In his novel "Go Tell it on the Mountain,” James Baldwin, a U.S. Afro -American Social Critic and Novelist wrote "Go back where you started, or as far back as you can, examine all of it, travel your road again and tell the truth about it. Sing or shout or testify or keep it to yourself: but know whence you came.”

The purpose of this column is as said by James Badwin to know where I as Ndi Umunyarwanda,or we as Abanyarwanda came from. 

How can we know where we came from without going back to where our forefathers started? Without examining our past, a past that left so many wounds to our society? And nothing can heal these wounds except knowing where we were before colonialism and how colonialists distorted our past in order to divide a united nation into two nations in a single state.  

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This idea of two nations in a single state was forged by former President Gregoire Kayibanda who had in mind a state where two enemies lived, namely the Hutus and the Tutsis.

We believe that traveling together through our past, we will discover the truth about our oneness and we believe that only the truth will heal us from colonial misleading stories that were forged to create hatred among brothers. It is only then that our sons and daughters will enjoy living in a nation where each one is proud of their true identity of Ndi (I am) Umunyarwanda.

Ndi (I am) Umunyarwanda has been the identity of all Rwandans before colonists came to Rwanda. The Hutu and Tutsi identity were forged with purpose. 

Rwandans used to identify themselves as Ndi Umunyarwanda w' Umugesera,Ndi Umunyarwanda w’Umuzigaba,Ndi Umunyarwanda w’Umucyaba,Ndi Umunyarwanda w’Umusinga,Ndi Umunyarwanda w’Umwega,Ndi Umunyawanda wUmunyiginya.

Never in the history of Rwanda before the colonial era, had a Rwandan identified himself/herself as Ndi Umunyarwanda w'Umuhutu or Ndi Umunyarwanda w’Umututsi, because there was no such identity or ubwoko in our history. The known identity,ubwoko (ethnicity) then were Abanyiginya, Abega, Abasinga etc. 

The people of Rwanda lived in one nation, sharing one language and one culture. That was Rwanda until colonialists distorted our history and brought to us the ideology that gave birth to the parmehutu ideology to cement the colonial distorted narrative in order to divide and rule.

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This identity of Ndi Umunyarwanda with a nation of people who live together in harmony was sabotaged by the arrival of colonists and the one that begotten Parmehutu ideology truly reared its ugly head with colonial writings.

This is what Elizabeth King, in her article "Colonial Schooling” had to say about Rwanda before colonial administration and after its establishment. You may think Elisabeth King is lying, but her writings are the truth picture of what Rwanda was.

"One colonial administrator described Rwanda as the safest place on the planet. (He said that) in my time there was never a gunshot. By 1964, their descriptions had changed: Rwanda had descended into undescribed violence. Thousands of houses were burned and pillaged, 10,000 to 12,000 Rwandans were killed, more than 20,000 internally displaced, and between 100,000 and 300,000 fled the country.”

That is what Elizabeth King wrote about Rwanda before the coming of colonialists and after their establishment.  A nation considered the safest on the planet, where people lived in harmony produced in few decades the horrific genocide because of colonial schooling.

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Thanks to the Ndi Umunyarwanda initiative, a journey with a purpose of taking all Rwandans back to where they started and telling them the truth about their real identity, NDI UMUNYARWANDA. It is only this truth that will bond together all Rwandans and that will bond together the future generation.

In this weekly column, we will be traveling together in this journey, where we will explore together how one people was divided to the extent that Ndi Umunyarwanda was destroyed.

We will start this journey by revisiting the true story of the Babanda and Bashambo. This journey into the oneness of the Babanda and Bashambo will be the perfect example of how the history of Babanda and the Bashambo was distorted by colonialists to make them immemorial enemies that cannot live together, while in reality they were brothers from the same ancestor. 

Do you want to know their ancestor, their origin and how colonialists tried to divide them? 

We will discuss the deceptive distortion of colonial scholars on the two brothers, stressing how the two brothers were made enemies, one becoming the owner of the land (Umusangwabutaka) and the other being a stranger in his own nation. We will trace the lives of both brothers and how colonialists scholars wanted us to believe the contrary.

We invite you to check our next article titled "the history of the oneness of the Bashambo and the Bashabo.”

Until then, stay blessed.

The author is a media specialist, historian and playwright.