Opinion
AERG and the unbreakable Rwandan spirit
![image](webadmin/images/AERG.jpg-20211111084304000000.jpg)
The
Genocide Survivors Students Association (AERG) celebrated the 25th anniversary
of their existence last Saturday, November 6. It was a moment full of import.
First, it
was poignant with memories of the darkest period in Rwanda’s history. This
country descended into the abyss. It had only two available options: remain
there and cease to be or rise up and get out, survive and even thrive. Rwandans
chose the latter, and in many ways the history of AERG symbolise that choice.
Second, it was a moment of very deep emotion. You could not look
at the AERG members, listen to their stories and witness their achievements and
fail to be moved by it all. You feel a lump in the throat, eyes well with tears
and you cannot trust yourself to speak. Even with writing about it, a certain
heaviness clamps the hand.
The emotions are many. There is a mixture of gratitude, pride and
marvel that these young people are alive and well, defied death, refused to
succumb to despair or give up on life. There is admiration for their
resilience. They have not only survived but lived to help reweave the Rwandan
social fabric that had been violently torn and make a meaningful contribution
to rebuilding the nation.
But there
is also anger and revulsion at the people, the majority of the Rwandans, who
conceived such a monstrous idea as the extermination of a whole people and
executed it. And for those lucky to survive the Armageddon, condemn them to a
life of misery, without family or future. The young people in AERG are proof of
those horrific intentions but also of their futility.
Somehow
they survived and reconstituted the family as best they could and gave their
members a sense of belonging, togetherness and self-worth that the genocidaires
had thought they had destroyed.
The very
existence of AERG and the anniversary they marked last Saturday are in this
sense both a rebuke to the authors of genocide and an affirmation of the
principle of life. Looking at them and reflecting on all this, you could not
help but imagine what might be going through the minds of the people who wanted
to exterminate them.
Do they
also look at them and see in their youthful usefulness.an indictment of their
actions twenty-seven years ago? Do they see in their defiance of death and
determination to live proof of their evil deeds and perhaps feel some remorse?
Maybe they say: what madness got into us, what demons drove us to such
monstrosity and then vow it should never happen again?
Do they
recognise the futility of hate, of trying to destroy what they did not create,
the destructiveness of an ideology and politics of division, exclusion and
extermination, and so see in these young people a reminder of those terrible
times and their mistake?
Or perhaps the sight hardens attitudes and leads to regret of
another kind? For indeed, there are some genocidaires or those descended from
them, biologically and ideologically, who have not changed one bit and are
trying to rekindle the fire of hate that nearly destroyed this country. They
are a small and cowardly but treacherous lot peddling their hate campaign from
the safety of distance and anonymity of cyber space.
In their
treachery they get support from, or are instigated by, outsiders for whom an
African country, like Rwanda, rising from the ashes and successfully rebuilding
is anathema. And so the Judi Revers, Michela Wrongs, Jeffrey Smiths and Kenneth
Roths of this world are only too happy to oblige and help stoke the fire of
hate.
The evil that was the genocide against the Tutsi has not
disappeared. AERG is a reminder of that evil and the danger it harbours when it
becomes the basis of a political ideology. But more importantly, it is a
testament to the bravery and tenacity of Rwandans to refuse to disappear but
stubbornly assert their right to exist and even prosper.
In many
ways the story of AERG mirrors that of Rwanda. Rwanda too defied destruction
and attempts to make it disappear or to become subservient as some had wished,
indeed charted such a path. It has been resolute in trying to give its people a
life they deserve. It is determined to break with its bad past and instead
looks to the future and to build a country for all Rwandans where life is
sacrosanct.
Against all odds and expectations, this has by and large been achieved. Rwanda has looked within to find answers to its many challenges and rebuilt itself to an enviable level. The story of AERG is similar. This has been the Rwandan spirit. The young people of AERG embody that spirit: never to give up, never to succumb to despondency, always strong and unbreakable. That spirit lives on.