The story of forgiveness

Dear reader,

I hope you have heard about or seen a movie called ‘Hotel Rwanda’, a movie based on the real story of a genocide of Tutsi tribe by the Hutu tribe, both belonging to Rwanda but divided by ‘Social class’ (source: wikipedia) by “Belgian and German” colonists, who were following the simple yet effective policy of ‘Divide and Rule’. Anyway, that true story is about a hero named “Paul Rusesabagina” who saved a thousand lives when people all around the world including France, Belgium, the U.S and the United nations turned their back on this country, of course it didn’t have oil, but it had gold, and even a kid knows gold is not oil. Oil is just Oil, and it comes with war.

Anyway, Corporate America stood up to help heal the wounds, and with some marvellous understanding of the problem by whoever is in power (Paul Kagame), the wounds are healing. Macy’s “peace baskets” are bringing the victims and perpetrators closer together, aided with a punishment of the perpetrators by the courts - confession to and the judgment by the tribal elders in the community. CNN reports here:

Iphigenia Mukantabana, a master weaver, sits in front of her house in Gitarama — an hour from the capital Kigali — making beautiful baskets with her friend, Epiphania Mukanyndwi.

In 1994 Mukantabana’s husband and five of her children were hacked and clubbed to death by marauding Hutu militias. Among her family’s killers was Jean-Bosco Bizimana, Mukanyndwi’s husband.

Not that the killers got away Scott free, but the government was overwhelmed with the sheer numbers.

Bizimana did spend seven years in jail. He then went before a tribal gathering, part of a return to traditional ways by the new government in 2002 with Rwanda’s justice system unable to cope and process hundreds of thousands of imprisoned perpetrators.

I would like to see some change in how we deal with communal riots, where the leaders themselves are usually involved. I don’t think they have the strength to accept a crime ever, forget a murder, they won’t even accept their practice of bigamy which I think is a far lesser crime, as long as the women involved, think it is acceptable to them by choice.

Today Rwanda is an African success story. It has one of the fastest economic growth rates in the region, and one of the lowest crime rates, and lowest rate of HIV-AIDS. About one third of Rwanda’s cabinet are female ministers and 48 percent of parliamentarians are women — the highest anywhere in the world, according to the United Nations.

The country is clean because of a mandatory policy that sees even government ministers participate in clean-up once a month. Plastic bags are banned. The international business community praises Rwanda’s good governance and the absence of official corruption or graft.

Rwanda mourned. And healed, with time. And I think it’s a powerful and compelling story about forgiveness which cannot be accepted by a majority of human beings.

Your’s truly,
Browsekid