Ethnic Conflicts Course Presentation NYU
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
I am pleased and honored to be here tonight to speak about Rwanda. I confess
that I never dreamed about connecting with Rwanda, and had little knowledge
about its history including its genocide. Then suddenly I fell into a relationship
with this small nation that has gotten much deeper than I could have imagined.
You might call it a love affair. Several experiences contributed to this
relationship:
1) Stephen Kinzer’s book, A Thousand Hills, which I encountered when it was
selected as the Freshman Read at the University of Scranton.
2) Photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik’s exhibition of photos of Rwanda’s
raped women and their children—let’s say a modern age ironic version of
“Madonna and Child” portraits, with quotes from the mothers about their
heart-rending situations. Torgovnik’s experience with these women was so
compelling that it caused him to create Foundation Rwanda—to raise funds
for the support of the secondary education of those children and training
for the mothers.
3) The accounts of economic development expert Michael Fairbanks who had
worked with President Kagame and numerous other African heads of State.
He convinced me that this small, poor land-locked country would be the
flagship nation of Africa-- which in a number of ways is true. He persuaded
me to visit and conduct a roundtable discussion in Rwanda on “The Role of
Higher Education in Strengthening Democracy and Civil Society.”
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4) And of course, my personal experiences there--having visited the country
nine times.
I’ll start with an observation on ethnic conflict: it seems to me that colonial
powers and the oppressive indigenous leaders who often follow them do not
object to ethnic conflict; I’ll go so are as to say that in some cases, when it is
convenient for them to do so, they sponsor ethnic conflict!
That said I came to Rwanda accidentally. Don’t we all get into our best and worst
situations that way! I encountered old friend Michael Fairbanks as he was
receiving an honorary degree from the University of Scranton. Not having seen
each other for years we were catching up on our respective activities—his were
all related to economic development and mostly though not exclusively in Africa.
He was and continues to be a pioneer in teaching and preaching about
entrepreneurship, recognizing that it is the quintessential way of building capacity
in a newly freed nation. And building capacity is the most sought-after,
appreciated contribution to people who want finally—to have control over their
own destiny. I described my activities which had been related to civic
development, mostly trying to persuade leaders in higher education that they had
a responsibility to prepare their students for citizenship along with whatever else
they were preparing them for. At this point I saw an interesting parallel. People in
developing countries need to be taught about entrepreneurship because it’s new
to them. Most people were farmers or worked for the government. As for
citizenship that was equally foreign. Oppressive leaders have subjects, whose task
is to obey the law not create the law. Citizens in a democratic society have
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responsibility for what we call “the public good,” the society writ large. And so we
found common cause it our joint project: building economic capacity and building
civic capacity. Both, in my view, are equally necessary.
Between Mike Fairbanks’ work in the field and Kinzer’s book A Thousand Hills, I
was eager to plunge right into an action plan in Rwanda that was in harmony with
work I had done in the US and in Europe: persuading people of the central and
essential role that citizens play in making democracy work and helping people
make the transition from subject to citizen; an aside: in the US I propose
transitioning from consumer to citizen. But that’s a story for another time.
Another influence was my visit to Kenya on my way to Rwanda. I was on
assignment to speak for the US embassy in Nairobi, a large and developed capital
that abounds in universities and ngos, has splendid hotels and lots of welleducated people. The problem there was and continues to be corruption. Crime
was rampant; corruption infused every transaction that was to be made—from
traffic infractions to customs office bribery to dealing with members of
Parliament. A few months before I got there, there was a rigged presidential
election—which erupted into a siege of ethnic conflict. I believe it was sponsored
by the incumbent who remained in office despite a clear majority by his rival.
The armed robbery on the street was so bad that the embassy staff would not let
me out of their sight. I walked no place. It was even harder for me to believe what
Mike Fairbanks had told me about Rwanda—no crime, no corruption. You can
walk anywhere in Kigali alone—day or night. It was true then and it continues to
be.
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The purpose of my first trip in April 2008 was to conduct a roundtable discussion
on “The Role of the University in Strengthening Democracy and the Culture of
Civil Society.” The roundtable included members of the higher ed ministry,
leaders from several academic institutions and a small international team of
educators that came with me. Through Mike our roundtable had the president’s
blessing. And when I produced my first Rwanda handbook, based on a
recommendation from the roundtable to foster more public discussion, President
Kagame requested its translation into the native language.
I won’t go into the reasons for my return visits at this point. Suffice it to say that
we were trying to get the books in the hands of people in schools, in Ngos,
businesses, in government offices and in the media. We’ve had successes on all
fronts: for example the English language newspaper in Kigali serialized the first
book, with articles appearing every Saturday; then on Sunday a local radio station
organized a talk show on the book. The second book came into being to show the
successes as well as the challenges on the ground. There are plenty of both. Both
books, thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are available in Rwandan
embassies around the world. And the books are used as a resource for youth
conferences in the national library and, frankly in many places that I don’t know
about.
The national library, by the way, is very important symbolically as well as
functionally. Rwanda is not a country that reads. It has a rich oral tradition which
is valuable in its own right but inadequate if you aspire to be a player in the 21st
century global community. So the library provides many programs that encourage
reading.
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But the greatest inspiration for me in continuing to work there are the young
people that I have met, employed and depended upon. Any of us in the States
would yearn for such assistants! Mine—they all have been educated young
women—were full of bright ideas, were socially comfortable and fearless—
picking up the phone to call a government minister—and having us meet with him
or her within 15 minutes. I saw the master’s program at Carnegie Mellon
University’s Kigali campus where Rwandan students are taught cutting age
technologies that are equal in their sophistication to its programs In Pittsburgh.
The young women I met there are a dreamy combination of respect for others,
especially elders and bold, daring ambitions. In fact the way I would lose an
assistant, who always got me another before departing, is that she was going
abroad to study—one to get a master’s in public administration at the University
of Manchester and another a master’s in mathematics in a university in Finland.
Their passion for knowledge undaunted by the dramatic cultural differences in
places.
Also inspiring—The Gacaca Courts, several thousand of these community courts
headed by elders in their communities that tried genocide perpetrators
completed their task. To me it is the most effective, proactive iteration of truth
and reconciliation known to us. The Rwandans were aware that if they turned to
formal courts it would take many decades if not centuries to complete the task—
and they had to get back to the business of recreating a society
Health care in Rwanda. The country has the lowest infant mortality rate in Africa.
Rwandans have an uncanny affinity for getting things done. While international
aid groups were initially wary about getting involved, Rwanda took ownership of
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its own development and built a new health care system. Average life expectancy
has more than doubled in the past twenty years. The number of children dying
before age 5 has dropped to a quarter of what it was in the year 2000. There are
many such stories that sound like fantasies. Rwandans deplore corruption; Dr
Drovac of Partners in Health says “Rwanda is the only nation where US
government aid for HIV-AIDS drugs goes directly to the government, because it is
trusted.”
I could give you more stories but what I see here is a native resilience and verve—
encouraged by and not suppressed by the government. Rwandans want things to
be home grown—deriving from the talents and resources of Rwandans. That’s
why education is so important to them. And they believe in a future and want to
choose the future. More literacy, more good health, economic independence and
justice. As far as I can see they have a government that enable such a mindset ant
its results. While it has been in a way-unwestern to praise the government and in
particular its president, Paul Kagame, for any of its successes I can only say that
the actions and ambitions of the Rwandans speak for themselves, their traditions
and their leader.
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