Upcountry Insight: citizens’ and church’s role in fighting Genocide ideology

Almost 14 years after one of the most horrific events in world history of its kind, the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, the government has done its best to unite and reconcile Rwandans. It is in this case that Gacaca courts were introduced so that people could speak the truth as a way of uniting and reconciling people. Both participants and non -participants in the Genocide have become eye witnesses to those that committed the atrocities. Through speaking the truth and accepting all the charges against them, many prisoners have been reduced on the punishments or reduced the imprisonment years serving just a half of the years that they should have spent in prison and thousands of them set free though found guilty of the offences. Others have served their sentences outside the prisons in the T.I.G programme. To this point, therefore, many Rwandans have tried to see themselves as one people. However, there are those people who still have Genocide ideologies on their mind. While positive ideologies include unity, humanity, friendship, forgiveness and trust, negative ones are still dangerous. Many eyewitnesses, Genocide survivors and Gacaca judges are still being killed by those who still have negative ideologies. The recent murder of Kabulemura Gacaca court president Rutayisire Paul in Huye district is one of them. This murder came after other Genocide survivors; Esperance Uwantege and Costasia Mukamurara in Nyanza and Kigongo sectors respectively in Gisagara district were killed. Fighting genocide ideologies should not only be left to the government but to every Rwandan and all those who love this country. It is known by everyone the church is a holy place where all people go for prayers and sometimes repent of the sins committed. Many people believe in what is said by pastors, priests, reverends, sheikhs and many other ‘Godly’ people. It is to this point therefore that all church leaders should help the government in the fight against this problem of negative Genocide ideologies. Since they are respected by many and their words taken as of great importance, they should start the policy of preaching against such negative ideologies. Rwanda will not reach to its vision if citizen and church don’t take part. Everyone should fully participate in and support the ongoing country program of fighting negative Genocide ideologies. Things that used to keep Rwandans together such as culture, one language, cooperation, meeting in their clans, one god ‘Gihanga,’ who used to unite all Rwandans among others, were abolished by previous regimes that paved away for the 1994 Genocide. Leaders should spread this gospel to the people they head to consider themselves as one people and build the country. The Rwandan Genocide process had four major stages: Symbolization that affirms the classification by attributing symbolic characteristics that could be physical or otherwise such as size and shape of nose; Dehumanization which is the denial of the humanity of others; polarization which is a negation of the fact that people can be reasonable to work things out as it polarized and further divided, whipping up murderous emotions; Preparation where lists of victims were drawn up in Rwanda and institutions such as radio RTLM that were used to mobilize and identify potential victims by name and place of residence; Extermination which was considered worse than murder, because the victims were not considered human as they were called vermin or cockroaches. These acts of tribalism were just created to bring divisionism so that the colonizers could rule Africans in that way since we could not unite and fight them. Let us all unite as Rwandans, forget those three words that hurt us so much in the past and see ourselves as one people living in the same country as we work towards the good being of our beloved country Rwanda. This can only be achieved if we forget the past and look forward while we are united as one. Before the onslaught of colonialism, racism and Europeanism—before all the isms—Rwanda was regarded as one of the elite kingdoms in Africa, highly organized and efficient. A small mountainous country Rwanda was regarded as a mysterious Kingdom ruled by Kings. Under him were three main chiefs; a military chief, cattle chief and land chief. For a period of 400 years, Rwanda was a peaceful land with no words such as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. Let’s bring those times back. Ends