Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times (Last Day in Kigali!)

My time in Kigali is coming to an end. People ask me whether I feel like I have achieved a lot while I was here. Personally, I have learned a lot, not just in a sense of personal growth and overall life-lessons, but even about my own topic. I think I am leaving with a pretty good sense of how things are around here, and what kind of delicate situation survivors are dealing with, both politically and emotionally. I was influenced, heavily, by people who have quite critical position regarding government policies and the current state of survivor organizations (forgive my taciturnity, as long as I am here, I have to exercise the discretion of a Rwandan). But the more I learn about what kind of obstacles they were facing, my position has mellowed—a lot. Things that are wrong are wrong, but sometimes the choice is not between right and wrong, but better or worse. It is too easy to sit on the pedestal of distance and say, you can have it so much better, when here, it is hard to be so optimistic. Let me correct myself—optimistic, yes, but dramatically so, no.



Reconciliation programs here are very controversial—some think Rwanda’s ingenious program of gacaca, or community-based justice, is the new-best-thing in terms of transitional justice in impossible situations, while others think, indiscreetly put, a big sham. My research is not directly on this topic—I am most positive that I will have nothing new to say on this over beaten subject—but inevitably the conversations wander to this territory. Whatever my interviewee’s political position, or temperament, the soft spoken answer I get is, despite everything one could point out that is wrong about the program, it is still a compromise that they could live with. Or have to live with.



This sobering view, especially on the question of justice after genocide, is, often surprisingly, coming from a lot of the survivors themselves. Of course, not everyone agrees with this—I am sure still quite a few people want all killers locked up and out of sight. And even those who quietly and reluctantly agree to the compromise situation of today, where justice is slow and often incomplete, deep down inside they would want, well, unbridled vengeance.



One of the past presidents that I interviewed gave an almost hopeless sense of resignation as he said, perhaps the only thing that can ‘solve’ the situation is time. However cleverly designed the policy, he said, without the necessary objectivity and ability to abstract oneself and criticize to execute it sufficiently, the policy becomes hollow. How could we, he asked, in the 1990’s, just a few years after seeing our parents, siblings and friends slaughtered, sit back and say, okay let’s think this through. We tried, he said, but we were too much involved in it, too deep in the thick of the event, and taking a step back to think would have been betrayal to ourselves. His words had the danger of sounding self-apologetic, especially as a leader of the survivors who may feel like he has not squarely met the challenges of the position. But what does ring true is, even if he is just spewing out self justifications, is that this in it of itself is reality—the combination of an extra-ordinary situation with ordinary self interest. Even in an apocalyptic time, could the success of a policy rest on the exceptional devotion and heroism?