In a recent article in the Boston Globe, Rwanda and the dangers of democracy, Stephen Kinzer perfectly illustrated how even knowledgeable Western commentators consistently get it wrong on Rwanda. His line of argumentation follows a well-established path regarding Africa:
Muting African citizens as constituency:
The success achieved by Rwanda is depicted not as a result of the daily choices of Rwandans but an oppressive State. Yet it should be obvious for every man to realize that for health, agriculture, cleanliness, security to improve, every Rwandan must make the right choices every day. The idea of a passive citizenry oppressed into peace, that otherwise would fall against each other into an endless cycle of genocide, is an old avatar of a fundamental tenant of Western views on Africa: the African people are not citizens, they don’t have political interests, and they are absent minded like an animal in the zoo. As the famous poem by Rilke goes: As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.
Genocide as natural disaster:
Closely linked to the mindless state of Africans is to associate political events in Africa to the realm of nature. In all seriousness, Stephen Kinzer claims: “Kagame’s restrictions on free speech mean that the country’s two traditional ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsi, cannot preach hatred of each other. If democracy means an end to these restrictions, the result could be another explosion of murderous violence”. First, hate speech is not an opinion but a crime in every society. Second, genocide is not ‘an explosion of murderous violence’ but, as my Professor in Constitutional Law used to say, the most rational crime. It is a State crime, a political project using State resources to plan and execute murder. Since it is a State crime, the State also uses the international order to its favor as we have seen in Rwanda, including geopolitical allies. The irony here is that even when Africans commit horrendous things such as genocide, their assumed mindlessness is used as absolution.
Sustainability and transfer of power:
Now commentators of Rwanda have found a new passion: political sustainability. Unfortunately, they don’t follow the intense debates about this topic that happened within the Rwanda Patriotic Front and the Rwandan society in general. The question on “how there can be change while ensuring continuity and stability” was intensely debated. At the end, Rwandans made a simple analysis: the real reason of our vulnerability is that we are in dependence. We therefore ought to achieve economic liberation for our democracy to be fully backed by our productivity. The real question therefore was not how fast we can change a leader but which leader can deliver economic liberation the fastest. The answer was clear; it is actually President Kagame who raised our horizon to that objective.
Stephen Kinzer ends his article by saying “If he can find a formula for political transition that is as successful as his anti-poverty formula has been, Rwanda will be a permanent model for the world”. But he misses again the point, the graduation from poverty is the political formula. Isn’t it obvious that there is no sustainable democracy, when a population cannot foot the bill of its political objectives? Again, the reason it is not obvious for a Western commentator is that for him, we may stay in dependency while there are other more urgent things to discuss. Incidentally, those more urgent things to discuss, are part of a script written for us by people who derive their sense of entitlement from our economic weakness.
The transition of power is not an event that will be successful by a change of guard. The transition of power we want is power back to ourselves. It is a process whose success depends on the choices we make every day to end the intergenerational transfer of poverty. Whoever will prove him or herself on that front will gain the confidence of Rwandans. This is the political equation Africa needs.
Africa is a rising lion 