becomes visible
within a social and political context. While the genocide has been used as evidence of the chaos
of African nations, this literature reveals such narratives as constructions which maintain
Western socio-political power in local, national, and international interactions. This literature,
which makes Western citizens aware of the neocolonial superstructure, has the potential to create
a more critically and politically engaged Western public.
Pointing to the social and political potential of such writings, Nigel Hunt argues that
“good literature is part of that tapestry of understanding, along with historical accounts,
sociology and politics” (4). Rejecting single-source narratives of history, Hunt advocates for
broader acceptance of alternate human records which, when compiled, can enable more complex
understandings of historical events, international exchanges, and the socio-political discourses
which implicitly shape local and cross-cultural understanding. This consideration of the
literature of the Rwandan Genocide makes an attempt to demonstrate just how valuable literature
can be in bridging the gaps created by hierarchies of difference.
311
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Appendix A: Chronology of Relevant Dates
1884
Germany assumes colonial control of Rwanda during the Berlin Conference.
1916
During WWI, Belgium invades Rwanda and seizes control from Germany.
1918
Following WWI, the former German colony of Rwanda-Urundi is declared a League
of Nations protectorate as part of the settlement terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
Belgium is granted governing power.
1926
Ethnic identity cards are introduced by the Belgians as a means of differentiating
Hutus from Tutsis.
1957
The Party for the Emancipation of the Hutus (PARMEHUTU) is established.
1959
Violence erupts as Hutu rebels target the Belgian colonial rulers and Tutsi elite;
150,000 Tutsis flee to neighbouring countries to escape violent retribution.
1960
Municipal elections are organized by Belgian colonial rulers, in which the Hutu
majority is victorious.
1961-62
Rwanda becomes an independent country, as under UN oversight Belgium
relinquishes colonial rule. A Hutu revolution in Rwanda installs a new president,
Gregoire Kayibanda; insurgent Tutsi guerrilla groups attach Rwanda from
neighbouring territories. Rwanda Hutu troups respond and thousands are killed.
1963
Further massacre of Tutsis in response to military attacks by exiled Tutsis in
Burundi. It is estimated that by the mid-1960s half of the Tutsi population is living
outside Rwanda, which has now become a Hutu-dominated de facto one-party state.
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1973-74
General Juvenal Habyarimana seizes power and formalizes a one-party state. A
policy of ethnic quotas is entrenched in all public service employment. Thousands of
Tutsi doctors and professors are forced to resign in response to a public outcry
arguing their over-representation in such fields. Tutsis are restricted to nine percent
of available jobs, which represents their proportional population.
1975
Habyarimana's political party, the National Revolutionary Movement for
Development (MRND) is formed.
1978
Presidential elections are held in which Habyarimana is the only candidate on the
voting ballot.
1987
The Tutsi refugee diaspora in Uganda forms the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a
rebel group dominated by Tutsi veterans of the Ugandan war, under the command of
Fred Rwigema.
1989
Severe economic hardship befalls Rwanda as the global commodity price of coffee
collapses.
Jul. 1990
Under pressure from both the RPF and Western aid donors, General Habyarimana
concedes to allow multi-party democracy in Rwanda.
Oct. 1990
RPF guerillas invade Rwanda from Uganda. France replaces Belgium as Rwanda's
major foreign sponsor, committing troops, equipment and financial support to stymie
the RPF advance. On October 4th, the Rwandan government stages a fake attack on
Kigali in a propaganda effort designed to encourage the populace to report suspected
RPF sympathizers. More than 10,000 are arrested. Future Rwandan president Paul
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Kagame assumes control of the RPF forces after Major-General Rwigema is killed
early in the invasion. Months of fierce fighting follow, with several unsuccessful
attempts at negotiating a ceasefire.
1990-91
The Rwandan army begins to train and arm civilian militias known as Interahamwe,
who will prove to be critically responsible for the scope of the coming genocide. For
the next three years Habyarimana stalls on the establishment of a genuine multi-party
system with an ineffective power-sharing solution. Throughout this period thousands
of Tutsis are killed in separate massacres around the country. Newspapers and
politicians critical of the Habyarimana government are persecuted.
Nov. 22, 1992
Dr. Leon Mugesera, a prominent Hutu activist, delivers an incendiary speech
encouraging Hutus to kill the Tutsis, and send the corpses "back to Ethiopia, via the
Nyabarongo river.”
Feb. 1993
Following reports of massacres of Tutsi, the RPF launches a new offensive, quickly
capturing Ruhengeri, a perceived stronghold of the Habyarimana regime. The rebels
immediately advance on Kigali. In reaction. France commits troops and ammunition
to stem the RPF offensive. This resultant military imbalance forces the RPF to
declare a unilateral ceasefire on February 20 th.
Aug. 1993
Following more than a year of intermittent negotiation, Habyarimana and the RPF
sign the Arusha Accords, which allowed for the return of Tutsi refugees and the
establishment of a coalition Hutu-RPF government. 2,500 U.N. troops are deployed
in Kigali to oversee the establishment of the transitional government, slated to take
power on April 8th, 1994.
329
Sept. 1993-
President Habyarimana stalls on setting up the power-sharing government. Training
Mar. 1994
of Interahamwe militias intensifies. The extremist radio station, Radio Mille
Collines, begins to beseech the Hutu population to attack the Tutsis. Human rights
groups warn the international community of impending disaster.
