An Accident of History?

Hello dear blog readers! I am sorry for my absence from the blog of late. As mentioned in the last post, I have been in Western Uganda and Rwanda this past week, where I was without email access. However, I am happily back in Kampala now, and I hope everyone has had an excellent week.

This blog post is going to focus on my time in Rwanda, which was very intense, to say the least. Much of the time there was focused about learning about the 1994 genocide: how it happened, and how Rwanda is moving on. As a little bit of background, when the Belgians colonized Rwanda, they found two main socioeconomic groups: herders and farmers. The colonists decided that the herders were a more sophisticated people, who would be easier to work with. To legitimize this, the Belgians created two ethnic groups: if you had more than 10 cows, you were a Tutsi, and if you had less than 10 cows, you were Hutu. These "ethnic" groups were in fact not ethnic at all, but rather a false binary constructed by the Belgians to make rule a little bit easier.

Thus, the Tutsi became the ruling class, while the stronger Hutu were conscripted into the army. As it became clear that colonial rule was coming to an end, the Belgians thought it would be a good idea to "balance" power and turn the reigns of the state over to the Hutu as they left power. This led to a wave of violence against the Tutsi in 1959, which led many of the Tutsi to leave the country. In 1990, the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front invaded the country from Uganda, sparking the Rwandan civil war. In 1993, a peace settlement was reached in Arusha, Tanzania. However, this peace was short lived when the plane of Juvenal Habyarimana, Rwanda's president, was shot down shortly after.

This event sparked the 1994 genocide, in which, over the course of 100 days, nearly 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutus were killed, and two thirds of the country was displaced.

Learning about this genocide, my mind kept reflecting upon my experience learning about the Holocaust, particularly my experience visiting concentration camps in Poland the summer before my senior year of high school. My mind kept flashing back to the Majdanek concentration camp. Many have said about Majdanek that it could be up and running again within 24 hours, which made it particularly eerie. Walking into the gas chamber, I could still see the stains from the cyclone b gas on the walls, and the scratch marks from desperate fingernails. However, the most horrifying thing to me was a small window in one of the walls. Through this window, one of the Nazi guards monitored the gas chamber, to make sure it succeeded in its murderous purpose.

I thought about how many screams this man must have heard, how many thousands of murders he must have witnessed. I did not understand how a human being to be witness to such cruelty, how a person could watch other people die and not be moved to do everything within their power to stop it. It seemed entirely impossible to me that it was within the bounds of human nature to sit, every day, and watch people die, and do nothing but let it continue. Confronted with such extrordinary evilness, I remember breaking down in sobs.

However, as I walked through the Rwandan Genocide Museum, I was confronted with a different, and ultimately more frightening thought. The world knew about the Rwandan genocide. Every night on television, and every day in the news papers, the world bore witness to the genocide, and the world did nothing.

Much like the nazi guard, the world had its own window to the Rwandan genocide through the mass media and, much like the nazi guard, the world was able to bear witness to genocide and do nothing. Three years ago, I was struck by the extrordanary cruelty of this apathy to murder, and how it seemed to implausible to my understanding of human nature. Now, as I walked through the Rwandan Genocide Museum, I was struck by how ordinary and possible this human behavior is, and how many people have died because of it. Ultimately, this is a far more horrifying thought.

Now, to say the west did nothing isn't entirely correct. About 5,000 troops were sent in by foreign countries to rescue the foreign nationals within Rwanda's borders. After grabbing the foreign nationals, after pushing off the terrified Rwandans that grabbed at them and pleaded with them to stay, the troops all left Rwanda. Many have said that if those troops just stayed in the country, the genocide could have been stopped. Needless to say, a was feeling very angry and ashamed as I walked through the muesum.

Later that night, we had a processing session to discuss what we had seen. Many of the students expressed similar anger abour the inaction of the world to stop the genocide. In response, Charlotte, our AD, said something very interesting. She called the Rwandan genocide an "accident of history" like all other genocides that have happened in the past, and those that will likely happen in the future. She said that western governments were just following protocol, that they have a responsibility to their citizens, and should not be expected to do otherwise.

Her comment struck me as very interesting, especially since it is so easy to blame the west for the genocide. However, her answer was ultimately unsatisfying for me. True as it may be that governments may not have a political obligation to the citizens of other countries, I believe that human beings have a human responsibility to all people, regardless of race or nationality.

We call genocide a crime against humanity because we believe that the very existence of such atrocity is an affront to all human beings. So where was the righteous indignation of the rest of the world? Where were the protests and rallies, compelling the governments of the rest of the world to act to stop genocide? Governments should have intervened in Rwanda not because of esoteric international treaties, but because their citizens should have demanded it.

One of the other students commented that she saw a sign outside a different memorial that read "never again" and wanted to kick it down, since we have been saying "never again" since the Holocaust and "it hasn't done anything so far." Though I understood her anger, I disagree with her sentiment. I believe we must never stop saying never again, never stop believing that genocide is something that must be stopped. Because to give up on "never again" is to accept that genocide is merely an unavoidable "accident of history" which is something I am unwilling to do.

The grounds outside the genocide museum contain mass graves that hold 100,000 bodies. It is a Jewish tradition to leave rocks on headstones to bear witness. After walking out of the museum, I said a teary Kaddish and left three rocks (heart rocks, as is the Stern-Stein family tradition) on one of the graves, to bear witness.

Oseh shalom bim'romav hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu v'al kol Yis'ra'eil v'im'ru Amein
He who makes peace in His heights may He make peace upon us and upon all Israel; and say, Amen.

Never Again.

So as not to end this post on an entirely depressing note, I have included some pictures from the Western Uganda portion of the trip!

Hannah, Ali, Alena and Erin at the equator.

Elephants right outside the van on the way into Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Buffalo as seen from our boat ride in Queen Elizabeth National Park

Hippos!!! Who apparently are friends with buffalo! Who knew?Monkeys on the way out of the park. We threw them bananas.

Sunrise in the park on our failed Lion spotting excursion.

I love you all and thank you very much for bearing with this very long post. Have a great day!!!