Senate report touches raw nerve

In this column I pointed out last week of a corrosive culture that tolerates mediocrity. Using the example of the ongoing World Cup, I pointed out how this culture is responsible for producing sub-par performances. It also undermines our endeavours elsewhere in our daily lives as it gives rise to our preoccupation with the trivial. This phenomenon was on display recently upon the release of a Senate-commissioned study that was conducted by the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, and which sought to “evaluate how well policies designed to promote dialogue and consensus are working in practice.” Without a doubt, this is a study whose subject ought to have been taken seriously; instead, it was dealt with casually, with its results apparently touching a raw nerve. One would think that a serious political opposition would welcome such a study given that it likely provides entry points into the hearts and minds of Rwandans, with the hope of influencing them towards a political change of heart. But alas; instead, critics of government were incensed by part of the report that shows the trust that Rwandans have for their President and the army to be at 99.7 and 96.2 per cent, respectively. They roundly dismissed the whole report as RPF propaganda, a “façade that casts a dark cloud on the integrity of the House,” according to one report. That was the easy part. None could substantiate that claim. In fact, the more they elaborated on what they meant exactly, the more it appeared that they possibly had not read the report at all. For instance, Frank Habineza of the Green Party observed that the report was “just raising points for the ruling party and a propaganda white paper.” He dismissed it altogether as “lacking.” One is left to wonder what exactly he means by that. For him, the report had “not raised issues concerning the democratic process, freedoms of association, assembly and the media.” Clearly, that is not what the study was about. What it was about was the desire on the part of the Senate to find out the extent to which the principles of dialogue and consensus were helping to resolve problems faced by citizens, not those faced by political parties. Nonetheless, Habineza dismisses the report because it “just concludes that the RPF is the best.” Again, If Habineza had read the report, he would have noticed that nowhere did it either imply or expressly state such a conclusion. On the contrary, the report gives a general picture of apprehension that Rwandans have towards political parties, perhaps helping to explain the gap between the confidence in the ruling party and that of its Chairperson. While Habineza may not have had the time to read the report, at least his statements gave the impression that he knew which report he was referring to. Asked by the same newspaper to respond to the report, Theogene Rudasingwa of the Rwanda National Congress instead decided to dismiss all reports, saying, “I do not have to labour to explain the sham reports produced by the RPF institutions.” It was not just politicians who were off tangent, however. A reporter asked Senator Tito Rutaremara why in spite of the study results there is an “influx of politicians fleeing the country,” a question that was clearly unrelated to the contents of the report. In some respects, therefore, politicians appear to have duped the journalists. For instance, the editorial of the same paper made a rather bizarre link to something that touches the sensibility of Rwandans: Exclusion. It noted, “This nation, having suffered a genocide as a result of a prolonged period of misrule, needs to avoid exclusion of any sort.”Again, the problem is that the statement failed to show its relevance to the report or its findings. The closest thing to a fair critique questioned the quality of citizen engagement in these mechanisms, how meaningful this public engagement is or whether people only ‘go there to be informed of new policies.’ To be sure, the study had shortcomings. All studies do. For this one, it was a conceptual overreliance on Europe as the starting point for describing Rwanda. Also, the refusal to integrate qualitative data, which the study claims to have collected, undermined the potential to express how Rwandans perceive themselves, which could potentially have led to a deeper understanding of the intimate relationship that they have with their President and the Armed Forces, for instance. Finally, were the political opposition interested in something more than point scoring, they would have taken time to carefully read the report with view to politically exploit the sentiments therein. For instance, the report is clear about diminishing public confidence the lower one goes the state administrative ladder. Myopia and intellectual laziness are, therefore, characteristics of the culture of mediocrity.

Opinions

Senate report touches raw nerve