Can you forgive the killers of your family? Go see in Rwanda
The East African - Editorial 13:29
Until then, Rwanda wasn't among countries I wanted to visit or even
expected to visit. I was in Uganda next door, yet Rwanda could as well
have been as far away as Mongolia or Tajikistan, two countries that I
have no reason to think I will ever visit.
The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, as it is now officially called,
had found me in Europe. Perhaps because I had been hanging around
mostly with African National Congress activists from South Africa and
perhaps because the country was inching towards majority rule and
attracted much attention, events in Rwanda had passed me by.
And so that accidental 2000 visit opened up a whole new world. First,
it revealed, in sharp relief, the horrors of what had happened and
how, at the time it happened, I had been blissfully unaware that
perhaps the 20th century's most heinous crime was being committed next
door to where I called home.
Second, after a few interactions with some of Rwanda's officials, it
began to dawn on me that here was a country with very little in terms
of resources, but where such was the determination to succeed, that
things seemed to be happening by sheer will power.
For years before the visit, I had experienced, observed, and learnt
about the dysfunction, weakness, shadowiness and corruption of the
African state and of the fecklessness of leaders and public officials.
Here, though, it seemed, was a country that told a different story.
And so began my journey of inquiry and learning about Rwanda to which
as of now, there is no end in sight. Yet the more I come and go and
sometimes get to feel I know it, the more Rwanda throws up things that
make me wonder if I know it at all. Aspects of the recent genocide
commemoration yet again made me wonder what I know and what I don't.
Consider the issue of forgiveness and reconciliation, where those who
have wronged others apologise, and those who have been wronged forgive
in order to allow life to continue without rancour but with hope that
the future will be better than the past and present.
I have known for years about and even witnessed the extraordinary
courage perpetrators and survivors of the genocide have shown in
asking for forgiveness and forgiving.
And last week I watched a courageous young man face hundreds of people
at a commemorative event and tell them about his participation in the
killings, his struggle and failure to kill himself after he was freed
from prison, the forgiveness he sought and received from his victims
who are now his neighbours back in the village, his decision to go to
school eventually, where he sits in the same Primary Four classroom as
his young daughter, and his hope for the future in a country that,
unlike the one he was born in, has turned its back on the sectarianism
that drove him to kill.
Why, I wondered, have people who endured so much suffering, some at
the hands of neighbours, relatives, and friends, been so willing to
forgive?
If one has read the books on the genocide, spoken to survivors, been
to the genocide memorials and seen and heard bits of what happened, it
is difficult not to wonder. Two survivors' testimonies I came across
suggest the decision is very personal and in some cases may not be as
difficult as an outsider may imagine:
Survivor A: "I used to hate him. When he came to my house and knelt
down before me and asked for forgiveness, I was moved by his
sincerity. Now, if I cry for help, he comes to rescue me. When I face
any issue, I call him."
Survivor B: "After I was chased from my village and Dominique and
others looted it, I became homeless and insane. Later, when he asked
my pardon, I said: 'I have nothing to feed my children. Are you going
to help raise my children? Are you going to build a house for them?'
Dominique came with some survivors and former prisoners. They built my
family a house. Since then I feel peaceful in my heart, and I share
this peace with my neighbours."
As for the perpetrators, atonement and forgiveness allow for a new
beginning, as one pointed out: "I burnt her house. I attacked her in
order to kill her and her children, but they escaped. When I was
released from jail, if I saw her, I would run and hide. I decided to
ask her for forgiveness. To have good relationships with the person to
whom you did evil deeds -- we thank God."
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Can-you-forgive-the-killers-of-your-family--Go-see-in-Rwanda-/-/434750/2277048/-/9u3xmqz/-/index.html
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SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
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