Rwanda and the world are commemorating the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi 29 years ago. It is always a poignant moment, even after these many years, and I am sure it will remain so for many more, centuries even. It is sombre. The grief is still there, the pain felt as keenly as then, and the wounds as fresh.
You cannot attend a commemoration event or visit a genocide memorial and not be affected in some way. At some point, your eyes will fill with tears and you will almost choke with emotion. Or you will be seized by anger at the extent of savagery or admiration for the incredible courage of survivors hanging on tenaciously, if most times tenuously, never letting go, until by miracle or sheer willpower, they find escape or are rescued. Sometimes, it is incomprehensible.
Unless, of course, you have a heart of stone or are completely heartless. Which unfortunately many around the world are.
How can you listen to the testimony of Eric Mwizerwa, and thousands others, and remain the same or indifferent? They narrate their ordeal, in all its stark detail, including the gory scenes, in a matter of fact way. I think this tone, in marked contrast to the monstrous frenzy of the killers, brings out the horror and terror in all their graphic detail and in some way, the dignity of the victims.
You cannot imagine how and from where they get such courage, how they can retain their sanity and composure to narrate horror. You can only wonder, but also condemn the perpetrators of such savagery and those who looked on.
How can you see the physical record and evidence at genocide memorial sites and not be revolted by the barbarity?
Or if you are the cerebral sort and can only be convinced by scholarly work or other written record, how can you discount the amount of work that has been written about the genocide by reputable, non-ideological scholars? And, even with all the contrary stuff that has been written by agenda-led scholars (I hesitate to use the word), how can you not see them for what they are and make the right judgement?
Yet, some have refused to see all these – the genocidaires, of course, the legion of Rwanda and Kagame haters, and some for ideological or personal reasons.
This, however, has not stopped Rwandans from commemorating the genocide, paying tribute to the victims and honouring the survivors, pointing out its horrors, but also the resolve that it should never happen again, and moving forward.
The commemoration may be sombre, but there is also a dignity about it, defiance, too, and a steely resolve. You look at Kwizera and the other survivors and you read a statement: We are alive. We refused to be exterminated. You could not kill our spirit. And now we exercise our right to live.
A sense of defiance is ironically a product of the genocide. When the world looked on or turned its back on Rwandans, it meant that Rwandans faced it alone and alone stopped it. They did it against the odds and succeeded, and rebuilt the country. Defiance comes from doing right, facing difficult conditions and overcoming them. And so nobody has the right to lecture them on how to conduct their affairs.
In President Paul Kagame’s words at this year’s commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi: "Nobody will ever decide for us how to live our lives. We have strength, incredible strength, coming from the history that informs ...us that you should never allow anybody to dictate to you how you should live your life. And that is Rwanda today.”
Commemoration is about remembrance of the victims of genocide, its horrors, but also its prevention. But it is about many other things as well.
One, it is a reminder of the depth to which humans can sink, their capacity for evil, when they turn their back on those things that keep society together and, instead, allow diabolical intellect and base emotions to dictate their conduct.
Two, it is rebuke to its perpetrators and their enablers, and those who harbour the intentions and ideology of genocide that the people they tried to erase from the earth survived and are determined to live.
Three, remembrance is an indictment of an indifferent world that simply looked on and did nothing, or turned its back on Rwandans, or even worse, aided and abetted the perpetrators of the genocide. Unfortunately, they do not seem to have learnt any lesson. They have no remorse and still show the same indifference in places like eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where there are signs of violence and hate speech against the Tutsi in that country, that, if not checked, could end up in another genocide.
Above all, it is also evidence of a people’s incredible capacity for survival, their refusal to be annihilated, and determination to live. In short, their resilience.