The “Never Again” adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9th December 1948 after the atrocities committed during the Second World War didn’t prevent to commit the Genocide against Tutsis in 1994 in Rwanda. This explains the total failure of the international community and shall remain responsible and accountable for this darkest and most tragic period in the history of Rwanda and humanity.
On 7th of April 2022, Rwanda marked 28 years since the start of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, a deliberate, intentional, and systematic murder of Tutsi. The memories are still vivid in Rwanda on one hand but for the genocide deniers, negationists and perpetrators through their propaganda and genocide ideology remain affirm that, commemorating and organizing public memory event is a barrier to effective unity and reconciliation among Rwandans, source of continuous conflicts and increase of genocide ideology in Rwanda society. However, what exactly the essence and the relationship between memory and prevention?
The scholars explained that, remembering past periods of violence and the systematic abuse of human rights serves to honor the victims whose lives were lost, just as it pushes societies to hold accountable those involved in the abuses. Memory is also often evoked as a preventive force.
As we commemorate the 28th anniversary of Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda that marks the commencement of the shadiest and most tragic periods in the history of Rwanda, it is the right time to remember over one million innocent Tutsis that were murdered in one hundred days, and put Rwanda in a obscurest period of our time. Important question: what kind of audacity of genocide perpetrators to eliminate more than ten thousand Tutsi on daily basis?
My focus today, will be the prominence of public memory or a commemoration in the context of a post-genocidal society and not noticeably not talking about the memory you had at your young age rather, memory in this logic is more social to mean, a collective memory.
Whereas, memory is how the past is impacting our present and how it’s present in the present as well as how it can hypothetically affect our future. Memory in a post-Genocide country like Rwanda is prophylactic took while for others it can be a force to encourage more violence. As much as Rwandans stay active trying to use their past as a means of safeguarding the rights of innocent Tutsis slaughtered during the Genocide against Tutsi in 1994, of acknowledging the pain that Tutsi have experienced in the past, and to avoid the return of violence in the future ever, then we can think of memory as a preventive force and as right tool for successful unity and reconciliation among Rwandan community.
There are four specific ways in which memory can be preventive as adapted from Dr. Kerry Whigham, a memory scholar and AIPG’s Director of Research and being applied for Rwanda case.
First, during genocides, the government is and remain accountable to organize, plan and implement Genocide against Tutsi in 1994. It was clear that, after RPF stopped Genocide perpetrated against Tutsi, there were slight trust between genocide survivors and perpetrators more than that, between citizens and leaders particularly those who were most directly oppressed by the state. One of priority, is to ensure the state regain that trust to those who were hurt or offended. Since Rwanda actively recognizes the violations of human rights that have occurred during the Genocide against Tutsi in 1994, that can be a way of re-stimulating trust, unity and reconciliation among Rwandan community.
Secondly, during periods of Genocide against Tutsi in 1994, another thing that happens is genocide survivors become really inaccessible and fragmented as one group is potholed against the others. Here comes, social fragmentation which is one risk factor for future atrocities. Memory initiatives is therefore, a right tool to bring back those groups of people that were fragmented back together to create group identities again around narratives of the past as a way to decrease the social fragmentation.
Thirdly, memory is effectual when a society, has a really open, trustful, truthful and free discussions over what happened in Genocide against Tutsi in 1994, as it was the aim of Gacaca courts (A traditional conflict resolution system for neighborhood disputes) one of the most and known successful approach to manage conflicts in the post conflict countries.
In a democratic state like Rwanda, during the memory event, people can talk about their views of the past without fear of repression, or of there being violent retribution for what they’re saying provided that, laws in place are respected.
Last but not least, the fact that memory as being preventive as quoted early, philosopher George Santayana said: “He who does not remember the past is doomed to repeat it.” This means that if we know what occurred in the past, if we remember it and if it’s an active part of our lives, then it’s more likely that we’re going to be able to recognize it if it begins to happen again, and then confidently stop it at the much earlier stages, before it progresses to the levels of violence that it did in the past.
Let’s recall that, memory in the context of a post-genocide is social and collective in nature. It also has a political component. The memory we focus on, is the way that the past influences our present, as well as the influence it may have on a society’s collective future. However, memory is the way the past is not past at all, but very much alive in the present.
{{Memory concepts: Most important and earliest }}
Maurice Halbwachs is a French sociologist, a victim of the Holocaust who established the concept of collective memory to describe how all memories have a social component.
For him, there is no such thing as a purely individual memory. Every memory you have in your own head has been shaped by your social context. Your family, your friends, your community, your culture, and the period of history in which you are living have all impacted the way you experience and remember the world. Because of this, our memories are always shaped by the collectives of which we are a part.