Mar. 1994
Fearing imminent widespread massacre, many Rwandan human rights activists
evacuate their families from Kigali.
Apr. 6, 1994
President Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the president of Burundi, are killed
when Habyarimana's plane is shot down near Kigali Airport. This causes the uneasy
tensions to finally boil over, and widespread killing begins that evening.
Apr. 7, 1994
Aided by Interahamwe militias, the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) establish
roadblocks and advance from house to house indiscriminately murdering Tutsi
civilians and moderate Hutu politicians. Several thousand are killed in the first 24
hours. U.N. forces stand by while the slaughter goes on, unable to intervene unless
they themselves are under direct assault. Ten Belgian soldiers assigned to guard the
moderate Hutu Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, are forced to lay down their
weapons, whereupon they are brutally tortured and humiliated before being
executed. The Prime Minister, in an effort to save her children, surrenders with her
husband to soldiers of the Presidential Guard, and is summarily executed before
noon that day. In response to these atrocities, the U.N. evacuates nearly 90% of its
peacekeeping forces, leaving just 270 U.N. soldiers in the capital.
Apr. 8, 1994
The RPF launches a major offensive to put an end to the genocide and rescue 600 of
their troops, now encircled by enemy forces in Kigali. The troops were stationed in
330
the city as part of the terms of the Arusha Accords.
Apr. 30, 1994
The U.N. Security Council spends eight hours discussing the Rwandan crisis. The
resolution condemning the ongoing killings omits the word "genocide."
Simultaneously, tens of thousands of refugees flee into Tanzania, Burundi and Zaire.
In one day 250,000 Rwandan Hutus cross the border into Tanzania to flee the
retribution of the RPF advance.
May 17, 1994
As the violence rages on, the U.N. commits to sending 6,800 troops and policemen
to Rwanda with mandated legal power to defend civilians. A Security Council
resolution says "acts of genocide may have been committed." Deployment of the
U.N. forces is delayed by a financial dispute between the United States and the U.N.
over the cost of providing heavy armoured vehicles for the peacekeeping forces.
Jun. 22, 1994
With the U.N. troop deployment stalled, the Security Council authorizes the
deployment of French forces in south-west Rwanda. They establish a "safe area"
controlled by the government. Killings of Tutsis continue in the safe area, although
some are protected by the French. The United States government eventually uses the
word "genocide" to describe the ongoing conflict.
Jul. 1994
The RPF captures Kigali. The remnants of the Hutu government flee to Zaire,
followed by an enormous wave of Hutu refugees. The French end their mission and
are replaced by Ethiopian U.N. troops. The RPF establishes an interim government
of national unity in Kigali. Reports Emerge that RPF troops have carried out
hundreds of reprisal killings in Rwanda. The killing of Tutsis continues in refugee
camps.
331
Aug. 1994
The new Rwandan government agrees to criminal trials before an international
tribunal to be established by the U.N. Security Council.
Nov. 1994
The Security Council establishes the international tribunal that will oversee
prosecution of suspects involved in committing acts of genocide.
Jan. 5-10, 1995
U.N. begins enacting plans with Zaire and Tanzania that will lead to the return of one
and a half million Hutus to Rwanda over the next five months. U.N. Security
Council refuses to dispatch an international force to police refugee camps.
Feb. 19, 1995
Shamed Western governments pledge $600 million in aid to Rwanda.
Feb. 27, 1995
U.N. Security Council urges all states to arrest those suspected of direct involvement
in the Rwandan genocide.
Mid-May 1995
The Rwandan government grows resentful of the lack of international financial aid.
Jun. 10, 1995
U.N. Security Council agrees to withdraw more than 50% of troops stationed in
Rwanda after a direct request from the Rwandan government.
Jul. 1995
More than 720,000 Hutu refugees around the city of Goma, Zaire refuse to return to
Rwanda.
Dec. 12, 1995
United Nations Tribunal for Rwanda announces first round of indictments against
eight suspects, charging them with genocide and crimes against humanity.
Dec. 13, 1995
U.N. Security Council extends its peacekeeping mission for three more months and
agrees to further reduce the number of U.N. troops stationed in Rwanda.
Nov. 1996
Mass repatriation from Zaire begins; the Rwandan government orders a moratorium
332
on arrests of suspected genocide perpetrators.
Dec. 1996
Trials begin for Hutus involved in the 1994 genocide.
Jan. 10, 1997
The trial of Jean Paul Akayesu (a local government official accused of ordering mass
killings in his area), begins before the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha,
Tanzania.
Jan. 13-17, 1997 A woman who testified against Jean Paul Akayesu is murdered along with her
husband and seven children by Hutu extremists.
Feb. 2, 1997
Venuste Niyonzima is the first man tried locally for crimes against humanity in his
own village of Gikongoro, Rwanda. A U.N. Human Rights official in Rwanda
expresses "serious concern" over the lack of lawyers and adequate defense for those
accused of participation in the 1994 genocide.
Feb. 12, 1997
United Nations watchdog agency criticizes the management of the Rwandan
genocide trials.
Feb. 26, 1997
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan fires the chief administrator, Andronico Adede,
and deputy prosecutor Honore Rakoromoanana, citing mismanagement and
inefficiency in the Rwanda criminal trials. Agwu Okali of Nigeria is appointed new
chief minister. By this date, the court has indicted only 21 suspects.