There are no saints left in heaven; They are all in Kigali, Rwanda (2)

My visit to Kigali exposed the fact that the Western media reports more negative news about the developing world. This could be for reasons like the propensity of negative news to have more readership or part of the colonial mindset justifying slavery, encroachment into people’s privacy, and destruction through colonialism. We all know that colonialism was for the selfish exploitation of Africans and their resources.

In this second part of my exposition on Rwanda, I boldly repeat that the genocide was widely reported. However, the positive aftermath, the transformational recovery of the Rwandans, has yet to be constructively reported. Instead of “There are no Devils Left in Hell,” I can write, without hesitation, reservation, or apology, “There are no saints left in heaven; they all live in Rwanda.”

 “If we wish to leave the world a better place, influencing children to be positive and open, accepting equality, diversity, and inclusion, and avoiding extremism is vital to the future we want to see.”

I noticed Kigali’s cleanliness and noiselessness. The declaration of Kigali as the cleanest city in Africa in the last decade attests to its cleanliness. The noiselessness is a lesson for others to follow. Aside from religious houses having mandatory noise-proofing facilities, which save residents from the vigils’ music and loud ministrations, there is an understanding concerning the barking of dogs. You are expected to invite experts from Kenya or elsewhere to train your dogs against incessant barking when they see people on the road. Otherwise, the dogs will be euthanised to reduce noise pollution and harassment of people. In Kigali, I saw a society that values people above position and possession. The streets in Kigali are named with numbers, not after people whose relevance and contributions to national development are questionable.

In the capital, motorcycle riders ply the streets. However, without recklessness and a penchant for crime, the trade is opportune to facilitate. I tried to move around with one and preferred it as a means of transportation to riding in cars. Motorcycle riders and passengers must wear helmets. Drivers’ attitudes are the most critical aspect of this means of transportation. They collaborate for safety. We are taught to see other drivers as mad people driving on the road and to expect the unthinkable. I saw people taught to drive carefully, maintain as low a speed as possible, and collaborate with others for their safety and that of the passengers. They put the riders first and stopped to obey the traffic light. In one of my experiences, my bike driver asked for directions, and all his colleagues wanted to support him by providing the exact locations and directions to where he was taking his rider. What a radical departure from the hustling and bustling attitudes of the ‘Okada’ drivers I am familiar with.

At the Genocide Museum in Kigali were structures and images that will always make the visitors ask where the world is when family members and people mainly of the same religion with a common language decided to murder themselves. The devils in hell did visit Rwanda and perpetuate the killings of an estimated eight hundred thousand people, including children.

No matter how strong you are, your mood will change while touring the museum. There are wall posters and write-ups that explain how people who lived together facilitate the killing of one another, identifying themselves with tribal sentiments. Tribal affiliation is what no one can determine, just like the gender of children. Either you are born into a tribe or religion or you are raised in it. No one decides their parents, who later determine the religion or tribe in which a child is raised.

There are so many highlights at the museum. I asked my participants to share their most touching moments during the subsequent classroom engagements. I was touched by how my participants described their key takeaways from the visit and how they all had the right emotions to explain their feelings during the museum tour. What an experience of horror and a story of positive transformation that is yet to be used as a lesson to others or to us in transforming lives, organisations, institutions, and nations.

Read also: There are no saints left in heaven-they are all in Kigali, Rwanda (1)

A few things that stood out to me are the communication and lessons the museum wants its visitors to go home with. The Kigali Genocide Museum leaves you with thought-provoking emotions and takeaways. People admit their errors and responsibilities to building a new society; they narrate their experiences to aid healing and reconciliation, which are the prerequisites to total forgiveness and moving on in life. Also shared are manifestations of the bravery of people who are in the majority by ethnicity but in the minority by ideology and their attempts to prevent, save, hide, and work against the collective goals to eliminate the Tutsis by their siblings, who acted on the intoxications by the devils that visited Kigali from hell.

One story came to my soul. At a school, the soldiers came and asked the children to separate themselves into Hutus and Tutsis. The schoolchildren refused and claimed they were all Rwandans. This led to the loss of a few lives, but with a lesson that shaped the Paul Kagame-led revolution and nation-building efforts in Rwanda. There are no Tutsis and Hutus amongst Rwandans, irrespective of their physical differentiating appearances. There is no means of differentiating human souls. We are one with different spirits and feelings depending on the visitors in you—the devils from hell or the saints from heaven.

My key lesson from the schoolchildren’s commemorative message is that a lasting perspective of peace and the capacity to uphold the correct values are better taught at a certain age. If we wish to leave the world a better place, influencing children to be positive and open, accepting equality, diversity, and inclusion, and avoiding extremism is vital to the future we want to see.

In summary, with what happened in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide as depicted at the museum and the manifestation of togetherness I saw among the people in Kigali, my conclusion is that it was not the Rwandans that killed another Rwandan. It was simply the devils in hell that came into people using ethnicity to kill humans. The people killed have been immortalised not only by the past efforts or the memories shared at the museum but by their lives and the society the country has rebuilt—a Rwanda where peace, love, security, and togetherness prevail above petty tribal-related jealousy, hatred, killings, and destruction termed the Genocide.

Babs Olugbemi FCCA, the Chief Vision Officer at Mentoras Leadership Limited and Founder of Positive Growth Africa. He can be reached on [email protected] or 07064176953 or on Twitter @Successbabs.