Opinion
Do not disturb your peace: The Rwanda fetishism that unites The Economist and Michaela Wrong
![image](webadmin/images/Michela wrong.jpg-20211003100024000000.jpg)
The Economist has lately been posting articles
attacking Rwanda, Michaela Wrong has been tweeting and it seems, they have both
been foaming at the mouth. Evidently, she and her colleagues have had to
confront their powerlessness over Rwanda’s judicial sovereignty and recent political
successes (the smooth and rapid unrolling of the Covid-19 vaccine across the
country, the effectiveness of the defence force intervention in Mozambique, and
our securing, as the first country in Africa, of the 2025 cycling championships
– to name a few).
For context on why Ms Wrong is a deplorable
source of “information” on Rwanda, let us revisit her latest claim to
notoriety: a book in which she reveals nothing factual on our country, and
everything about her own fetishism.
It may also be a necessary exercise to consider how this fetishism isn’t singular to individuals; it can also be displayed, albeit differently, by the institutions that typically fixate on, exploit and demand power over the communities they seem aroused to see subjugated.
Your discomfort is logical
The nauseating instance where Michaela Wrong describes the skin of
the Rwandan dissident Patrick Karegeya (who used his knowledge as a former head
of Rwandan intelligence to plot against Rwanda) as “honey smooth”, is rather
telling.
Art therapy - in
this case, the writing of creative fiction – strikes as a meagre treatment
against the deviance she displays. Perhaps an honest diagnosis of the
pathologies to which she owes her skewed approach must be established instead,
not just for Wrong herself, but for the army of Rwanda critics that seem to
both despise us, and be strangely obsessed with every detail, even those most
surface level, of our identity.
In her
novel, Wrong also described an RPF general as “certainly aristocratically
good-looking, the characteristic Tutsi high forehead combined with a Grecian
nose and smooth, dark skin”, with the approval of her editorial team.
That regrettable succession of words lets the reader in on the
corrupted, regressive and featurist gaze with which Michaela herself, and
arguably a chunk of the system that credibilises her, looks upon Rwandan
humans.
The ethnicist language she deploys with no shame to salivate over
a man she simultaneously casts as a “cold-hearted killer”, “[someone that will]
lie to you from A-Z”, brings a sinister dimension to her obsession with Rwanda,
and particularly Rwandan men with army backgrounds.
Wrong
goes on to state that an unnamed and likely imaginary friend described said
general as “Soooooo hot”. Her emphasis on the “attractiveness” of the Rwandan
men she mentions is a strange choice of angle for a “historically accurate”
book about ethnic conflict and genocide.
At this point
the problem is obvious.
At the risk of being crude indeed, the image of the RPF soldier,
whether dedicated or de facto, seems to consume, allure and possess Michaela
Wrong. It is no wonder that she immediately powered her laptop and opened the
Twitter app after President Kagame, answering a question from a journalist
about her novel, did not evade mentioning her. This brief acknowledgement was
probably a moment of a significance and impact she had been yearning for, for a
very long time.
It is as bad as you think it is
Wrong’s recurrent (and utterly unnecessary) description of Rwandan
men’s skins as “smooth”, reminds me of the obsession with charged, accusatory
depictions of African “regimes” that western media houses have persistently,
uncreatively used against Africans. Examining connotation is essential here, so
kindly bear with me.
I suppose the first stereotypical description could be
considered a mere compliment, however I wonder if these generals would have
felt comfortable to consider Wrong fantasising on the texture of their
skins, while simultaneously calling them wicked and heartless. Similarly, a
white woman comparing a Rwandan man’s skin to a condiment might simply strike
you as cringey, but it does have an objectifying basis. Rwandans (and Africans
in general), do not exist for white consumption, and particularly not in the
form of sensationalised lies printed across fetishist novels.
The second over-used descriptor (“Authorianism”) is supposed
to allude to western sympathy over the welfare of the people under the
“dictatorial” rule. The economist, if it wishes to deny their racism, needs to
stop casting Rwandans as mere bodies, incapable making our own measured,
intellectual critiques of our governance and considerations of our (improved)
welfare.
Casually negating our own research on the tragedy that mars
collective memory by claiming that 500,000 people died during the genocide
against the Tutsi (as The Economist did in a paper not worth sharing) is
racist. Fixating on redefining our truths is racist. This racism and
simultaneous fetishism are likely the most disappointing features of the
western disapproval of Rwanda, however perhaps we shouldn’t expect much from
those that cannot get past fellow humans’ physicality.
Playing in the mud – an oppressed party’s dilemma
When I think of addressing the dirty games and it seems, the dirty
minds of Rwandan detractors, a famous Michelle Obama quote springs to mind –
“when they go low, we go high.”
For all the elegance, grace and wisdom of this phrase, it’s a
shame Michelle agreed it to be her burden to spring above the gutter, leaving
the hem of her gown untouched by the filth flung at her from beneath, so the
people she was tasked with serving could accord her any form of respect. How
tired she must have been.
This is how the western world rigs the game; it demands miraculous exploits of patience, and athletic diplomatic and intellectual leaps over the gutter even as they employ the most bizarre and perverse methods of discrediting us.
I do not doubt that President Kagame’s describing of Karegeya as
Michaela’s friend – a fact she herself alludes to through the affection with
which she speaks of him – did outrage her.
She is a
western woman with a western passport, therefore, despite how low she stoops to
slander our leadership, the latter ought to only regard her (and her true
motives in writing that book) with distance and fearful avoidance.
However, Michaela & co. do not get to devise our approach to defending our country against dirty practices. She is very welcome to keep tweeting in outrage, however I predict that this will have as little impact on our leadership choices as her overt thirst has on the self-loving Rwandan man.
Source: www.newtimes.co.rw