26-year-old Honoré Busoro, an author, was driven to start writing after he noticed that many youth had questions, or misconceptions, about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. He started the venture with research and information that would answer some of their questions, and after compiling his findings from libraries, interviews with elder citizens, politicians, authors, and professors for about seven years, he released his book “Ikosa Ryemejwe” which loosely means “Official Mistake” in 2019. After his first book, some readers still had queries, which prompted him to research further and he was able to publish the second edition of the book this month. Unlike the first book which was written in only Kinyarwanda, the second edition is in three languages—Kinyarwanda, English, and French—to allow people who do not understand the local language get the message too. According to Busoro, the new edition contains three chapters, in chapter one, for example, he talks about the youth born after the Genocide and how they thought there were double genocides based on theories on social media. Responding to this, he emphasises that the people who propagate this theory borrow techniques of how and who to recruit from terrorist organisations. Most of these people are the ones that executed the Genocide, and they want to return to Rwanda to finish what they started. “These people are categorised in three groups; responsibility seekers, these are underprivileged people that are searching for financial support, young people who are naïve and are in search of adventure, and lastly, the death seekers. These had traumatic experiences in their lives that they wish to die—they have nothing to lose,” he says. Busoro says that the second chapter addresses the question “why do youth remember events that they didn’t witness?” He tackles this by explaining that remembering is made up of two things, some are symbolic like commemorating with flowers, and others are pragmatic, for instance, discovering mass graves for some bodies or the remains of the dead to be laid to rest. “Anyone can take part.” He says through stories of the commemoration period, people are required to learn about courage, love from people who refused to participate in the Genocide, and also understand how hate can affect society. “As a nation, we are committed to saying, “Never Again” to genocide and crimes against humanity in general. We need to ensure that we participate in every commemoration event,” he says. Busoro adds that in the last chapter, the youth reported that even though they knew that ethnic labels were a result of a colonial origin, some of them still feel negative emotions, such as shame, fear, and pain. To tackle this, he highlights that the reason why the youth feel that way is because this is related to trauma. He explains that hearing stories of their relatives killed in such an awful way just results in intergenerational trauma. Parents and guardians transmit the trauma to their children. The writer took about a year and a half to gather information for the second edition. He was able to hold discussions with the youth, research in libraries, interview senior people and historians, and submitted his work to professors and senators for review, corrections, facts, and approval for publication. However, he is a bit thwarted by the fact that publishing a book in Rwanda is ineffective and expensive, it lacks enough professionals to organise and publish a book excellently. “We haven’t reached a state where an author sends their raw work and expects a final product, which is why most local authors publish from different countries. There are no varieties of paper, yet materials and machines are still of poor quality,” he says. One of his future plans is to contribute to the improvement of the art industry, mostly literature, by writing more books at a higher standard and by consulting already established authors. He is a graduate of mass media and communication at Mount Kenya University. He is also a copywriter and editor. Copies of his book can be accessed via Amazon at Rwf 6,000 or ordered on Vuba Vuba at Rwf 10,000, delivery included.
