Rwanda is commemorating, for the 27th time, the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in which over a million innocent people were mercilessly slaughtered. The commemoration has a special focus on the youth.

Given that the youth were used in many ways during the horrors, many of their peers were victims. Now, 27 years later, what is their role in the sustained battle against genocide denial and ideology?

The New Times’ Edwin Ashimwe talked to Naswiru Shema, the Executive Director of Peace and Love Proclaimers (PLP), to capture his insights on the role of youth in the aftermath of the tragedies and what needs to be done for the youth to raise to the occasion.

Established in 2007, PLP is a non-profit organisation that seeks to advocate for a positive change in the world through unity, peace and development.

Excerpts.

The country is mourning victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Are there any programmes that have been organised to target the youth?

We do have a number of programmes even though the annual Walk to Remember event was cancelled due to the current Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.

There is an event ‘Ku Gicaniro’. Loosely translated as ‘at the bond fire’, it is a youth initiative that aims to commemorate the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and to educate the youth about the causes and consequences of the genocide.

The initiative will feature events highlighting the role and responsibilities young people have to play in order to prevent such atrocities now and in the future.

The name was derived from the fact that historically Rwandans would gather on the bond fire to talk about several things, to commend the good behaviours of some of the families as well as correct those who misbehaved.

Ku Gicaniro is, therefore, an inter-generational platform created mainly for the youth to learn from those mistakes that were made in the past and to make sure that they are not repeated again.

It is the fourth time that we are hosting this event, but this time it is going virtual due to the ongoing pandemic.

What is the role of the youth in countering the Genocide ideology and denial, which is currently widely spread through social media platforms?  

I believe that for the people to be able to fight the genocide ideology, they have to first understand what it is.

And it is not just about Genocide ideology, it is for everything. So to be able to solve a problem, you have to first understand it.

So, what we need to do is to go to the root causes of the problem and understand where it comes from.

Coming back to the genocide ideology, I think the youth need to first understand where it stems from. It is only with this understanding that we can be able to fight it.

And to understand where it comes from, it is rooted in hate that later on became the Genocide against the Tutsi.

I believe the role of young people is to read, understand this history. As sad and as hurtful as it can be, it is still our history.

But do you think they are doing enough?

As I have been telling my fellow young people for quite some time, the only person you should compare yourself with is the person you were the previous day.

We are not doing enough, but we have been doing something and it has been fruitful because if you see for the past 27 years, there has been less hatred related crimes and I think we have been doing a great job.

Going forward, I think young people should further be encouraged to read, most of this knowledge is found in books.

The knowledge is there, the facts are there, so we need to just reach out to these resources.

Of course this can’t be done overnight, it is something that has to start at a younger age. Besides the reading culture, we also need to create content that can be consumed by young people.

For instance, I have observed that some of the movies, books that are normally used during this time of commemoration are not relatable to young people, which is something people should look at.

What lessons do you think the youth draw from the events of the genocide?

"It happened, therefore it can happen again. It may not happen here but it can happen elsewhere in the world,” these are words of one holocaust survivor.

In his words, he was referring to Israel’s situation, but unfortunately they became a reality because the same horrors happened elsewhere, including the Genocide against the Tutsi.

The youth should understand that it might not happen in Rwanda, but it could be possible elsewhere.

So, the lessons we have to draw is that there is nothing we can gain from hatred, discrimination and segregation. They all lead to bad things.

As young people, we need to be peace ambassadors because we have the opportunity to know what happened in our country. And you would want to make sure that it doesn’t happen either in your country or elsewhere.

Is there anything else that you would like to share?

As we honour the victims we are also challenged as young people to draw lessons to make sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen now or in the future.

To the international community, when we talk about the Genocide against the Tutsi, it is not because we are proud of it, it is rather a lesson that we are to the world.

And they say ‘that failures are only failures when we fail to learn from them, because when we learn from them they become lessons.”

It would be a failure for Rwanda if our neighbours encountered the same tragedy, because we didn’t educate people about the impacts of the genocide.