1. The boundaries of horror: what to show, what not to show. How tough or soft to be with images, how to balance the tolerable and intolerable? What should be shown on the walls? What can be tolerated? What do the survivors need to have told?
2. Boundaries of representation: Whose voices are dominant? Should perpetrators speak? Do portrayals of perpetrators have a fascination that outweighs horror? And what can be shown and what should not be shown? Are human remains a commodity to be displayed?
3. Boundaries of interpretation: Whose interpretation of events takes dominance? Whose stories take precedence? Who ‘owns’ the narrative?
4. Boundaries of inclusion: Should other genocides in other places be portrayed? What about all the different groups targeted by the Nazis? Who is at the centre of memory? Who is at the periphery?
This issue of the shaping of memory stayed with us over the past months as we worked with Rwandan colleagues on editing the script for the Murambi exhibition and on visual changes to the exhibition.
Most of these decisions had been made. Human remains are displayed throughout the country. At Murambi, rooms and rooms are filled with tables on which lie the bodies preserved in the extreme heat created in the pit in which they were thrown. There is a burial chamber in the exhibit, in which bodies will be displayed under glass while vibrant photographs of some of the dead are portrayed on the wall. We’ve never gotten quite clear about whose idea this was.
The text was written by committee. In this case, both the rough text and the final approval rested with the National Commission in the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), who ‘own’ the narrative. They (a branch of government) have final say about will be included and what will not.
And in fact, there is no contention over the basic story except perhaps by deniers, but then as someone wrote, deniers are not dealing with history. The genocide happened. The massacre at Murambi happened. And at the same time, in every exhibit some stories are highlighted over others. Some people may not find their stories or their suffering reflected in the narrative. As one scholar wrote, “the problem remains that although Rwanda may have one past, there are multiple histories.”
The work that remained was to nuance the story, make modifications to enhance or slightly revise, remove some sections and add others, to choose selections of testimonies that would accompany the main story line, to bring more life to an often dry narrative. There were long and elaborate discussions about whether to include a particular testimony and which part of it, about the meanings of a word and the implications of a sentence, and then, how to ensure the same clarity in three languages – Kinyarwanda, French and English – in order to arrive at matched translation. And then the commas, the semi-colons, the French accents, the spelling, all of that over and over and over again. And then beginning again and again, a seemingly endless cycle.
And then, one day, after months of work, over lunch in a hotel restaurant near the Murambi site, CNLG signed off. This text is pretty long and dense as the authors more focused on historical issues than on fine points of exhibit design. But everyone was happy that this long journey had ended and we all shook hands appreciatively.
For me, participating in the creating of the Murambi exhibit has been an extremely rich opportunity to see how the politics of representation and interpretation are approached. It will take time to digest and make meaning of everything, but for now it is time to acknowledge the accomplishment. So here are a few pictures of the recent journey.
Signing off on the text, the very last details.
The crates arrive.
The panels were fabricated in England, trucked to Brussels and airfreighted to Kigali Airport. Security clearances were obtained, and the crates were loaded directly onto two truck provided by CNLG and under the watchful eye of Phil and Kigali Genocide Memorial staff. In the early morning the two trucks travelled south to Murambi.
These guys carried these incredibly heavy boxes onto the grass, and were well paid for doing so!
Opening the crates and carefully removing the bubble wrapped panels, relieved to find that they have survived the long journey in good shape.
The exhibit goes up, thanks to a professional exhibit designer who has come from UK
There were almost no survivors at Murambi. This old man lived, despite the bullet wound visible on his head. He sits and watches everything that happens here.
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