Narratives of Victimhood and Perpetration

Preface

My Personal Journey Walking on Eggshells: Exploring Complex Post-Genocide Narratives

Being Rwandan has not been easy. Like most Rwandans, I have lost family members and loved ones. Losing them at such a young age had a painful effect on how I connect with others and conduct myself. Some 20 years late, I still feel the pain of losing both my parents, especially now that I am a parent myself. In many ways, I have not been able or allowed to mourn them properly. Being Rwandan means you exist and live within a particular political structure that pushes us to silence ourselves out of fear of reprisal - perceived or real. For years, I silenced my doubts and questioned my own story. I was led to believe that being Rwandan meant something specific, particularly because my ethnic Hutu identity was vilified. Many Conflict Analysis and Resolution (CAR) experts still talk about this ethnic identity as a homogeneously evil group.

It was within this environment I started questioning and challenging our Western social and political assumptions regarding human behavior that results from identity transformation and our moral ←ix | x→values created through social categorization or labeling. More precisely, I started to wonder how younger generations understood who they were among the mix of narratives promoted about their parents and social groups. I also wanted to know how they were experiencing and creating new meanings when they are not the ones creating their own identity narratives. This was only possible once I realized, as Gaston Bachelard once said, that it is necessary to consider “what is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak. It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us.”¹ With this in mind, I wanted to present the stories of young people from communities that have experienced genocide and forced migration. Their stories are often lost in translation or ignored because they are perceived as being too young to have experienced or remember the atrocities. Yet, as shown throughout this book, their stories are poignant and need to be acknowledged and heard.

Exploring these stories is challenging. There is an emotional and physical toll that comes with researching these types of narratives. Emotionally, asking people to relive the most painful events in their life, especially if you had a similar experience, can be triggering. Physically, there is backlash. I have been intimidated and continue to receive threats from ordinary people as well as scholars and politicians for exploring narratives of victimhood in both victim and perpetrator groups. Social media has provided a platform to those who disagree or want to silence me. The attacks I have received have not only affected me and my family, but they have both a self-censuring and silencing effect on the broader Rwandan community. Finally, because of the nature of my work and my Hutu identity, I must clearly state that I am not a genocide denier. This acknowledgment is necessary because of criticism and threats I receive from people who attempt to dismiss or delegitimize my work as well as survivors’ stories. Exploring people’s stories that do not fit specific narratives of genocide and mass atrocity does not mean I am questioning the events that took place. Rather, doing so provides a path toward recognition and healing to those who may not have had one. This is my hope for my communities and others who have experienced genocide and mass atrocities.

If I am my father’s son and my grandfather’s grandson, then I am nothing more than a memory. My identity was shaped by my lost ones and the lies people tell about my people.

— Patrick¹

Patrick was only 9 years old in 1994, the year he witnessed his parents murdered during the Rwandan genocide. It would take him over a decade to fully understand the profound effect this loss would have on the rest of his life. Not only did he become an orphan but, as a refugee, he was caught up in the violence that took place in the refugee camps in Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo). What he saw and endured at the tender age of 9 stripped him of his childhood innocence. After seven more years of emotional and physical turmoil, he was able to join some of his relatives who had resettled in Belgium. Upon arriving in Brussels, he wanted to be part of a group that not only ←1 | 2→understood his pain but provided the sense of belonging he had lacked for most of his life. Although he lived close to the Rwandan embassy in Brussels and was surrounded by Rwandans, both of which should have made his transition easier, he was once more embroiled in Rwandan identity politics. As a Rwandan and, specifically as a Hutu who had lost so much at a young age, Patrick believed he had found a place where his pain and suffering would be accepted, where he would have the opportunity to heal his wounds and move forward.