{The overwhelming responses from the readers of the previous articles (by way of emails, and The New Times web responses) and supportive views thereof, was touching. I say thank you to you all, but most important, part your backs for this programme. Ndi umunyarwanda, is in your interest, and our interest as a people, and a country. It is for you, for me, for us all as people now and downstream our future as one people, one country. I will quote a few that were more touching to me:}

“Greetings from Glasgow, Scotland. Myself, I am good and still in the UK, but I am relocating back home at the end of this year. I believe Rwanda needs me more than this place. The skills, experience and qualifications I have garnered over the years will for sure be needed back home. Ahubgo naratinze.

I have been following your series on the commentary section on New Times online edition with much interest. I have to say that the recent one; Ndi Umunyarwanda which is in line with the Agaciro philosophy, has had a significant impact on me and it is a major factor that has made decide to come back home and be part of this beautiful story of Rwanda. I do feel left behind to be honest” (Richard).

“Ndi Umunyarwanda” should become a way of life, to be enshrined in the Rwandan constitution. This way of life will, naturally and progressively, will make all Rwandans feel they are first Rwandans and that mentioning Tutsi, Hutu; Twa is irrelevant, instead being punishable by law.
If Rwanda can succeed, then Rwanda will become a living proof that Africa can become one, because the Rwandan experience could then be applied to a wider scale. I REALLY WISH RWANDA SUCCEED and wish to live to see it happen!” (Albert, Lubumbashi)

“This is a brilliant concept and should be supported by all walks of life. Yes, our ultimate vision is "I am Rwandan" but I think for this concept to be fully understood, it should start from "I was not Rwandan" and then go through several levels of analysis until people understand why we are and should be Rwandans. There are young people who need to know how at one point "we were not Rwandans"…they will then appreciate why we should and we are. My other suggestion is that for it to be sustainable, civil society should drive the concept with backing from the government and not the other way round” (David, Sudan).

“Mwakoze igikorwa gikomeye kuri ino article ya ndi Umunyarwanda, uko mwabisesenguye nicyerekezo biduha nkatwe tukiri bato, nukuri nibyo kubashimira mwagize neza cyane mwarakoze.

Reka tubyubakireho, Kandi Imana ibahe umugisha” (Epaphrodite). Losely translated as; Thank you for article Ndi Umunyarwanda, your analysis gives us the young generation a sense of direction, many thanks…

These and many others I cannot quote for reasons of space, point out to the importance of the programme Ndi Umunyarwanda…turi Abanyarwanda to our social cohesion as a people and more so a unitary country, unity of which we lost due to our abnormal past. A past that we have to cleanse from our national conscious and moves on as a united people and a country, without which all are at stake, in the short, or long-term.

Mode of the Crime Committed.

Any form or mode of reconciliation processes (to which Ndi Umunarwanda is central) has to take cognizant of the nature and extent the crime committed against humanity that was committed by a people against a people. In our case however, genocide in Rwanda, unlike other documented genocides (such as Nazi Holocaust-final solution against the Jews, Bosnia genocide, Moriori genocide, Al-Anfal genocide, Pygmy genocide etc) which were committed by the state using state security machinery for various reasons, ours was the most horrific, terrific and atrocious of all. The entire tustis race was targeted for extermination systematically form as early as 1959, 1967, 1973, and in ‘final solution’ of 1994. All these genocidal episodes involved the Rwandan state as the main actor/ catalyst but using masses against a people for who they are. The most bizarre part of genocide in Rwanda was that, state machinery managed to convince one section of our society (hutus) that tutsi had to be eliminated for the former to live in peace and prosperity. Which is why everything Tutsis was targeted from innocent children, unborn babies which were aborted forcefully, fathers killing their children, Children killing their fathers, husbands killing their Tutsis wives, wives killing their Tutsi husbands…all in just 100 days, we lost 1 million of our own on the hands of own. When one hears such atrocious stories or see the remains of the babies clinging to their massacred mothers in genocide memorials especially Murambi in Southern Province, one’s minds mutes, for it defies logic in the absolute sense. And although under normal circumstances there is no such thing as collective crime/guilty, our situation is rather unique. Unique in that, state mobilized a people (Hutus) to exterminate their compatriots (Tutsis) which then renders the crime collective and thus guilty of a people that believed in, and embraced the ideology of extermination of a people as creed and ‘faith’. And so, the state legitimized hutuism against tutsism which eliminated the substance of umunyarwanda (Rwandan) replacing it with ethnic tags of hutuism and tutsism mainly for economic as well political gains/interest that were never to be anyway. Hutuism literally replaced Ndi Umunyarwanda, for Tutsi, and to a less extent Twas were aliens in their own country, and not entitled to common goods. It was only recently after liberation struggle in 1994, that people started to talk of inclusiveness and of one people. But this required leadership whose horizon was beyond ethnic divide, and polarized politics that had characterized Rwandan political landscape since independence.