{{Edward S, an American philosopher explained the Casey’s concept of public memory where he identified four different categories of memory: }}
• Individual memory includes the memories we have because we experienced them ourselves.
• Social memory describes the memories we share with people in our kinship group.
• Collective memory is a category that includes the memory of events that were experienced by many different groups, including people you may not know personally.
• Public memory is a memory that bring people together in the public sphere and or in physical space through shared acts of remembrance.
All these above-mentioned memories may be remembered by each group differently, but they involve events that were large enough that they impacted a wide array of people. Public memory describes when the memory of these events brings people together in public space through shared acts of remembrance as it is the case in Rwanda.
To conclude on this, memory of past events or more precisely for the case of Rwanda, commemorating the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi, has the potential to bring people together, to regain trust, to share their stories, truth with aim of achieving effective unity and reconciliation.
For Rwanda, collective memory or public memory serves to bring people together in collective efforts to remember their past and prevent same violent act in the future, it is a powerful force but above all, a tool for unity and reconciliation among citizens with emphasis between genocide survivors and perpetrators.
{{Significance of commemorating Genocide against Tutsi in Rwandan society}}
To ensure memory is considered as a a force for prevention, it is imperative to think about memory as both a project and a process.
Memory is a project in the sense that it is something we must work at: it doesn’t happen instinctively rather it is a journey and a long process. It is not easy not even have such capacity as a human for disremembering the past or for using the past to justify further violence are very real risks. Because of this, we must work thoughtfully to build a public memory that retains the past present in a way that prevents the recurrence of violence.
Memory is a process since it is constantly changing. Public memory is an active phenomenon. One should understand that the process of building/re-building memory which is, at times, hard and full of defies is in itself very significant.
For better understanding the essence of memory, we must understand it not only as a project or a product something that we create and then leave behind but as a long process that, in fact, has no end.
Memory is a key tool for prevention, that is, the measures that we take in the aftermath of genocide with aim at to prevent the reappearance of violence in the future. This also serves as the process of transitional justice, that is, the measures taken to address the past systematic violation of human rights. Transitional justice often involves mechanisms like criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations policies, and institutional reform. Each of these mechanisms contributes to the construction of memory. And, if they are developed thoughtfully and purposely, transitional justice measures can contribute to the prevention of future violence with the below mentioned, three stages of prevention:
{{o Primary prevention which we do before conflict breaks out to address risk factors, to build resilience in the society.
o Midstream/ secondary prevention, which is what we do once a crisis has broken out.
o The tertiary prevention is that the rebuilding of a society after it’s gone through crisis. We know that when a society has gone through something like genocide that it tremendously increases the risk of a future genocide. }}
Right after Genocide against Tutsi in 1994, everyone was thinking about justice, think about the form of retributive justice, of bringing perpetrators to account in courts of law which is a significant pursuit of justice in one hand and a restorative justice on other hand that need more attention to, due to the fact that, retributive justice is very perpetrator-focused. Restorative justice, and there are a lot of varieties of it, is much more victim-focused.
It’s trying to restore to the victims what was lost, what was taken from them in genocide though not easy to restore all lost especially human live of beloved ones but land, properties, possessions, dignity can probably be restored but the most important thing is the truth that at any cost need to be restored, as well. Truth, Memory, and justice, the trio that are vital when a society begins to rebuild itself.
{{Conclusion}}
The right to memory is also a fundamental right of all human beings that goes to the heart of human dignity, of a political and socio-culture identity and therefore of democracy.
While organizing memory and commemorating the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi on annual basis, we not only need to learn from history, need to straightaway make closer links amongst the past and the present as well as transform history into lessons for humanity that are noteworthy to our societies today. Most essentially, memory aim at speak to release the genocide anger, survivor process their experiences, reduce their psych socio-trauma, honor their memory of their murdered beloved ones and secure a measure of justice towards the beginning of the road to sustainable peace, security, unity and reconciliation.
Above all, Genocide commemoration in Rwanda, is to continuously awaken greater awareness of the entire peoples around the world and the international community about the value of life and humanity, and to renew our collective commitment to protect and uphold fundamental human rights.
What is needed, is the collective efforts, collaboration between citizens and leaders, mutual trust, active participation in the organized events by central or local government, involvement of both genocide survivors and perpetrators, avoid any form of genocide ideology and propaganda in the communities. Everyone has a key role to play towards effective and successful collective memory of Genocide against Tutsi in 1994.
Leave a Reply