Fifth Letter to Rose

You know, Rose, sometimes I worry about you, now that the uproar of your arrest has died down. I’d be worried that the people who had you arrested would do everything in their power to keep you locked up due to “legal procedures”. We all know the sound of that ominous bell ringing in our ears. I am sure that the President and the government are doing their utmost to get to the bottom of this disgraceful sham, but then, ‘legal procedures’ can be used to tie things up, delay them, and camouflage the truth. This is why we will not let up until you are safely back home in your family here in Kigali. In the meantime, my reflection continues along the lines of the White supremacy syndrome and its hate legacy. First of all, from the word go, the white colonialist’s own attitude was based on hate, contempt, scorn, condescension and no attempt to fathom the depths of the societies which they invaded. The minds of the white colonialists of the end of the 19th and the early twentieth century’s, were those of a bigoted, righteous bunch of conceited fatheads. I often wonder how they must have appeared to Africans, dressed up in their dark suits, wearing black hats, sporting walking sticks or whips and accompanied by their womenfolk attired in long sleeved, high-necked dresses trailing the ground over a multitude of petticoats, and of course, the tight bonnets, gloves and parasols, to boot. Their prim Victorian superior prejudiced attitudes oozing out of every pore, dominating every regard. Not to be ignored, many of them were the second or third sons of the European Aristocracy, the first son having inherited the title and land. They were immensely rich and travelled Africa with their Chateaux on their backs. They even brought the china and the silver and had liveried servants wait upon them in attitudes of appropriate servility, serving the Champaign and caviar flown in from Europe, during the late forties and fifties. The Belgians plodded in 1916, when Rwanda and Burundi were ‘handed over’ to them by the Germans. The one thing that can be said for the German occupation is that they did not interfere with the existing social structure, however with the Belgians it was a different story. This is where the havoc started, the disruption of a society to the point of crippling it and of creating a division between the people which had not existed prior to their interference. Their initial preference for the Tutsis led to the downgrading of the Hutus thus provoking envy, jealousy and resentment. The seeds of hate were sown and would mushroom over the years until the apogee is reached in April 1994. The French involvement is another story, more recent, more ambiguous and based on the affiliation between Habyarimana and Mitterrand. Ah, Mitterrand, Le Grand Socialist, le “Gauchiste”, the all embracing leftwing with its pedantic theories hanging on in the aftermath of the fall of communism wanting to make believe and make everyone believe they are idealists. Funny kind of idealism to aid and abet a dictator in his desire to prepare and commit genocide! Not only that, they supplied military advisors to train the militia who were about to engage in atrocious crimes against humanity. Those are the people who invaded your country, Rose; those are the ones who are responsible for the chaos wrecked upon your society, on your people. But do you think for one moment they would want to admit to these blunders. That’s the whole essence of the problem of white supremacy. They justify their actions in the name of ‘civilization’, using the most uncivilized and unethical methods to achieve their aims, then pulling out and leaving their unfinished dirty work to wreck whole societies in their wake. Ends

Opinions

Fifth Letter to Rose