As I watch Sudan burn as its generals fight over who calls the shots, as Kenya tip toes closer to self-inflicted injury, and as the war in Ukraine renders asunder the already frayed fabric of the global system, I’m left wondering what we need to do, as Rwandans, to keep the wolves at bay. And try as I might, I can only come up with one solution; stay united. Now, when I say ‘united’ one might instead think I mean, ‘in lockstep’ or ‘in total agreement of everything’. I mean nothing of the sort. I don’t believe that 13 million Rwandans can, or should, be in total agreement on everything. There is too much diversity. And that’s a good thing. What I do think is that there should be certain things that we do agree on as a collective. We need to agree as Rwandans that we need to be able to sleep at night in the knowledge that we’ll wake up to calm and safety the next morning; that if we work hard our efforts will be rewarded; that if we plant a tree as young people, our grandchildren will enjoy its shade and if our nation is under the cosh, it will leave ALL of us in a worse state. In other words, we need to have a shared set of beliefs that underline how we deal with each other and the rest of the world. Which brings me to a certain self-styled “de-facto head of the Rwandan opposition” (as a BBC journalist called one of them). When asked to comment on the UK-Rwanda migrant deal (better known as the MEDP-Migration and Economic Partnership) she decided to use her opportunity of British prime time news to call Rwanda a ‘not free’ country and paint a picture of a country that I simply did not recognize. Now, I’d understand her train of thought better if a) she was not living in the country or b) if she was hiding in a hole somewhere. The thing is she is enjoying her life in Kigali, spending her days receiving foreign diplomats, writing opinion pieces for Al Jazeera and appearing on international television. And of course, she wasn’t challenged on this contradiction. Why? Because she was feeding into the narrative that her audience already had about the country. What frustrates me the most with the Rwandans that have been deemed ‘opposition’ by Western framers, is that they are so focused on winning state power that there is nothing that they will not do. There is no lie that they will not tell. There are no partners they will not seek. There is no harm that they will not cause and there are no guardrails to temper their ambition. If the collective suffers at the altar of their success, so be it. What I wish for her, and the rest of us, is a shared understanding of who we are as a nation and what we aspire for. We cannot, on one hand say that the country is “unsafe”, and then on the other one complain that there are not enough jobs. I mean, if I was a British investor or tourist, I would not want to spend my time or money in such a place (in fact, I might even ask that such a country get sanctioned). We must understand that there is a direct correlation between what we project unto the world, and how the world sees us. And the way we are seen has a direct effect on everyone’s life here in the country. It doesn’t matter whether you are in the ‘opposition’ or not. Often, I’m left wondering if these people who want to lead us, even like us. It doesn’t seem so to me. How can you say you like us when your ambition comes before us? When what is good for you is greater than the common good? To be able to survive and thrive in the coming decades we shall need to stick together. There will be forces that look for weaknesses in our social fabric and it will be up to our leaders, and those who aspire for leadership, to buttress us against them. You cannot work with these forces of chaos during the night and then want to represent us during the day.
