Camels have many interesting stories about them; but there is a particularly hilarious one: Out there in the desert, an Arab tethered his camel and put up a tent very fast. The impossible was happening – a rainstorm, not dust – was brewing. Before long it was raining very furiously, and the camel, left in the rain and bewildered at the scene he had never witnessed before in his life, put his head just inside the tent and piteously cried out to his master to allow just the head in, as the rain was lashing his eyes and ears. The master graciously accepted, and the camel pushed his head in.

Before long, however, the camel requested that his shoulders be admitted, which request was granted. The requests went on, the master pressing himself against the side of the tent to accommodate the belligerent requests of the camel, until he was eventually kicked out of the tent. There is a graphic representation of the story showing the camel kicking the unfortunate man out of the tent into the rain, and proceeding to make himself very much at home.

The hilarity about this story though, stops here, and the serious and sobering moral lesson drawn in relation to people still harbouring and actually peddling genocide ideology.

If stories have come out specifying that school pupils, on whom government is spending a big part of our budget, are spreading dangerous sectarian and murderous sentiments; if sector authorities see it fitting that a certain headteacher should be suspended from duty, then we should know that there is a serious problem brewing. There are many more such institutions like prisons as was reported in our yesterday’s issue, where genocide ideology is rife.

We should not make the mistake of standing idly by and watching this problem spill over. We should collectively discuss the problem in our Gacaca meets and any other such communal gatherings, and take firm steps to uproot it. But deal with genocide ideologues we must.

Ends