Who is a Survivor?

Not as simple as you’d think.

A couple of months ago Liz and I had a visitor - a young man, a survivor – who had strange ideas about survivor organizations. He argued that in order to keep surviving, or prevent another genocide, Tutsis should stop organizing themselves into survivors’ associations, they should stop advertising their “survivor-ness”. Back then I didn’t quite get it, but a few months later his point is clearer to me.

As the use of the terms “Tutsi” and “Hutu” has been banned from public life, (We are All Rwandans now), the terms “survivor” (and there are some others, too) is often used interchangeably with “Tutsi”. The rationale: if you were meant to be killed and you weren’t, then you have survived. As the genocide’s purpose was to eliminate all Tutsis, any Tutsis still living who were here during the genocide are Survivors. It makes sense, really.

But today it seems as the term is being stripped of its historic reference – the genocide – and politicized. This goes along with the placement of Victimhood among the foundational characteristics of the “new” state. In other words, in post genocide lingo, “survivor” = mainstream, represented by the state and entitled to benefits and represented by the government. The survivor’s existence is the justification for the state’s policies.

The young man is right - while this identification is currently in favor, it may fall out of it just as fast and have devastating consequences. I would want out, too.

I forget. Here is why I started writing this in the first place:

I just got back from lunch with my colleagues at the ministry of Justice’s cantine. I don’t work at the ministry, but it’s right down the street from our office. We have lunch there everyday, and I have already learned that we can’t talk about politics, especially as my NGO is often criticized by some Rwandans for defending prisoners’ rights (genocide perpetrators).
Someone brought up Avega, which is the umbrella organization for the widows of the genocide. I apparently made the mistake of calling it a survivors’ organization and was corrected: Avega is “technically” not a survivors’ organization, but a widows of the genocide organization.

The clueless Mzungu: “I don’t understand. If a Hutu woman was married to a Tutsi and her husband or children were killed and she survived, is she not considered a survivor?” (many Hutus married to Tutsis were killed along with their spouses for their “treason”)

Apparently, that was another foot-in-mouth moment of mine, as I was immediately shushed “Not here. We’ll talk about this when we get back to the office”.

At the office now, but no one's talking...