National Guilty from Ethnic Guilty.

The demise of Ndi Umunyarwanda can be traced to post-colonial Rwanda, but reached its maxima at the height of genocide, where ethnic crime against their own was translated mainly by third parties to Rwanda as national or collective guilty. And so a mention of one coming from Rwanda until recently, was synonymous with being a genocidaire. This became a national tag, and our ‘second nature’ as a people and thus a country. Indeed if one did Google anything Rwandan, the first word/key word was genocide! This heinous crime by our own over our own took tremendous effort of our exemplary leadership to cleanse the ghost of genocide that took a national stature, and this diminishing any elements of Ndi Umunyarwanda in the extreme. We as a people and country came to be known all over the world for wrong reason, and we are not over it yet. Which is why Ndi Umunyarwanda became a national imperative, for no matter how we wished the other tags off, there were not to go away from our national face, simply by passage of time. Not at all. As the biblical word goes: one man sinned, and we all inherited his sin by association…, and to restore the former nature, sinners had to repent so as to be forgiven. In case of Ndi Umunyarwanda, we have to undertake serious cleansing of our conscious as a people and country to restore our former nature of who we right are –Ndi Umunyarwanda- turi Abanyarwanda.

Open Secret.

As pointed out in earlier article, the Ndi Umunyarwanda project/initiative is a means of national cleansing through which those of own who happen to know what happened during genocide tell it all, as it was/happened, and in assume responsibility for their omissions or even commission for this heinous crime against their compatriots.

Nevertheless, Ndi Umunyarwanda is not a judgmental process, nor a means to admonish a section of our people) but on the contrary taking courage by own to tell their compatriots the truth of what happened, and by so doing healing the hearts and minds of the victims resulting from actions or omissions or both of a section of own..

Truth is; most if not all of this ‘truth’ is in the know of senior government officials if not most, and is thus an open secret. Most of what happened during genocide has been told either during gacaca courts, or through word of mouth by a few survivors, or by moderates who saw it happen, or even written evidence of planning sessions that took place in various parts of our country, or through audio messages captured on the radio, or even print media. More so, our military intelligence and other intelligence networks has mountains of evidence as to who did what, where, and how including records of military communications no matter how coded these may have been at the time, but nevertheless their orders to kill and who was doing what is all in the know. Rwandan society is extremely information efficient for good or for bad, and expecting ‘kept secrets’ to remain so, is mere illusion, and naïve presumptive in the extreme. With such huge amounts of evidence, held by various parties in the government, silence by actual or even passive perpetrators of genocide or even those who omitted to do what they were supposed to have done to save lives, is in no one’s interest, least the concerned parties. Which is why telling the known truth is the only option we have as a people and is healing to all parties, builds confidence among the Rwandan social fabric, is apex of reconciliation and with it Ndi Umunyarwanda-turi Abanyarwanda will flow naturally.

Heroic Prudence/Patience

Patience amidst such massive knowledge of who did what where, and how, demands a saintly heart on the part of our leadership, and all for the sake of our unitary Rwanda, which also is a sign of a leadership whose qualities are not only exemplary but also defies logic in calamity. President Kagame has been able to hold a very delicate balance of national emotions (between victims and perpetrators), heroic prudence and calmness otherwise things would have fallen apart. Ndi Umunyarwanda-turi Abanyarwanda, becomes a natural call and choice of sanity for abnormal Rwanda. Ndi Umuranyarwanda-turi Abanyarwanda.

Professor Nshuti Manasseh.
Economist and Financial Expert.
Email: [email protected]