Rwandans defy foreign patronage

“How long shall they kill our prophets; while we stand aside and look, huh...?” These words might have been spoken by Biblical Mordecai to Queen Esther at the time Israelites were exiled to ancient Babylon, but they are part of the lyrics in Bob Marley’s song “Redemption song” released just over thirty years ago. Watching, reading and listening to the arrogance and self puffed-up righteousness of foreign media and individuals, many of whom have never set foot in Rwanda, reported, condemned, discussed and analysed the Presidential elections in the country, one can only wonder when these people will ever accept that Rwandans and Africans can do something right on their own. I can close my eyes and see images of African state builders kill children for pleasure thanks to the wrong history that was written about Africa and Africans. I can see images of Shaka Zulu killing his neighbours in Mfecane era in present day South Africa and pillaging their cattle. I can see images of Lobengula, his father, and his tribesmen the Ndebele/Amandebele hunting and smashing the heads of infants of Shona tribesmen against rocks. I can close my eyes and see images of Ashante tribesmen killing and looting the Fante tribesmen in present day Ghana. There are images of horrible Kabalega of Bunyoro in Uganda; of the Hehe tribesmen in Tanzania and many African savages who might have killed each other for centuries had Europeans not come to tame them according to the miseducation we got. I can imagine the bravery of the great explorers who brought civilisation to African savages: David Livingstone, Henry Stanley, Ludwig, Kirkpatrick, Capt. Lugard, and Leopold of the Congo etc who braved African savages and opened the interior of the Dark Continent to the outside world. In modern history there were the African socialist and communists who wanted to hand over African countries to be satellites of Soviet dominancy. Kwameh Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba come to mind as the major culprits. The bandits in communist ANC in South Africa, epitomised by Nelson Mandela and later Chris Hani, had to be fought (and or killed) for decades to save Africans in that country. The socialist Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso was assassinated to save the Burkinabe as was Samora Machel and Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique, Dedan Kimathi the Mau Mau bandit in Kenya etc. We are told of people who were bulwarks against communism and saviours of their people; Joseph Mobutu in the Congo, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Alfonso Dhlakama and RENAMO, Jonas Savimbi and UNITA and others. How unfortunate and miseducated we are! Today, if there is an African in foreign press and for the wrong reasons, it is the Rwandan president Paul Kagame. In an Article, “Doubts rise in Rwanda as election is held” in the New York Times of 8th August, 2010, Jeffrey Gettleman wrote that, “Several Rwandans recently interviewed said that they were not free to vote against him and that government officials down to the village level had put enormous pressure on them to register to vote...and attend rallies... He said that police officers forced him to attend a recent rally and that he knew many people who had lost their jobs or been jailed on bogus charges for not supporting Mr. Kagame.” The French News Agency on 12th August 2010, not unexpected, amplified Victoire Ingabire’s evil imagination that, “in some areas of the north and west voters had their voting cards “seized by the local authorities” on the eve of the poll. The cards were handed back just before the vote with “voted” marked on them”. Many international media have been reporting about Rwanda quoting Reporters without Borders’ Gilles Lordet who asserted that, “We do not think that the conditions are fulfilled to have regular elections in Rwanda.” Whereas such acts could be done in Ingabire Rwanda before 1994, it is a stretch of imagination that it could be done in Rwanda of internet, twitter and facebook. Many people, especially self appointed “experts on Africa”, have not accepted the reality that Africans have changed from the “savages” in the “Dark Continent” that their forefathers messed with impunity. Who is Lordet, to decide on behalf of 10 million Rwandans? Who is “we” [whatever that means?] that decides that conditions are not fulfilled for ‘regular’ elections in Rwanda? Who has the right to decide for Rwandans? Why should an individual decide what affects millions of other people living in a place he/she may never have been unless he somehow believes he is some ‘latter day colonialist’ deciding on behalf of ‘savages’ in some unexplored part of the world. In the period prior to the elections, foreign “experts” and “real opposition politicians” predicted violence and brimstone falling on Rwanda and Rwandans. On the polling day Rwandans proved the prophets of doom and Afro-sceptics wrong when they exercised their rights and voted their next President in a peaceful atmosphere. Criminals and self appointed “guides” to Africans will continue to dictate and tell many Africans what to do and how to do it; but the people of Rwanda have proven one thing: they can make decisions and follow them through. Most important they know who their “Prophets” and will not lament like Biblical Mordecai or Bob Marley but will seize and decide their destiny. ekaba2002@yahoo.com