Visiting the genocide memorial centre in Kigali, Rwanda, is as sobering as it is harrowing and debilitating. The centre graphically chronicles the genesis, the execution and the aftermath of what is perhaps the bloodiest holocaust in modern times, with such succinctness that the patrons are left wondering how human beings can act so hideously against fellow human beings. It is not uncommon to see tears rolling down the cheeks of some patrons.
Rwanda, like neighbouring Burundi, has a population comprising roughly 85% Hutu, 14% Tutsi and 1% Twa. The Twa are a forest dwelling hunter-gatherer tribe that keep to themselves. In precolonial times the Hutu and the Tutsi coexisted amicably with each other and spoke the same language, Kinyarwanda, which they still speak today. They had slightly different physical features, however, in the sense that the Tutsi were generally lighter skinned than the Hutu and had pointed noses while the Hutu had flatter ones. With many years of intermarriage, these differences in physical features have all but vanished.
When the Belgians colonised Rwanda at, or near, the beginning of the twentieth century, they followed a policy which accentuated the differences between the two tribes. The Tutsi, being lighter skinned and having pointed noses, were considered closer to the colonisers than their compatriots, and were therefore treated preferentially. All the nice jobs, for example, went to the Tutsis. The Hutu naturally detested the preferential treatment of the Tutsi by the colonisers and began to resent them (the Tutsis).
The Belgians were to Rwanda what Chris Blackwell was to the Wailers. The harmony that had existed among the three original Wailers was dealt a death blow when Blackwell started to treat one of them preferentially.
As the country edged towards independence, the colonisers switched sides and sided with the Hutu majority, who were likely to form the government in independent Rwanda. Kayibanda, a Hutu, became Rwanda’s first president in 1962. He was ousted by another Hutu, Hibyarimana, in a bloodless coup in 1973. Hibyarimana died in a plane crash, returning from peace talks in Arusha in 1994. By this time the gulf between Tutsis and Hutus had reached an all-time high. The Hutus, with government help, had finalised their plan to exterminate their Tutsi countrymen. They had trained a Hutu militia group known as the Interahamwe.
Following Hibyarimana’s death, the Interahamwe unleashed terror nationwide, resulting in the death of over 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a period of 100 days. All Hutus were expected to join the killing campaign to exterminate what they called “the cockroaches”. Those who did not cooperate were considered traitors and had to die with the cockroaches.
Rudimentary instruments were used to hack Tutsis to their eventual death.
A foul stench wafted through the Kigali air as decaying bodies lay everywhere. Dogs suddenly had more abundant meal than they could bargain for. In some cases, dogs were devouring the rotten flesh of their former masters.
The genocide memorial centre gives all this information, and more, as part of Rwanda’s healing process. If people know the truth, they are in a position to make informed decisions about their activities. Rwanda has emerged from the holocaust as a nation determined to forge ahead with unparalleled vigour. Kigali has been transformed from the ghost town that it was during the genocide to an impressive metropolis that few cities in Africa can match. Rwandans have decided to put ethnic divisions behind them. They are no long Hutu or Tutsi; they are just Rwandese. As a result, order and discipline characterize everything they do, a far cry from the lawlessness and lack of discipline that one meets all the time in the fabric of the Malawian society. Returning from Kigali last week, I found the sight of motor bike riders without helmets nauseating as that does not happen, not in the least, in Rwanda.
Malawi is blessed with a diverse heritage of ethnic cultures. We need to celebrate our ethnicity with caution. The moment one ethnic group begins to feel short changed by another will signal a potential recipe for disaster. We need to search within our cultural heritage and root out any cause of unnecessary division between or among our ethnic groups.
Let the celebration of ethnically led activities – Kulamba, Mulahko, Umhlangano, Umthetho – remain ceremonial and no more. Jesus said something very profound: “And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” Our colleagues in Rwanda have gouged out the eye of ethnicity.