Rwandans are defining their democracy

The 21st century is, year after year, unfolding in its own colours. It has thus far been marked by the rise of unprecedented events – the increasing power of private enterprise, globalization and Third World consumerism, the upping global concern over terrorism, and mistrust in government even in the old and presumptuous democracies. In 2016, the world impatiently waited to make acquaintance with the 45th President of the world’s most powerful nation. Across the pond, the British people got Europe and the rest of the world scared stiff by voting, in a pinch, in favour of Brexit. In Rwanda, more than four million voters had, in the previous year, requested for a constitutional amendment that paved the way for the continuity of President Kagame’s distinct and rare leadership. Some Western pundits, NGOs and human rights organizations, and self-appointed connoisseurs of the African continent, most of whom insouciant who turned their back on Rwandans in their darkest moment, uttered the usual catcalls at the endeavour. And then they continue to wage a media war against the people’s will and their quest for stability and uninterrupted progress. Could there be anyone else who understood and experienced firsthand the leadership trajectory of Rwanda better than Rwandans themselves? Précis of Rwanda’s trajectory From the founding fathers to the invasion of the colonialists, Rwanda was a supremely centralised kingdom; the king, singularly, hailed from the “Abanyiginya” clan. The anthropological version of colonialism in Rwanda embroidered the truth about the Nyiginya dynasty, and wrongly hypothesised that it was exclusively representative of all Batutsi of Rwanda. Batutsi, Bahutu, and Batwa, all without distinction, belonged to an array of diverse clans; including that of Banyiginya. The monarch ruled over all Rwandans through Military Chiefs, Land Chief, and Cattle Chiefs. This traditional ruling system, critically, lacked broad arenas of civic participation and the essentiality of Separation of Powers. Rwandans of all ethnic groups and clans, side by side and blankly trusting one another, ensured a hard-nosed protection and expansion of their land and national pride. This, nonetheless, never excluded minor and child’s play internal conflicts that could occur time and again. Ethnicity, in reality, was an instrument that the colonialists used to suppress the indivisibility of the Rwandan people and their allegiance to the monarch. Thus, ethnicity was elevated over our deep sense of community as well as the joy of belonging to a nation of a celebrated highbrow culture. Between 1959 and 1962, Rwanda underwent a profound rupture of its long history of a unified nation. Vitiated by decades of the Belgian colonial rule, the monarchy gave up the ship. In many countries of Africa, the introduction of Republican regimes facilitated the fusion of sprawling kingdoms and, in some instances, chiefdoms. But in Rwanda, it institutionalised a lynch mob and a zero-sum ethnic inference. The first Republic was a disgrace that inaugurated the politics of division and exclusion en masse, and ill-informedly engendered a void social revolution and a brutal nationalism. During the Parmehutu regime, it is estimated that up to 100,000 defenseless Batutsi were savagely killed and most of their family members forced into exile. Grégoire Kayibanda, the abettor-in-chief of sectarianism in Rwanda, a visibly weak, uncultured statesman, was subject to mockery even in open public gatherings; before he was unceremoniously thrown out power by his own promoted pronto General. In 1973, Juvenal Habyarimana seized the control of Rwanda for himself and his click. His autocratic rule made matters worse. Divisions deepened and went from Tutsi hate to be extended to regionalism. Widespread killings and discrimination against defenseless Tutsi population intensified. Habyarimana went on to cheaply trade the soul of Rwanda to a neo-colonialist master, France and its infamous Françafrique, and the fraternity of African despot and agents of European elite of connivers. Rwanda, under his rule, became a backyard of France and a crucial gateway to Eastern Congo for the French regimes of the 5th Republic throughout. Habyarimana reigned as a skiver-in-chief, avoiding every possible opportunity to reconstruct Rwanda’s social fabric and national identity. Bruno Boudiguet, a French journalist, describes Françafrique as a neocolonial system that has had, ever and again, frightening human effects. With bodies of hundreds of millions of Africans, young and old alike, covered with worms and scabs, their skin broken and festering, Africa continued to look up to Françafrique, the oppressor in disguise. The claims by some pitiable African souls that Rwanda’s current leadership is a Faustian bargain are fundamentally incongruous. Faustianism in Rwanda started with Habyarimana’s allegiance to Françafrique and ended with the Rwanda Patriotic Front’s liberation of Rwanda. In fact, when the valiant and all-Rwandans-RPF’s campaign liberated Rwanda in 1994, the Françafrique gathered all its belonging and fled to DR Congo behind the genocidaires and a mass of innocent civilians. The toothless old beast has continued to loiter over the neighbouring hills of the Congo and Burundi, trying in vain to come back and bite the undying spirit of Rwanda that cannot cease to haunt its former predator. Restorative democracy Rwanda entered the 21st century with a new movement that has, so far, crystallised a unique model of democracy that, certainly, puts the people’s fate at the centre of its focus. But, most importantly, a democracy that restores hope, faith in self, dignified living, and unyielding fight that is claiming the rightful place of Rwanda in the human kind history. In 1994, the whole world expected Paul Kagame to impatiently grab power and rule over Rwanda in its ruins. Some thought he would eventually face the chronic internal mutiny that would eternalise conflicts in Rwanda. The unforeseen choice he made shocked the world. Today, Kagame’s self-evidenced track record and the people-demanded third term will irrevocably go down in the history of Africa as a decisive resistance against neocolonialism and foreign interference. It will spark off a revolution that will see several African nations rising to regain their thinking space and mastery of their fate. The writer is an observer based in Kigali.

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Rwandans are defining their democracy