14 April 2006

Today marks the end of Genocide commemoration week.

On April 6, 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s airplane was shot down over Kigali – in fact it crashed into his compound and one reporter I know claims that the plane wasn’t shot down at all. Instead, Habyarimana was showing off his swimming pool to the president of Burundi, who was also on the plane. I don’t believe this story at all.

On April 7, the 100 days of madness and killing that made Rwanda infamous around the world began.

So for the week from April 7 to 14 every year, the country stops and thinks about what happened. In fact, unless they leave the country, people don’t have a choice. It’s Rwanda, after all. Radio stations, even privately owned ones, are only allowed to play programs relating to the Genocide. Only religious music or music talking about the Genocide is allowed to surf across the airwaves. Television is filled with news footage of the killing – horrible, hellish images of violence – and movies about the Genocide. The National University of Rwanda caused a scandal by holding lectures during Commemoration Week. The minister of education showed up at a different university to complain that one professor held a class – a class his students asked for. All sports leagues are cancelled.

Rebecca saw a sign at the Novotel saying that the pool was closed for recreational activities for the week. We originally thought that it was because people were not allowed to swim and enjoy themselves for the week. Actually, they were doing scheduled maintenance and this just happened to be a good time because people aren’t allowed to have fun.

I wonder if this is the best way to relate to what happened here. It’s a surprisingly difficult question to ask some people, because they assume that you’re telling Rwanda to just get over it and move on with life. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m wondering if rather than enforcing sadness it’s better to let people grieve and mourn in their own way.

Every person has a different way of relating to grief. Many Rwandans who have the means leave the country for this week. Helen, one of the Focus reporters, says that her aunt every year says to hell with it and leaves. This year she and her husband went all the way to Canada.

My reporters say that they have mixed feelings about all this. They say that most people decide not to watch TV and don’t listen to the radio. They can’t deal with it. Other people say that it’s necessary. People can’t be allowed to forget what happened here. But how do you forget?

The New Times, the local, competitor rag, reported in the last sentence of the story with the scandal about lectures happening at universities that there is a sharp increase in trauma cases reported in the country during this period. It being the New Times, this issue was not further explored. (Hopefully I will for an American paper or magazine or something.)

Is this what the government wants?

Again, this is just an intellectual inquiry. Okay, fine, it’s partly a criticism because at heart I hold contradictory political beliefs. I want some government regulations – protection of employees, the environment, provision of national health care, a certain level of gun control – but a libertarian on most social issues. Get out of my personal life, I say.

So what effect does this enforced morning period have on people? And why is it done this way? Is it to make sure no one ever forgets? Is it to make sure the current government – which does many good things – was the group that actually stopped it, and is the only force that can prevent the mayhem from reoccurring? Is it because no one knows what to do? Is it because the people who plan broadcasting and social events are incompetent? Shyaka thinks that last question is part of the answer.

Foreigners get into the act of this self-flagellation. (To a certain extent rightly so. The world stood by and did nothing. But then again, except for France, Egypt and China, no foreigner actively helped, either. Rwandans butchered Rwandans.) The American Club was supposed to show King Kong on April 7, the day of national mourning. It got postponed and instead we watched a new BBC movie called “Shooting Dogs” about the Genocide. I recommend it. It’s quite good. Before the movie, a survivor talked to the teeming masses of foreigners, and took the chance to tell us how wrong we all were for not stopping the Genocide. He kept asking us to remember where we were when the whole thing started. I plead guilty. I was a junior in high school. I was probably watching the Rangers. I did nothing to stop the Genocide.

While he did have a point, he only took a few minutes to talk about the responsibility of the people who actually killed.

A friend of mine was visiting from Kampala, so we finally took the opportunity to go to the Genocide Memorial in Kigali. It’s done by the same people who created the DC Holocaust memorial. It’s quite impressive. You can even buy a purple plastic bracelet (a la the Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” bracelets) that says Never Again on it. The money goes to support the memorial, but I couldn’t bear to buy it. I never bought an AIDS ribbon, either.

So anyway, we’re now moving out of official mourning. There is an unofficial 100 days of mourning where one of the survivors associations digs up mass graves and reburies people, and generally goes around making people feel bad. Kigali is going back to its usual fast pace. Fine, it’s not. It’s going back to its usual lack of pace. (Can I leave now? I’ve got the idea.)

One last creepy thing about all of this official mourning. The colors they’ve chosen to commemorate the Genocide (everything needs an official color) are purple and white. For those of you who don’t know, those are the colors of New Rochelle High School.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks and I’ll write more later. But I figured these thoughts should stand alone.