Before then there is something that I need to get down on paper/in electronic form, if not just for myself and my well being, so we'll start from the end of what has been an incredible six week trip and then work backwards in later posts OK?.
This post was birthed out of some of the experiences I've have had and I will be writing for myself rather than the royal 'we' of 'Tim and Maz' fame, as I am seeking to put into words the thoughts and feelings I'm having after visiting the Genocide Memorial site in Kigali which has been created to help remind us of the awful atrocious that were conducted in Rwanda in just 100 days in the spring and early summer of 1994.
I had never really had an urge to visit any of the genocide memorial sites, but seeing as though we were travelling overland through Rwanda from Uganda to Burundi one can't really drive through any larger town without seeing them along the side of the road, so when we returned to Kampala via Kigali from Bujumbura I felt it would it would be remiss of me to pass by without paying some respect.
It seems kind of strange that during the 1980s and 1990s we had so many occurrences of man killing man because of his race or religion, Cambodia and its 'killing fields', the ethnic cleansing that took place in the former Yugoslavia and the around 800,000 to one million Tutsis who were killed by their Hutu neighbours in Rwanda.
I'm no great historian but I have read enough to firstly understand that no one is ever fully to blame and or either blameless in any disagreement between men. However as I am from Northern Europe it would be unwise of me to ignore the part in which my recent ancestors, be they German or Belgium in the case of Rwanda or my fellow Englishmen as the British in the nations that made up a vast Commonwealth from Canada to New Zealand and many nations in between, had in many of the problems in the world, especially in Africa, which were brought on by those European powers when they carved up Africa into newly formed nations with little or no regard to the complex makeup of tribe, culture or tongue which existed way before any white man set foot upon darkest continent of Africa.
That said I have read three most helpful books around the genocide in Rwanda, the powerful report style of the BBC correspondent Fergal Keane in his book 'Season of Blood', the more journeying thoughts of our good friend Trevor Waldock in 'A Rwandan Journey' or the thought provoking book titled 'An Ordinary Man' which was written by the man who's story was told in the film 'Hotel Rwanda', Paul Rusesabagina, a story of the real life events behind the manager of the Hotel Milles Collines in Kigali where he helped to save near on 2,000 people's lives by hiding them in his hotel for 76 days when outside people were being killed for their ethnic background.
In my mind the underlying issues of any of the genocides, which have and or will take place, are based on the differences that divide men, rather than the commonalities that must and can be celebrated between men, creating a faceless 'other' to become the scapegoat of our own insecurities.
In the case of Rwanda there had been issues between the ruling Tutsis, placed in power by the Germans and Belgians prior to Rwanda's independence in 1962, and their fellow countrymen the majority Hutus, however what took place in 1994 was unprecedented and saw neighbours turn upon neighbour, literally cutting ties of friendship with the blade of a machete and finished off with a bullet of a gun.
For 100 days this violence continued until the current president Paul Kagame returned with his revolutionary army, established in exile in Uganda, to claim power back for the minority Tutsis. The stories that were so graphical portrayed at the genocide memorial included some harrowing stories where churches which were perceived to be places of peace and a haven for those escaping the carnage outside were turned into buildings where huge numbers of people were butchered by those who had once shared the good news of Jesus, to love one another, even your enemies and those who persecute you.
What followed in the later summer of 1994 is still ongoing as refugees, mainly Hutus escaping the retribution of those they had killed, seek shelter in UN supported camps in Tanzania and the DRC. Today as we sit in a somewhat peaceful Uganda we are hearing news of continued violence in those camps, mainly between differing people groups which is largely unreported by the western press.
The same issues and high numbers of people were killed over a ten year period at about the same time in neighbouring Burundi, where we have just returned from, and little if nothing was really reported around that either.
So it was with all this in mind that last Sunday morning I made my way into the memorial site in Kigali and from that experience, of seeing the mass graves of over 250,000 innocent people, wandering around the respectfully created gardens which highlight the differences and celebrate the uniqueness of each and every person both living and dead, I am now grappling with my many new thoughts.
My mind is now haunted by the faces and stories of real people, men, women and especially children who suffered for the very fact that they were different to those who felt that they needed to be removed from the society which they once shared and one that still continues to share one language. Husbands turned on wives, even mothers stood by as their own children were taken and the world also turned its back.
The news stories from Africa during the initial weeks of this genocide, where something could surely have been done, were focused on the momentous events that were taking place a little further south as the first free and fair elections were taking place in South Africa and where the much celebrated Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president of another divided nation, and what has really changed there? Will we see tribe come against tribe in that nation as the balance of power still shifts even 20 years on? but I digress.
The United Nations stood by watching, refusing to help when it was within their power to do so, but even in to that end they would have surely have had to 'take sides', and who's to take? Which leads me to my thoughts and how I must surely start with myself and my own choices of whom to love and whom to hate? Is it as hard and harsh as that I hear you cry!
I'm aware that the winners often get to tell the story with the losers silent on how they saw the events. Our news broadcasters are the same, favouring one side without fully reporting the whole story. I'm a fan of John Pilger who from my view is an example of providing balanced journalism, I only wish he was a little more read.
Maz actually caught my feelings so well as I read this back to her around the fact that we are feed a way to think without fully understanding the politics and bigger world system behind it all, surely real journalism is to report the facts as seen without putting a political bent on them but there again I digress.
It is said that 'if you aren't part of the solution then you are part of the problem'. We make daily choices which end up meaning that some will win and some will lose? Experiments have been carried out to see how far your every day man will go once pushed or encouraged to inflict the electric shock treatment on his fellow man. We all sort of follow the crowd and maybe that's what I believe happened in Germany around the concentration camps, the killing fields of Cambodia or the genocide that took place in the neighboring nation to where I currently sit?
But I suppose my question is to myself, what shall/what will I do? love those Muslims that seem hell bent on blowing my culture and fellow northern European to bits, or to love Mr. Trump and his crazy decisions and rhetoric which are perhaps creating such extreme thoughts, feelings and actions from those others? What is the real issue behind these actions?
We live in a culture of winners and losers, our capitalistic minds have been shaped since our birth. The winners get the medals, the accolades and the money, the losers are left at the bottom of the pile to fend for themselves. At school we were graded both within academia, the arts and sports, who ever thought it was a good idea to award every child with the same prize even if they finished first or last? I must say that I didn't, but perhaps that wasn't as crazy an idea as it first looked.
So as I sit here by the banks of Lake Victoria with the sun shining down on me, a belly full and a bank account which will at least enable me to return home via a plane to England, surely I am called to live in peace with those around me, those who I see as the same, family, gender, ethnic background, language, and even those who are perhaps more challenging to get along with, the 'other'.
I'm reminded of the story of the 'good samaritan' and the challenge that Jesus gave when telling us that the whole of the prophets and the law could be summed up in this easy to read but hard to live phase, 'Love your God with all your heart and love your neighbour as you love yourself'.
What is the story that I want to be writing in my life, what's the legacy that I want to be remembered for, a man who was able to love those around me or not?
What if I don't love them, I somewhat reluctantly conclude that maybe a genocide of sorts is already happening in my own heart!
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