Teaching Difficult Histories: Rwanda's Post-Genocide Experience
Twenty years on, how does Rwanda learn from its past?
A child writes on the blackboard of his primary school in Gisakura,
Rwanda, on March 26, 2010.
PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC LAFFORGUE, GAMMA-RAPHO/GETTY
By Zoe Flood
for National Geographic
Published April 29, 2014
On a cloudy morning in early April, hundreds of people dressed in
muted grays and whites took to the center of Amahoro Stadium in
Rwanda's capital, Kigali. Within minutes, they were sprawled on the
grass, crumpled and still, seemingly lifeless.
Every year during the month of April, Rwanda remembers its dead, and
this reenactment--part of the 20th anniversary commemoration of the
genocide, in which up to one million ethnic Tutsi and numbers of
moderate Hutu were murdered in just three months--hit particularly
hard. Some in the audience of 30,000 were so stricken by memories of
massacred family and friends that they had to be carried from their
seats.
The full performance sketched out Rwanda's modern history in quick
succession. It traced colonial times, noted the UN's desertion ahead
of the slaughter, and lauded President Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic
Front (RPF) for saving the day and bringing the country--now one of the
region's fastest-growing economies--back to life.
Claims of an "Official Narrative"
The show reflected what some call the "official narrative" of the
past, a broadly accepted account that roots the causes of the genocide
in the colonial period. Some allege that this historical account
downplays certain realities, including the murder of many thousands of
Hutu, and favors what some describe as a "univocal narrative" that is
managed by the ruling RPF.
By international legal definition, genocide refers to "the intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group." In Rwanda's case, this took the form of the targeted
extermination of Tutsi--which was carried out with extreme brutality.
But Elisabeth King, in her recent book, From Classrooms to Conflict in
Rwanda, raises the implications of the "stigmatisation and devaluation
of Hutu suffering." As one Hutu woman told her: "'I lost
three-quarters of my family during the war ... But we [Hutu] don't
have any right to say that we lost people.'"
"We have victims of the genocide who are commemorated, and we have
victims of crimes against humanity who are silenced," said Paul
Rusesabagina, whose experiences as a manager of a luxury Kigali hotel,
when he helped save more than a thousand people by sheltering them,
inspired the film Hotel Rwanda.
Rusesabagina lives outside Rwanda now--he's afraid to go back. The
Rwandan government has accused him of profiting from his heroism and
of distorting his own account of the past. But Rusesabagina has
claimed that his deepening criticism of the ruling party made him the
subject of a smear campaign. "My story created a Hutu hero, and that
is not what the government wants," he said.
Colonial Roots
Rwandans--especially the roughly 50 percent who were born after
1994--naturally come to learn about their national tragedy, and the
events before and after, from private conversations, public
commemorations and civic education, and, crucially, from the school
curriculum.
The Rwandan government and others argue that aspects of schooling
before 1994 contributed to the genocide. According to John Rutayisire,
director general of the Rwanda Education Board, "The curriculum was
based on discrimination, divisionism, victimization."
Emphasis on ethnic identities in the classroom, as well as rote
learning of a version of history that portrayed the Tutsi as
colonizing immigrants to Rwanda, followed a pattern set during the
German and Belgian colonial periods. Stereotyped definitions of
different ethnicities were promoted, apparently as part of a
divide-and-rule policy.
Some of this historical misunderstanding was used to incite the Hutu
population to join the slaughter in 1994--for example, appeals to send
the Tutsi "back to Ethiopia" by throwing their bodies into a
north-flowing river referenced the myth that the Tutsi were
"foreigners."
Since the genocide, public discussion of ethnic identity has been
outlawed. The preferred historical narrative argues that a fluid
system of clans was perverted by the colonial and post-colonial
administrations. Thus, the identities "Tutsi" and "Hutu" were
artificial--and ultimately catastrophic.
Rwandanness
After President Kagame's RPF took control of the country in July 1994,
one of its first actions was to reopen primary schools and to
undertake an "emergency revision" of the primary and secondary school
curricula.
Classification of both teachers and students by ethnicity was
abolished, and unity, reconciliation, and a collective '"Rwandanness"
were stressed.
Formal teaching of Rwandan history wasn't carried out in primary and
secondary schools until at least 2005.
