It continues

I remember the peace I felt driving into the cooperative in Nyamata. Of course I remember it -- it was only a few days ago. But it's not so much about the memory itself, but the memory of how I felt. It's almost like I was a different person then. Does that make sense? That was only four days ago.

We moved benches into the front yard and four people sat down in front of us: one woman and three men. The woman holding the stoic baby and the man with the blue Champions shirt are both survivors. The other two men -- Frederick and Matthew -- sitting in between them are perpetrators of the genocide.

We listened to their testimonies. 

Frederick, on the far left, is the president of this cooperative, a cooperative that was initiated by a Catholic priest who helped imprisoned perpetrators ask for forgiveness in 2003. In 2003, President Kagame released a statement that any guilty perpetrator currently in prison could ask for forgiveness for what he had done and then be released. The prisons, apparently, were overcrowded to a point of inhospitality. The Catholic priest went to the prisons and did what I will call "recruiting." He "trained" these perpetrators how to repent and ask the government for forgiveness; upon their release (now the prisons were less crowded and more manageable), the perpetrators were given benefits, like housing. Like the housing in Nyamata. 

So how did they come to be neighbors by choice? Choice, here, is used quite loosely. Thousands of survivors were stripped of their property after the genocide, and therefore, needed housing. This "ideal" cooperative, for some survivors, was simply convenient. 

The man in the blue Champions shirt is a genocide orphan. His face was pink guava (read: rosy) and he smiled easily, especially when Bea asked them to give each one of us a Kinyarwanda name after we had introduced ourselves. Frederick immediately named me "Umutoni," which means "the preferred one," and the man in the blue Champions shirt grinned, his teeth only slightly off-kilter. 

He and the woman each said, in their testimonies, that they had found a way to forgive, and that it came from the heart, and in one case -- I can't remember who -- from God. 

Frederick and Matthew each admitted to killing people during the genocide (Matthew admitted to killing six people he did not know). They each attributed their bloody hands to a "bad government" and "the devil." They each attributed their bloody actions to a trap -- a governmental trap; a devilish trap. Frederick admitted that he had fallen into this trap and thus, he had become an animal, not aware of his own actions.

This is why they killed.

When it was time for questions, I had a few but I only asked one. The shuffling and shouting children were hard to ignore during the presentation; they whispered on the other side of the bushes and peeked their heads over to stare every once in awhile. I had a question about the children. What lessons do you or will you teach your children about what you experienced, and what can they learn from the history of Rwanda? I suppose I should have been more specific, because the answers I received were completely empty and unfinished.

In so many words, Frederick said he would tell his children about the trap he succumbed to. But, in fact, he said nothing about what he did -- he did not take ownership. It was simply a bad direction from a bad government. Matthew's body language was disturbingly expressive, like he was having an uncomfortable nightmare. Like he did not want to be there. He fidgeted and covered his face; when his face was not covered, his eyes were wild.

And so, my question was not answered. And the question still lingers. If you claim to be a part of a society of reconciliation, you must involve the next (innocent) generation. You must first take ownership for your own actions -- do you not feel regret? -- and claim responsibility of your actions. Because at the very last moment, it was not the government, it was not the devil, it was you who struck the man, woman, elder or child and ended their life. You had the agency, choice and ability to not commit murder, but you did.

You.

Now I wonder. Who will teach these children how to take responsibility for their actions? Who will teach these children that they have agency over their actions? Who will teach these children they are able to say no? Who will teach these children that their individual decisions -- their personhood -- is more important than an infectious ideology? Who will teach these children what an ideology is? Who will teach these children that it was years of dehumanizing discrimination that led to the genocide of the Tutsis in 1994? Who will teach these children that it was not just a bad government, but all of those who lost their personhood to the performance of violent judgement that led to the murder of more than 1 million Tutsis over the course of 100 days? Who will teach the real history of Rwanda?  

These are the lessons I wondered about. These are the lessons I wonder about.

We left Nyamata, and I did not feel peace. I was a rice field trampled by water buffalo. I had been affected. 

Two days later, we went to Murambi.

But first: a note on reconciliation politics. In a society of reconciliation, the perpetrators are the ones who take one step back into society: "asking forgiveness." The survivors are disabled by "norms" before they are even able to take an actual step. These "norms" say that those with a heavy past should have hope and forgive. Therefore, "asking forgiveness" is in itself a constructed norm of the dynamics of this society. If survivors are expected to forgive, then perpetrators should ask forgiveness; this is the "norm" logic. 

But we are forgetting about closure. We are forgetting about the mental health of those who have been traumatized. We are forgetting about memory. We are forgetting about HIV, children born from rape, physical scars, etc. In this society of reconciliation, the survivors and perpetrators live in proximity of one another, and yet, they have been hindered from integrating what happened -- survivor or perpetrator -- into their every day knowledge.

I will leave you with another anecdote from the lecturer who helped me understand reconciliation politics. And then I will tell you about Murambi. And the National Park. And people watching from the tailor's doorway this afternoon. But first, this:

"The world has become a village. Look at you here -- you will have to meet someone new from foreign soil and you will have to know how to understand and communicate with them."

This is my struggle. How can we communicate, all of us, together, and welcome compassion into the international community?

Yanna