When Rwanda is mentioned abroad, positivity regarding the country’s investment in its population’s welfare is invalidated in two ways. The first is the implication that Rwandans only speak positively about Rwanda out of fear of personal persecution by a man who apparently has the time to both lead a country with such complex political needs, and read every single tweet that criticizes him. The second is a bold-faced lie: “The praise of Rwanda is just propaganda”. Facts and figures are not propaganda. They are simple, easily provable truth, unlike the reaches and fantasist suggestions made by the likes of Kenneth Roth. Kenneth Roth has sat on his African-nation bashing high horse as the executive Director of Human Rights’ Watch since the year before my birth. He should be well placed to understand the concept of abusive governance, since he has clung to his astronomical salary as a glorified Africa critic since 1993. And yet, while having been appointed and not elected, Kenneth Roth overlooks (I suspect, purposely), the fact that you cannot be “dictating” a nation that voted you in, en masse. A leadership that reflects the desires and needs of the Rwandan people is not leading them authoritatively. Decisively, yes. Resiliently – absolutely. But I wonder how many Rwandan people, who I believe feature some of the militant and engaged youth I’ve seen across the continent, need to tell the west how satisfied they are for western publications to stop patronizingly portraying us as brainwashed, terrified abuse victims. We are only a victim of the lies of Roth and Co but fortunately we bear the resilience of our parents. There is simply no conspiracy. The insinuations that westerners are better placed to know what Africans think than actual Africans are at this point frankly exhausting. The narrative Mr Roth is peddling is a conspiracy of a level of fantasy that to me, screams desperation. Apparently, there is no possible reason Rwanda could invest in its tourism industry through sports-branding, except covering up for Human Rights Violations. And yet, in 2019, 1.63 million people visited Rwanda, providing the country with nearly $500 million in earnings, or 15% of our GDP. This number has almost quadrupled since 2000, I believe due to measures such as the Visit Rwanda campaigns. This is beyond humbling for a nation the world once portrayed as an eternal graveyard. Countless mouths have been fed, opportunities created and beautiful experiences made from the investment in the Visit Rwanda branding. Rwandan leadership understands that beyond the economic benefits of growing our touristic industry, Rwandan youth deserves to grow up in a country famous for something other than the tragic losses it has had to surmount. As a nation in which millions of people were violently derooted from their land, the pride, the joy with which Rwandans can speak of their country is priceless. There is a crudeness and tastelessness to the mentioning of our finances when questioning our choice to endorse famous sports teams. Sports are an incredibly worthy investment. They have always brought a kaleidoscope of communities together, from the dawn of the Olympic Games to the Champions and Premiere League. While I’ll admit to be puzzled by the passion that surrounds football, I have witnessed it firsthand. The sight of the Visit Rwanda logo on the back of, arguably, the greatest football player in the world, brought chills even to me, a girl typically unmoved by the sport. This is the invaluable thing here; being given countless reasons to claim your identity, to be compelled to go back and relearn about a country the world so frequently mischaracterized. This is what the likes of Kenneth Roth are afraid of. Going back to the aforementioned desperation, there is a Panafrican movement pulsating back to life across the continent. The failures of western capitalism and compounding consequences of colonization have not gone unnoticed by the youth. We are looking to recenter ourselves, and with the access to the world technology has granted us, it looks like the time is now. Part of this exciting movement is reclaiming our truths. It is sharing our stories, engaging in critical considerations of the nature of our oppression and strategizing on securing the liberation some of our parents, and their parents before that, died to give us. This is most likely threatening to the people that, for decades, have earned a living sensationalizing African struggles. According to Paddock post, Kenneth Roth is being paid RWF 600,000,000 a year to fear-monger about Africa. It’s deeply ironic that the moral angle keeps being used when in fact, individuals like him are paid even more than the politicians they heavily imply to be greedy and immoral. Western Rwanda critics have commodified the pain that once defined Rwandan history and turned it into exorbitant appearance fees, book deals and salaries. Kenneth Roth will have the gall to call Rwanda impoverished, as if the modern African is not informed on who impoverished it. It is the pillage of the moral-high-ground nations that has led us here. And the idea that we are striving to leave this state of economic subversion with movements such as Visit Rwanda, the state through which unethical lawyers can earn hundreds of millions to peddle lies, terrifies them. I suspect the sight of Visit Rwanda on Messi’s back caused the same panic in TheWashingtonPost newsroom as Messi himself has provoked in adverse team defenders on the field. Nevertheless, he still scores time and time again, and so shall Rwanda. The views expressed in this article are of the writer.
