Being Rwandan

It's interesting the kinds of Rwandans I have met and what it means to "be Rwandan." In 1959, before the famous 100 days genocide in 1994, Tutsi were being exterminated and many fled the country. Only after 1994 did many Tutsi return to Rwanda Today I met a woman that fit this example exactly. A group of us were walking in the commercial district downtown (no tourists here!) and stopped at a small store selling cloth. We began talking to the woman selling and we asked how she learned to speak English so well. She told us that she left Rwanda in '59 and went to Nairobi to escape the violence3 and returned in '94. She described life now in Rwanda as "coming back to the motherland" and finally felt at home.

In comparison, a Tutsi woman at the Genocide Memorial Center feels no connection to Tutsi who left Rwanda and are now returning; she considers that these people not Tutsi because they could never understand what it was like for Tutsi that stayed in Rwanda and survived the genocide like herself. She told me about how several members of her family were murdered, she was adamant that no reconciliation was possible and that it angered her when people who did not experience what she experienced told her why she should forgive. She sees Tutsi who returned after 1994 as a totally separate group of people and chooses not to associate with them.

This afternoon I was sitting in a coffee shop downtown attempting to read but ended up chatting with a Rwandan brother and sister and the woman's German boyfriend. Both siblings grew up in Germany when their mother left in 1959. The young man was studying at the University in Kigali now and this was actually the woman's first time ever coming to Rwanda. Both siblings described themselves as Rwandans when they introduced themselves and took pride in describing the country and it's people, but I wondered how much people who have lived all their lives in Rwanda would truly see them as "real" Rwandans. How much of a culture and society can you belong to when much of your connection is family connection?

Although I have not met any Rwandans who have told me they are Hutu, 86% of the population before the genocide were Hutu and the likelihood I have interacted with people who were involved in the killings, or knew family members or friends who were, is very high. (Side note: President Kagame has made several public statements saying that Rwanda will not use the terms Hutu and Tutsi. While Kagame is Tutsi, he only refers to himself as Rwandan. But just because people may not use the term, most everyone knows which group people belong to). This aspect must change the way people interact with each other as well.

As always, the picture of reconciliation and reconstruction is not as simple and easy as one would hope. While there have been huge improvements (Kigali is incredibly clean and safe for one) Rwanda still struggles with incredible poverty in the slums and the somewhat impossible task of reconciliation. In Gourevitch's book, he interviews a Tutsi who says, "People come to Rwanda and talk of reconciliation. It's offensive. Imagine talking to Jews of reconciliation in 1946. Maybe in a long time, but it's a private matter."