It will never cease to amaze that, in this day and age, some governments in this volatile region of ours still choose ethnic hate – aka crude, raw tribalism – as their main guiding principle. For example, there is this neighbouring country (I won’t name names, but feel free to draw your own conclusions as you read on) that currently is suffering such economic hardships, its masses enduring such material deprivations as to defy belief. But its rulers, and its ruling party’s main preoccupation is to fan hate, for its Tutsi minority. But they don’t stop there, no Sir! They work really hard, even spending much of their state’s pitifully meagre resources, to ensure the growth of hate for all people of Tutsi ethnicity in the Great Lakes Region. As if that’s the solution for their destitute country’s deep-rooted problems. I don’t even know where to start, with the backward group that runs this state. This for instance is a country where motor vehicle fuel has become scarcer than hen’s teeth. So much so that a dignitary will be seen stooping low with a small jerrican, his guard syphoning “essence” from a motorcycle (whose forlorn owner – a fellow that most likely got it from smugglers that get the stuff from across the border – has been put under arrest, and ordered to sit on the ground). That happened recently, with a personality no less than the speaker of parliament. We all have an idea about the scarcity of fuel in that badly impoverished republic, with images cropping up on social media daily showing horrendous queues by motorists at service stations. Reports are that it is common for people to leave their vehicles in these queues, paying urchins to guard them, and that it can take as many as three days before some (severely rationed) fuel becomes available. And then the fuel will run out in a matter of minutes at any of the service stations (usually owned by some big shot) lucky enough to receive some. The situation is comparable with that of water. Scarcity of the life-giving fluid goes from bad to worse every passing day. The country’s water utility is broken, as in totally abject, please-put-me-out-of-my-misery broken. Matters are so bad people have resorted to scraping the dirty, smelly, putrid “water” in roadside drainages – when they are lucky and there’s been a downpour. Rwanda, ever the Good Samaritan better put its medical services, its helicopter rescue fleets, on standby, in the event of a cholera outbreak! I am not even kidding). Still, the main preoccupation of the people in charge of this destitute place is hate, for Rwanda. Why? Because the Rwandan head of state happens to be a person of Tutsi ethnicity. (Therefore, in their thinking, Rwanda’s must be a “Tutsi government”). To them it matters very little what the administration of Rwanda is all about: the unity and oneness of all its people, with discrimination of any group being anathema. Also, to the rulers of this neighbouring country, it matters very little that Rwanda has, time and again, extended its hand of neighbourliness and friendship – usually in its most difficult or challenging times. Rwanda has sent help when disasters befell them. Rwanda has helped pay their debts for them (without making noise about it). Rwanda shared medicines with them when the last global pandemic struck. And each time they’ve gratefully accepted our help, only to turn around later, and spurn the neighbourliness and friendship that Rwanda extended them. Because they are so fixated on ethnic hatred, and won’t spurn the ideology of genocide they embrace. Not in your life. They are in thrall to an obscurantist ideology that demonises all Tutsi people, and that works tirelessly to put them as “enemies of the Bantu”. It’s so stupid, not mentioning self-defeating, it’s enough to make one weep. Here is this country where the people have nothing, with the vast majority hungry and in rags. Let alone fuel, they have no sugar, salt, soap, you could go on and on. But all their leaders can think about is to cultivate enmity with a neighbour like Rwanda which has shown its willingness to help, and one moreover with a demonstrable desire for friendship? The energy these fellows expend on their hate agenda, best exemplified in their sending soldiers into jungles (of the other country that’s run by an equally backward cohort) to join in efforts whose long-term goal is to destabilise Rwanda, is unbelievable. One imagines how much material wellbeing for their people would be achieved if they expended that energy on strengthening trade ties with their neighbour? Or how much would be achieved if they worked on extending cooperation in so many other fields: education, culture, sport, inter-state travel, initiatives on environmental preservation, name it? But the groups in power do not even love their people. It is obvious. They would rather stymie trade. They would rather dredge socio-cultural differences and create a wider chasm between people that have very few differences to begin with. They would rather block communication, kill off whatever cooperation there was before, ruin everything. You have to wonder; does this make them feel better? Hate must be one powerful drug!
