Yes, Kagame was right: you are either at the table or on the menu

Editor Re: “When does a genocide survivor lose it all?” (The New Times, April 4). The fundamental answer to Mr Rugira’s question is the view that justified slavery: Racism and the hierarchisation of human lives. In the view of those who dominate and run the world strictly for their own benefit, some lives matter, others not so much, unless they can be made to serve the interests of the dominant powers. Remember the words of then French President Francois Mitterrand when he dismissively said with regard to the Genocide against Rwanda’s Tutsi in which his government and he personally had a direct role: ‘In such countries, genocide is not too important.” Obviously his fellow western leaders agreed with that psychopathic view, or did not see anything about it they could disagree with. At any rate none of their good and mighty, who are usually prompt to preach to us about human rights, found any reason to call him out on this obscene observation – obviously because it reflected their own views, even if they would not have wished to express it so crudely. To quote Dr Paul Farmer: “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. Unfortunately, long after slavery was allegedly abolished, it remains the prevailing ethos in far too many powerful circles and chancelleries whose decisions and actions most affect the affairs of mankind everywhere”. In this world, the law of the jungle remains alive and thriving. As President Paul Kagame has observed, you are either around the table – or on the menu! Mwene Kalinda

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Yes, Kagame was right: you are either at the table or on the menu