Myths can kill. Myths kill. Myths have killed. In the Great Lakes Region of Africa, political mythology has been a potent tool for that adept at extermination.and some myths are very resistant to reason and science. Take the Hamitic myth that so many mindlessly parrot without understanding its fallacy, or its danger. Those who would exterminate are adept at creating myths of origin, of differences; myths that create authentic citizens of countries and malevolent invading others within the same polity, who of course must be discriminated against, or better still, exterminated. These people distort history. They ignore geography. Scientific facts mean nothing to them. they distort culture and create dangerous stereotypes, some unknowingly, most deliberately. The latest cultural distortion is around the Rwandan concept of wisdom or Ubwenge in Kinyarwanda. The author Michaela Wrong, in her book, do not disturb made the shocking claim that Rwandans are innate liars. Judi Rever, Filip Reyntjen sand assorted genocide revisionists in the region have jumped on the bandwagon- except for them, it is not all Rwandans who are innately liars, but simply the Batutsi. This mythical capacity of the batutsi to dissimulate, dissemble and cheat has now been baptized Ubwenge- a grotesque distortion of Kinyarwanda the language, and Rwandan culture. In an earlier article entitled Michela wrong is wrong, I have demonstrated, using Rwandan proverbs and popular sayings, that Rwandan culture values truth, abhors lying, and detests liars. It values Solomonic wisdom, Ubwenge. Since I am writing this article on a Sunday morning, it might be useful to recall that King Solomon allegedly asked God for a discerning heart to distinguish between right and wrong, instead of simply long life, wealth, or the death of his enemies. In other words, he asked for and received wisdom. This is precisely the Rwandan understanding of Ubwenge; inter alia, discernment to do right and administer justice. But the genocide revisionists have created a distorted myth around this virtue. A deadly, deliberate misinterpretation. They have defined Ubwenge as being crafty and attributed this vice to all Tutsi. This, of course, is a perversion of language and culture. But it is also in conformity with their attempt to dehumanize their victims, consistently calling them cockroaches or serpent, as was common during the genocide against the Tutsi. Remember the Bible says the serpent, responsible for the fall of man, was more crafty than any of the wild animals the lord God had made. So, with this perversion of Ubwenge, the Tutsi becomes as crafty as the serpent, and perhaps deserving of the same fate. Let me end where I began. Myths kill, and myths have killed. They are not benign. They are so potentially dangerous that some Kinyarwanda speakers in Eastern DRC, have begun distancing themselves from their language Kinyarwanda, claiming they speak an invented language they call Kihutu.presumably in a quest for acceptance, but also presumably because they do not want to be associated with the Ubwenge of the Tutsi. Were it not so tragic, it would be laughable. That is why many of us refuse to take the degradation and perversion of our culture and language lying down. Our recent history does not give us the luxury to be indifferent to the dangers posed by myths that may kill, myths that have killed, myths that will kill.
