This is how "Reconciliation" works
An interview with a genocide survivor (from a rural area), asking her opinions regarding the Travaux d'Interet General (TIG) - the Rwandan governments' latest effort to promote "Unity and Reconciliation" while at the same time reducing the sentences of the former genocidaires. The ex-killers are sent to do "public interest" work - building roads, planting trees, building schools and houses for the poor, and the survivors. In the work camps, they work all day and are "sensitized" in the evenings - retaught the history of Rwanda, made to sing songs about Unity and Reconciliation, told to be nice to the survivors and, worst of all, they are made to wear bright pink uniforms. In return, someone who has killed an entire family gets to go home after as little as 5 years.
Needless to say, this is controversial, and I don't mean to get into it in this post - they're watching! But I wanted to share this quote [translated from the french, in turn translated from Kinyarwanda... so bear with me]. I've been re-reading it all day, it blows me away. This woman is the poster-child survivor, an ad-campaign for this experiment:
"They’ve changed a lot. We speak with them without problems, sometimes even those whom we don’t know come up to us and begin talking. They ask us if we know them, we answer them no. Then they say that they know our parents, without forgetting to introduce themselves to us. In turn, we ask them if they knew them. They answer yes while expressing much remorse, saying that truly they committed crimes against them without wanting to. Moreover, they feel sorry for us and ask whether we’ve received houses. We tell them that we’ve received them and that, God willing, we’ll move into them. They show they’re satisfied with that, in fact one doesn’t notice any bad spirit around them. And from our side, with what they say to us, we feel happy. (..) Last time, they joined us to do the monthly Umuganda [monthly "national volunteer day" required for all of Rwanda's citizens]. In fact it was thanks to them that we had such a high turnout. We dug anti-erosion ditches. At the end, to show us that they are studying, they sang us songs about unity and reconciliation. We were satisfied with these. We noticed they work like us and that helped us cast out the fear which we felt towards them."
Ah, Rwanda.
To go back to the by-now-tired comparisons [it's the curse of those who Travel While Palestinian]: I get the vague impression that this wouldn't quite work in Israel/Palestine. But wouldn't it be fun if we could require Shlomo to pick our olives, sing a song and do the jig for 5 years and call it even?
Heveynu Shaaaaaalom 'aleikhem!
Needless to say, this is controversial, and I don't mean to get into it in this post - they're watching! But I wanted to share this quote [translated from the french, in turn translated from Kinyarwanda... so bear with me]. I've been re-reading it all day, it blows me away. This woman is the poster-child survivor, an ad-campaign for this experiment:
"They’ve changed a lot. We speak with them without problems, sometimes even those whom we don’t know come up to us and begin talking. They ask us if we know them, we answer them no. Then they say that they know our parents, without forgetting to introduce themselves to us. In turn, we ask them if they knew them. They answer yes while expressing much remorse, saying that truly they committed crimes against them without wanting to. Moreover, they feel sorry for us and ask whether we’ve received houses. We tell them that we’ve received them and that, God willing, we’ll move into them. They show they’re satisfied with that, in fact one doesn’t notice any bad spirit around them. And from our side, with what they say to us, we feel happy. (..) Last time, they joined us to do the monthly Umuganda [monthly "national volunteer day" required for all of Rwanda's citizens]. In fact it was thanks to them that we had such a high turnout. We dug anti-erosion ditches. At the end, to show us that they are studying, they sang us songs about unity and reconciliation. We were satisfied with these. We noticed they work like us and that helped us cast out the fear which we felt towards them."
Ah, Rwanda.
To go back to the by-now-tired comparisons [it's the curse of those who Travel While Palestinian]: I get the vague impression that this wouldn't quite work in Israel/Palestine. But wouldn't it be fun if we could require Shlomo to pick our olives, sing a song and do the jig for 5 years and call it even?
Heveynu Shaaaaaalom 'aleikhem!
posted by Diala at 10:59 AM
3 Comments:
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haha diala thats hilarious! this is the first blog entry ive read but i gotta check the archives. mad funny and interestin
hope kigali is treatin u well mzungu lol
peace
When I was driving in the villages in the mountains they called our whole group "abazungu", and I was the only non-Rwandan. Turns out if youre from the city or have your hair relaxed, youre white. So just to be clear, youre a mzungu too, my fubu-wearing friend. Black nationalism, schmationalism.
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