This April, Rwanda is observing the 26th commemoration of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. As the world is currently engulfed in the COVID19 pandemic, this year’s commemoration will not include public mourning events or communal discussions. The experience of genocide is matter and place-based. There is no genocide without a person or a place, and that is why remembrance and mourning are physical and place-based. Kwibuka26 is going to be exceptionally hard for survivors who will not be able to visit their beloved, lay down flowers on grave or water-bodies or meet in one place. Places like memorials don’t just serve a symbolic role. Going to a memorial is never merely an act of “being there.” Memorials produce meaning; they are functional, they foster reflection on and dialogue about the past. During these times of Coronavirus, two things are clear: One, memorial sites hold the vitality of our collective remembrance acts. But they don’t fully represent the extent of the suffering or the healing of our collective trauma. Two, since we are implicated in each other’s trauma, our memorial culture will be sustained by the will and desire to continuously find ways to remember and transform our grief into hope and joy. This means that we have to re-imagine how we ‘Remember, Unite and Renew’ while practising physical isolation. Specifically, how to create, facilitate and foster safe spaces to support survivors at this time. If the genocide had indeed achieved its ultimate objective, there would be no Tutsi left. And the world would know little of what exactly happened to them. Genocidaires intended to not only wholly exterminate the Tutsi but to also permanently erase the lives they led, the people they loved and the places they lived. The last memory of them—if at all there was one—would be one of unspeakable horror. But we have survivors. And during this time, we owe it to them and to ourselves to design and adopt remembrance methods that go beyond the physical realm. This requires a robust individual and collective commitment to online social commemoration. We have to be intentional and find deliberate ways to remind survivors that we are grateful to them for sharing their ordeals. We believe them. We are incredibly glad they are here. We commemorate with them the monumental losses they have suffered. We reiterate and acknowledge there is no moving on, but we are grateful to them for doing the heavy lifting towards moving forward together as a nation. The cruelty of Coronavirus manifests itself in the loneliness it creates. But we can’t afford to lose more than we have already lost. We ease something for each other when we consistently demonstrate that we care. This is the time to go the extra mile. Commemoration initiates shouldn’t be left just for relevant authorities. We have to own it. The best we can do for now is not allow survivors to experience the worst part of holding the memories: the loneliness of it. Let us use platforms and communities; we have been building to stay sane during this lockdown to share stories of survivors, believe them, listen and act. This is also particularly important at a time when we are facing unparalleled efforts to revise, distort and denial the true accounts of the genocide. People go from saying it wasn’t ‘that’ bad to ‘it didn’t happen at all.’ During this time, we have to consciously and knowledgeably navigate the politics around genocide. Just because we can’t convene in lieux de memoires doesn’t mean we can’t create milieux de memoire — an environment of remembrance— where we can reflect, dialogue privately and digitally. Our story is being retold. But we have to own the narrative. Let’s use this time to reach out, to reminisce and to comfort. If ever there was a time to claim, affirm and demonstrate Ubuntu, it’s now. The views expressed in this article are of the authors.
