A colleague watched the president’s car arrive at a busy intersection and watched as a crowd mobbed him, young women screaming his name. Another day, at the opening of a dance and music festival at the packed stadium, the arrival of the president upstaged the singer as singing and dancing people moved towards the president. So far, we have seen only one billboard for another candidate.
There are national police and army men on the streets, more than usual. They are young, attentive, scanning. They hold their guns across their bodies, finger on the trigger. They are polite, even when entering a friend’s house at five in the morning, before the president arrives in that area, searching for weapons. They do not frighten the three people in the house; in fact one soldier sympathetically pats on the back the young man puking his night’s alcohol into the toilet.
That is what strikes me the most. These young men return greetings, they are not menacing. They do not radiate anger; they do not appear to be carrying a rage that passes too quickly into their weapons. I discuss this with others, Rwandan and foreigners; this is also their experience. I am only saying what I see.
On Saturday, July 24th (day 6 of the campaign), we are traveling to the west of the country to visit a memorial site with a young UK friend, Zoe, who is researching the impact of memorialization on creativity. In the morning we pass through Gitarama, an hour west of Kigali where folks are setting up for an appearance by Kagame later that day.
Our driver says, “Kagame has helped every region of the country side.” He gestures to the people walking on the road. “You see, all these people are coming to the rally. The people are for him.”
“Nobody is telling them to do this,” he offers. “It is their choice.”
“Me, I am for him too. He has brought peace to our country.”
It is dusk when we approach Gitarama on our way home. We are perhaps ten or fifteen kilometers from the town when begin to pass the walkers. They are walking energetically and their brand new spotless white Kagame t-shirts are shining in the headlights, a white ribbon that goes on and on and on.
“They are happy,” says the driver. “They saw Kagame.”
Tuesday, July 27
The paper reports two rallies yesterday in western province for Kagame, each over 100,000 people. (Even cutting the number in half to account for over enthusiastic editorializing; this is a lot of folks.) The paper also reports that in northern province, the Liberal Party candidate drew a large crowd, paralyzing business in the local town.
A Rwandan commenting to a friend on the Kagame phenomena, “It’s all fake.”
Another says, “We’ve seen this before,” meaning excited groups of young people convinced to follow a cause.
Most commonly, like the driver, “We are for him.”
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