How does one learn about Rwanda’s past and present, its people and culture, you may ask. You will probably get the answer: through books and stories. True, but most of those books are by outsiders and you might get a distorted picture. As for the stories, well, their tellers are getting fewer and fewer. Still, the search goes on, but is accompanied by this terrible practice in the past – probably still exists- of relying on outside sources to learn about our country. Not only its distant past or long-forgotten traditions or whose origins have become obscure, but also current events – politics, culture and foreign relations, and so on. It is not surprising to hear some of us cite outsiders’ comments on Rwanda as the most authoritative source of information about the country. You are likely to hear: so and so (a foreigner) said or wrote ...and that is supposed to settle any argument. That habit of relying on outside sources for “expertise” or special knowledge about us has been strongest in academia and Rwandan academics perhaps passed it on unwittingly to the public. To be fair, this is understandable. There is a historical context. Outsiders were the first to write about us, for their own purposes, of course. That became the only written record and therefore most readily available source of information for their kind, and as it turns out, generations of others after them, and was widely quoted and so they became authorities by default. If sometimes what they wrote was skewed or misrepresented us (and they did), it was because of the reason they were writing in the first place. Whether it was the missionaries, who did most of the early writing, or the colonial administrators, they were all trying to understand us and explain us to their world, or to confirm their prejudices and assumed superiority. The former the better to convert us to their faith; the latter the easier to control us. Of course, that is not to say that there was no indigenous knowledge and record. There was, but it was largely oral. A big part of that oral tradition remains. The oral source will often come second to the written one. It is easy to treat it as suspect, as a subjective account and not quite accurate or as tales given to the embellishing skills of the storyteller, their selective omission or inclusion of detail or lapses of memory. Another excuse for relying heavily on outside sources was that there was not much writing about Rwanda outside academic theses. Reading and writing about the country was restricted to the educated elite. In any case, most of the writing was in foreign languages and therefore out of reach of most Rwandans who continued to tell their stories in the oral tradition that they had mastered. In the past, this was a trusted method of recording, conserving and transmitting history, rituals and other cultural practices. At a professional and artistic level, this was done through the established institutions of Ubusizi (poetry), Ubwiru (royal rituals) and other forms of oral literature before they were disrupted by colonialism. Reliance on outside sources might end soon as I wrote in this column earlier this year. I said then that the literary scene has been changing for a while and our lament about the lack of Rwandans writing on their own country is beginning to die down. For evidence, I pointed to the fact that hardly a month passes without the launch of a new book by a Rwandan writer. That trend continues. On Saturday, September 30, Mr Richard Hategekimana launched his biography of Mzee Tito Rutaremara. Significantly, the book, titled, Hon Dr Tito Rutaremara, Inkotanyi Cyane Ntatezuka was launched at the Intare Arena, headquarters of the Rwanda Patriotic Front-Inkotanyi. The contribution of Mzee Tito, as he is fondly called, to the politics of this country and the RPF in particular is immense. Readers used to reading biographies will find this one rather different. It is not written in the conventional narrative style. Rather, it is a mix of interviews, personal testimonies, and bits of straight narrative by the author. Is that the author’s distinctive style to preserve the authentic voice of his sources or present his material in this manner for the reader to make their own assessment? Perhaps, and that would be a strong point. Is it a sign of some limitations? Maybe. However, that really beside the point. Regardless of any of these, the book is bound to be significant in several ways. One, it is a useful addition to books by Rwandans about Rwandans and for Rwandans. Two, it breaks new ground as it tells the story of one of the significant actors in the recent history of the country who is still with us. It is important to get the stories of the major players at key moments in our history before we lose them and then wait for outsiders to interpret their contributions for us, often with distortion. It breaks new ground in another sense. We have been rather reluctant to record our history through the eyes of important actors in it. Part of the reason for this might be a kind of modesty or oral tradition that still has a strong hold or lack of people willing and properly equipped to record and tell it. Three, whatever the merits or otherwise of the book, it is an invaluable source of information, not just on Tito Rutaremara, but also on Rwanda’s history, especially in the last half century or so. It will certainly have achieved a lot if it spurs others to write.