But some officials dispute that a post-genocide moratorium was placed
on teaching the subject. Instead they describe circumstances in which
the few surviving teachers lacked the materials to teach a complex and
highly charged history.
"Rwanda is not unique in not jumping quickly into teaching
history--it's very common for a country not to address its violent
past," said Karen Murphy, an American academic who has worked in
several countries emerging from violence and conflict. "Schools were
destroyed and a huge percentage of the teaching population had been
killed," she said. "Others were imprisoned."
Students at the Magi Ecole secondary school created the Role Model
Club to teach students, both Hutu and Tutsi, to let go of prejudices
and work together.
Photograph by Carol Allen-Storey, International Alert/eyevine/Redux
Hesitant Steps
"Children and parents were really disturbed by the delay, as was the
leadership in education," said Sarah Freedman of the University of
California, Berkeley.
So a little over a decade ago, the first hesitant steps were taken
toward teaching history, with education officials engaging
international academics to help develop secondary school materials.
Freedman helped coordinate the team, which was led by Rwandan
educators and scholars.
Consulting with all constituencies, the group worked to develop a
teacher's handbook covering different historical periods. Described as
a "participatory" process, the project aims to allow the emergence of
"contested interpretations" of historical events, and to encourage
dialogue in the classroom. Batches of teachers were trained to use the
materials and to facilitate discussion with students.
But eventually the project soured, and while the teaching materials
have not been replaced, the Rwanda Education Board cannot confirm when
they were last reprinted or distributed. Some foreign experts
complained about the introduction of "problematic"
materials--including, for example, case studies that they felt were
based on "politics" or "rumor."
John Rutayisire, who was then director of the National Curriculum
Development Centre, an institution that has since been incorporated
into the Rwanda Education Board, said that the Rwandan officials had
sought international support to develop a "learner-centered approach,
in which students would participate and interact."
At times, he said, there was disagreement between the parties,
particularly over the copyright of the materials. "This is our
curriculum--it is open to scrutiny by anybody. The handbook, as its
title says, was developed by a participatory process. What politics
can [there] be in a participatory process?"
He added that "curriculum development is always an unfinished
business" and that it would "always be reviewed by the national
executive in light of changing circumstances."
Room for Debate?
According to Paul Rusesabagina, "There is a complete rewriting of
history. They [the current government] are writing it the way they
want it to be taught."
Charles Kabwete Mulinda, a history lecturer at the National University
of Rwanda, acknowledges that there is "much" debate about the teaching
of national history, but he denies bias.
"Some of the debate is international, some local," he said. "There are
certain Rwandans who say that the history of Rwanda we teach does not
include all issues. When we scrutinize the content, we find it is
representative of the major events."
But with discussion of ethnicity both taboo and illegal in the new
Rwanda, frank and open debate about the past is difficult.
Laws against "divisionism" and "genocide ideology" are designed to
prevent a repeat of the genocide. Many in Rwanda feel that limits on
identity-driven history and politics are necessary to protect against
tragedy. But critics argue that these prohibitions allow for a
crackdown on dissent by the governing party.
According to a 2005 study by the Kigali-based Institute of Research
and Dialogue for Peace, a great number of Rwandans desire an
"objective and true history."
But achieving consensus on a single "true" history--encompassing
identity, contested events in the past, and the nuances of the
present--seems unlikely.
"One of the major challenges in Rwanda is that the government in power
has always interpreted the history to serve their political needs,"
said Timothy Longman of Boston University, who worked in Rwanda with
Human Rights Watch in the 1990s. "What I would hope for is that Rwanda
could have an honest history. Did ethnicity exist? I hope people can
look at the facts, debate, and think for themselves."
Curriculum Overhaul
Rwanda's entire school curriculum is now undergoing an overhaul and is
due to be relaunched at the beginning of 2016. Whether a formal
revision of the history curriculum--one that acknowledges the full
breadth of Rwandan experience--will be part of it remains to be seen.
As Charles Kabwete Mulinda said, "What we do know is that history is a
selection of events that have taken place in the past. It is not
everything that occurs; it is a selection."
What seems certain is that as Rwanda enjoys more economic and
development successes, the history it seeks to convey to its young
people will play an important part in shaping the country's future.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140429-rwanda-genocide-hutu-tutsi-kigali-curriculum-world/
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SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
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