The Economist has lately been posting articles attacking Rwanda, Michaela Wrong has been tweeting and it seems, they have both been foaming at the mouth. Evidently, she and her colleagues have had to confront their powerlessness over Rwanda’s judicial sovereignty and recent political successes (the smooth and rapid unrolling of the Covid-19 vaccine across the country, the effectiveness of the defence force intervention in Mozambique, and our securing, as the first country in Africa, of the 2025 cycling championships – to name a few).
For context on why Ms Wrong is a deplorable source of "information” on Rwanda, let us revisit her latest claim to notoriety: a book in which she reveals nothing factual on our country, and everything about her own fetishism.
It may also be a necessary exercise to consider how this fetishism isn’t singular to individuals; it can also be displayed, albeit differently, by the institutions that typically fixate on, exploit and demand power over the communities they seem aroused to see subjugated.
Your discomfort is logical
The nauseating instance where Michaela Wrong describes the skin of the Rwandan dissident Patrick Karegeya (who used his knowledge as a former head of Rwandan intelligence to plot against Rwanda) as "honey smooth”, is rather telling.
Art therapy - in this case, the writing of creative fiction – strikes as a meagre treatment against the deviance she displays. Perhaps an honest diagnosis of the pathologies to which she owes her skewed approach must be established instead, not just for Wrong herself, but for the army of Rwanda critics that seem to both despise us, and be strangely obsessed with every detail, even those most surface level, of our identity.
In her novel, Wrong also described an RPF general as "certainly aristocratically good-looking, the characteristic Tutsi high forehead combined with a Grecian nose and smooth, dark skin”, with the approval of her editorial team.
That regrettable succession of words lets the reader in on the corrupted, regressive and featurist gaze with which Michaela herself, and arguably a chunk of the system that credibilises her, looks upon Rwandan humans.
The ethnicist language she deploys with no shame to salivate over a man she simultaneously casts as a "cold-hearted killer”, "[someone that will] lie to you from A-Z”, brings a sinister dimension to her obsession with Rwanda, and particularly Rwandan men with army backgrounds.
Wrong goes on to state that an unnamed and likely imaginary friend described said general as "Soooooo hot”. Her emphasis on the "attractiveness” of the Rwandan men she mentions is a strange choice of angle for a "historically accurate” book about ethnic conflict and genocide.
At this point the problem is obvious.
At the risk of being crude indeed, the image of the RPF soldier, whether dedicated or de facto, seems to consume, allure and possess Michaela Wrong. It is no wonder that she immediately powered her laptop and opened the Twitter app after President Kagame, answering a question from a journalist about her novel, did not evade mentioning her. This brief acknowledgement was probably a moment of a significance and impact she had been yearning for, for a very long time.
It is as bad as you think it is
Wrong’s recurrent (and utterly unnecessary) description of Rwandan men’s skins as "smooth”, reminds me of the obsession with charged, accusatory depictions of African "regimes” that western media houses have persistently, uncreatively used against Africans. Examining connotation is essential here, so kindly bear with me.
I suppose the first stereotypical description could be considered a mere compliment, however I wonder if these generals would have felt comfortable to consider Wrong fantasising on the texture of their skins, while simultaneously calling them wicked and heartless. Similarly, a white woman comparing a Rwandan man’s skin to a condiment might simply strike you as cringey, but it does have an objectifying basis. Rwandans (and Africans in general), do not exist for white consumption, and particularly not in the form of sensationalised lies printed across fetishist novels.
The second over-used descriptor ("Authorianism”) is supposed to allude to western sympathy over the welfare of the people under the "dictatorial” rule. The economist, if it wishes to deny their racism, needs to stop casting Rwandans as mere bodies, incapable making our own measured, intellectual critiques of our governance and considerations of our (improved) welfare.
Casually negating our own research on the tragedy that mars collective memory by claiming that 500,000 people died during the genocide against the Tutsi (as The Economist did in a paper not worth sharing) is racist. Fixating on redefining our truths is racist. This racism and simultaneous fetishism are likely the most disappointing features of the western disapproval of Rwanda, however perhaps we shouldn’t expect much from those that cannot get past fellow humans’ physicality.
Playing in the mud – an oppressed party’s dilemma
When I think of addressing the dirty games and it seems, the dirty minds of Rwandan detractors, a famous Michelle Obama quote springs to mind – "when they go low, we go high.”
For all the elegance, grace and wisdom of this phrase, it’s a shame Michelle agreed it to be her burden to spring above the gutter, leaving the hem of her gown untouched by the filth flung at her from beneath, so the people she was tasked with serving could accord her any form of respect. How tired she must have been.
This is how the western world rigs the game; it demands miraculous exploits of patience, and athletic diplomatic and intellectual leaps over the gutter even as they employ the most bizarre and perverse methods of discrediting us.
I do not doubt that President Kagame’s describing of Karegeya as Michaela’s friend – a fact she herself alludes to through the affection with which she speaks of him – did outrage her.
She is a western woman with a western passport, therefore, despite how low she stoops to slander our leadership, the latter ought to only regard her (and her true motives in writing that book) with distance and fearful avoidance.
However, Michaela & co. do not get to devise our approach to defending our country against dirty practices. She is very welcome to keep tweeting in outrage, however I predict that this will have as little impact on our leadership choices as her overt thirst has on the self-loving Rwandan man.
The views expressed in this article are of the writer.