Yesterday I went to watch a documentary at the local arthouse cinema, since it was one of last days of the series 'Justice and Cinema'. It was two documentaries about the genocide in Rwanda, the first one called 'After years of walking'-- about how before the 'white men' came there were no such concepts as race, or such terms as Tutsi or Hutu or Twa, which was the cause of the horrible events in leading up to 1994. The other one was called 'Guardians of the memory', which dealt with survivors of the genocide who even today, more than a decade on, live lives that are never too far from the traumas then.
For one and a half hours, I sat there in my seat, many moments moved to tears by the disbelief of the extent of the attrocities, and stunned silent by the grief of grieving survivors. At times, even the sound of my own breathing seemed so inappropiate because it disturbed the sanctity of the innocence of the slain victims, and seemed to take away the true extent of the intense suffering of survivors... the mother who lost her sons and husband... the man who lost 26 family members... and yet another who at last count lost 146 family and friends. He stopped counting, because, like he said it, it was too painful to remember the person you had lost, and to remind yourself you'll never see them again.
For the last decade or so, Rwanda history books dare not mention the genocide, dare not use the words Hutu or Tutsi any more than has already been (un)necessary. It was as if that bloodied and torn page of recent Rwandan was torn away. A group of university students sit and discuss the merits of such a policy. Race and differentiation, a foreign concept, one said, while arguing that in the reconciliation stage, society need not be reminded of the divisions that began the worst excesses of inhumanity in Rwanda. But the brief words and ideas of a female student broke the silence, and took my breath away. How can you reconcile if you do not identify Tutsi or Hutu? Politically correctness does not always serve an end, when the very roots of the Rwanda genocide originated from political incorrectness manipulated and mass reproduced by the governing elites. If people no longer dare or are allowed to identify themselves as who they are, who are they reconciling with then?
Reconciliation is a dual process, involving victims and perpetrators, who at one point could very well have been victims. But either side is locked in the same conflict of interests, of humanity, and in the same pain, in the same country. The survivors live with the past constantly in every waking moment, if not also in their sleep and nightmares. The perpetrators now wear distinguished pink prison robes, and are made to do manual labour throughout the country. The victims and the survivors are thus daily confronted with the very people who were involved in the causes of their indescribable agonies. Churches filled with thousands and thousands of skulls and skeletons dot the country, while mass memorial graves, some home to over 50,000 uncovered remained, remind the locals and foreigners alike of how easy it was... and at the same time how difficult it is to imagine.
At the end of the documentary, two forlorn men sit on a hilltop, on the same hilltop where they, with mere spears and clubs, fended off people who had stormed up the hill in a blood thirsty rage to kill them, simply because of who they are. They ask the cameramen what they bring by interviewing them. With reddened eyes, behind sockets of untold burdens and unseen sadness, they ask where the (so-called) 'international community' was. Where was the 'international community' when the Rwandan people "were possessed by evil"? Where was the 'international community' when unknown numbers of children and mothers were thrown into garbage pits alive and stoned to death? The fleeting image of Mr Clinton, after the genocide had taken place, with his head hanging low in mourning and accompanied his entourage of body guards and big SUVs seemed to be making a meek mockery of the dead...
The two men sitting on the hill, surrounded by the remarkable beauty of Rwanda's mist-veiled mountains and green lakes, are the fortunate survivors... Or, perhaps, it was more fortunate to have been dead and buried, and not to have to relive the scenes of watching your neighbours and family mauled to death?
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