Rwanda: Healing and Strong Women

[excerpted from, Africa & Middle East: Stories across Cultures ?2023]

Most come for the gorillas. I came to learn about genocide. And gender.

“How do you feel about your future?” I asked a young woman in her early twenties. “Are you optimistic, as a woman?”

“I can be anything I want to be,” she replied enthusiastically. “I feel no limitations now.”

The Rwandan parliament, consistently among the world’s top 10 nations for gender equality according to the WEF Global Gender Gap Index, had in 2013 elected a record-breaking 64%, the world’s first to have a female-majority at the highest level of governance; just before my late 2018 visit, that election saw 61.3% female with 55% of ministerial positions, to this date. (The 2023 parliamentary elections were delayed to 2024, to coincide with that of the president.) By comparison, the world average is a mere 25.5% for women in parliament.

“As a man,” I asked several, “how do you feel about having so many women in parliament?”

“We made a mess of things,” replied one, “so we think the women should be in charge now.”

“Let the women run the country,” said another. “We need a lot of healing, and women are the healers.”

“Our president [Paul Kagame, in office since 2000] has done a lot to bring our nation together,” according to a third man, “but it’s good to have many women working with him.”

This shift toward gender equality, though more perhaps in governance than in the average household according to various studies, is not unrelated to the profound trauma of 1994 – a civil war that saw an estimated one million people slaughtered within just a 3-month frenzy, a state-sponsored genocide in which 75% of the Tutsi people were murdered. A long time coming, it was fueled in part by earlier racist colonial practices, while pleas for international aid at the time of the violence were largely ignored.

It was just 10 years later in 2003, on the heels of a 30% national quota for same, that women took up an impressive 48% of parliamentary seats – as a conscious effort by the people for healing of their nation.

Slowly approaching the Kigali Genocide Memorial and Peace School, in walking meditation with an attitude of compassion for and honoring of the dead, I also felt deep respect for how far this nation has come in its healing. I am no stranger to societal trauma, having studied it in many areas of the world with a former clinical practice of trauma therapy. Yet I knew that the scale of this tragedy required me to prepare my own heart and mind, so that I could acknowledge their pain yet not become overwhelmed by it.

There are 250,000 souls in this place, a burial ground for many of the victims, a memorial, a place where surviving Tutsi go to visit their dead. The atmosphere is profoundly silent as any cemetery, sacred as any holy site, at once deeply sorrowful and palpably healing. There are in fact six sites of remembrance throughout the nation, and more than 250 memorials. With many educational programs and a global outreach, Rwanda has much to teach the world.

“How were you able to rebuild the peace?” I asked a specialist at the genocide center. “I know President Kigali has been a major force – but by what means?”

“Forgiveness,” he replied. “There have been prosecutions, of course, and many other efforts of healing and peacebuilding. But first, our president asked the nation to forgive one another, and to forgive themselves, for allowing such horror to occur. Never forget the dead, he told us, and never forget what happened here. But in order to move forward, to heal from the trauma, and to be one society, one people, we must find in ourselves the capacity to forgive.”

President Kigali has just announced that in the 2024 election, he will seek yet another term. It will mark 30 years since the civil war and genocide.

The peace-building efforts continue to this day. On the website for the genocide museum there is a strong message to the world: “Every community is somewhere on the path to peace – and the path to violence. Where’s yours?”

Art has also had a profound influence in the healing of a nation, a repeated theme throughout my travels. In the genocide museum itself and elsewhere, art abounds, both to speak the truth of this atrocity and to heal its wounds.

On a sign for the 2019 Ubumuntu Festival, to be held some months following my visit: "Can art heal a broken society? Art has manifested itself world over as an efficient form of communicating, expressing opinions, airing issues and sharing values about all aspects of life that affect humanity. We are convinced that art as a forum for communication, expression, reflection, innovation and creativity is a key motor for social change. The festival was first held in 2015 and happens annually following the last week of the 100 days commemoration of the 1994 genocide. It is held at the outdoor amphitheater of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, free and open to everybody. 30+ countries represented, 50+ performances, 13,000+ attendees -- Ubumuntu: Humanity."

The Inema Art Center is one such endeavor. Founded in 2012 by 2 brothers, Inema is a collective of multiple artists that provides creative opportunities to underprivileged communities both as a means of expression and livelihood. They partner with other cooperatives, offer workshops and artist-in-residence programs, host a special program for orphans of the conflict, and generally strive to help Rwanda heal and grow through expressive arts.

Even so – the residue of trauma continues to this day. (How could it not?)

It’s said among scholars of post-conflict societies that resolution can take up to 5 generations. Those born after Rwanda’s 1994 travesty are too close to its trauma; often suspicious of others, they can be heard to say, “They killed us,” and similar, while government statistics show that only 5% of the population seek mental health services. The children carry the pain of their parents, whether victims of murder or survivors, and the trauma, as commonly happens, gets passed down. Often, the surviving parents have shut down emotionally or are otherwise dysfunctional, and it’s typically the eldest daughter who takes on her parents’ care.

“Do you think that forgiveness was achieved?” I asked the genocide specialist. “Or maybe partially? Or perhaps it was a good approach that was simply unachievable?”

“Oh, it helped us a lot, I’m sure,” he responded, “but we have victims and perpetrators, or their families or supporters, living side by side in many a village, and some of the perpetrators were also pardoned by the courts. Many found themselves alone with the rest of their family dead, while others have lived with severe maiming, lost limbs and more, and this is a daily reminder. I’m just not sure,” he softly concluded.

The profound terror of that period has also left its residue.

“It’s very difficult to trust anybody,” one woman told me, “Or to ever feel safe. I wake up with nightmares sometimes even now, and I struggle with anxiety. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel calm and secure again.”

Many conversations with Rwandans later, I’d had a crash course. Common themes emerged, as both achievement of yet ongoing need for: peace, respect, security – and yes, lingering feelings of insecurity, gender equality, youth engagement, entrepreneurship, self-development, master plan, fairness, justice, hope, dreams, plans, progress, pride. Rwandans focus not on the horrors of the past -- though the 1994 genocide is still in the living memory of most -- but on their impressive recovery thus far, and bright future. They do not forget. But they attempt to forgive, and to live in harmony.

Trauma often takes a long time to resolve. Mass trauma is another matter entirely; many people traumatized at once means that there are few who can provide solace and support. Betrayal by one’s government, the duty of which is to protect its people, and by one’s neighbors, represent an especially deep rupture of trust.

But Mama is now in charge. Many mothers and grandmothers, in fact. And while Rwanda has a ways to go for true gender equality – something which can be said of every nation – having so many women in parliament will no doubt further the healing of a deeply wounded people.

Africa & Middle East: Stories across Cultures, by Anne Hilty, ?2023