War, peace and heroes

It’s heroes day in Rwanda. We are called upon to remember people such as Fred Rwigema, an early leader of Rwanda’s exile army in Uganda who died fighting; people such as former Prime Minister Agatha Uwilingiyimana. A Hutu, her strong opposition to the genocidal government resulted in her brutal murder in the first days of the genocide. We are called upon to remember the students of Nyange High School who refused to be divided into Hutu and Tutsi and lost their lives as a result. (See blog story, July 2010)

The official theme for this years celebration, the paper tells us, is “let’s strive for heroism as we focus on the dignity of Rwanda”.

Four days ago, at seven in the evening on a Friday night, a grenade exploded in a busy bus depot in Remera, not too far from where we live. Two people died in that attack and a couple of dozen wounded. The friend of a young person I know was seriously injured in that attack and my young friend is distraught. Old memories of war are tangled up with a fear of of the future and he is convinced that war will come again.

The morning the grenade went off, I met some heroes myself, three Rwandan women who are deeply involved in reconciliation. They facilitate workshops that bring together ten survivors and ten perpetrators (or family members) for a three day process in which the participants begin to learn about trauma, begin to tell their stories and to listen to each other, and then begin to lean back into community in a new way.

The three women are all genocide survivors, although the facilitators of the workshops come from both sides. Solange spoke of her memory of first participating in this process – how she had been filled with anger at the facilitators for asking her to write down three of her painful memories, how her anger and increased on the second day when she had been asked to read out one of her memories. She had run out of the room, she told us, and lay down to go to sleep and then she suddenly realized that below the anger was mourning and that as she allowed mourning, everything changed. Now her life is devoted to this work.

The silence with which she had enveloped her past had touched everything, and she had become a woman with a barely audible voice. One had to lean close to hear what she said. Now she speaks with a strong voice, one that is gentle yet communicates authority, a voice that one wants to listen to with all of ones heart.

The perpetrators in the workshops are referred by local authorities. Solange told a story of one man who had been released from prison because of confession of genocide crimes but he had yet to attend gacaca, the community court process. During the workshop he said that he had not told the whole truth to the prison authorities. The outcome of this was that a group of widows, whose families had been massacred during the genocide by people who included this released prisoner, supported the man to tell the full truth at gacaca.

Again, just when I am thinking that Rwanda cannot possibly emerge whole from the past, just when I am thinking that the problems of the present are insurmountable, and my young friends fear of war overtakes me also, I hear stories like these and then I think, anything is possible. I think, out of all that pain, Rwanda is giving to the world the possiblity of something transformative.

Listening to the three women brought an easing in my own heart and later, hearing about the grenade attack, I am able to hold together for a moment the reality that Rwanda’s future could be one of peace and could be one of war.

I am celebrating heroes day by reading Dreams in a time of war, a memoir by the brilliant Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o whose early childhood was formed by Kenya’s independence struggle. I picked the book up in Nairobi a few weeks ago and today is a good day to begin.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o is one of my literary heroes and his most recent novel, Wizard of the Crow, could be described as African magical realism, portraying a world that is uniquely and utterly Kenyan and yet also global.

My reading links Kenya and Rwanda. I am reminded of the destructive forces unleashed during colonisalism and after in both countries, but also of the power of those who speak and act for justice and healing everywhere.

Happy heroes day. May you carry your own heroes with you for support and courage.