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rwandan_genocide
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They call me Truth
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Tonight I sat next to two Rwandan girls while watching Sometimes in April
And I watched them cry
Never before in my life did I feel more helpless than I did tonight
Never before did I feel so silly
Never before did I feel so empty . . . so hollow
I tried to breathe but my lungs were sticky with sadness and it made my breath erratic
My heart tried to beat but it was being weighed down with heavy metal chains of despair
And yet, all my sorrow could not equal theirs
They intimately new the atrocity of the genocide
They mourned every April for the millions that they lost
They honored the dead at the 10 year anniversary while the knowledge of the genocide had just reached my ears
I sat there and anger rose in my heart as I heard political leaders argue over the definition of genocide while thousands died each day
I sat there and cried when I saw a school of girls shot down because they refused to say who were Tutsi and who were not
I looked over to see a friend of mine who had acted in the movie
And I watched her cry
She played one of the girls at the school
On screen her body was laying limp in another girl's arms
And in all my anger, I could not even come close to feeling what the real girl felt, lying amongst her dead classmates that had been shot and hacked to pieces
Tonight I cried and my tears were useless
And I felt a deeper despair as these two Rwandan girls attempted to comfort me
So I smiled and pretended as though I was okay
But I knew so many people would not have the privilege of being comforted by such beautiful people
Someone
Somewhere
Was decaying at the side of a road
Their body decomposing under the heat of the sun
"Never again" were the words of some American political leader
Yet today dead bodies litter a village in Sudan
And women are weeping from being raped
The empty promises of “never again" could not raise the newly dead from their graves
And yet in all my frustration I could not begin to understand what it means to starve
And I remembered that I threw away a plate of rice away today
My mind traveled a few days back into the past
Sitting in a room with the same Rwandan girl who had comforted me tonight
As she asked curiously about the African American culture
I tried to describe it to her because she didn't know what it was and she could not see it
I tried to tell her that our music had meaning but most of it did not
I tried to tell her that we treated our women well, but I could only tell her that we treated them badly
The word bitch flashed through my mind a few times
I tried to tell her that we treated each other with dignity
But I couldn't because I knew we were killing each other
I tried to tell her so many things but I ended up making excuses for our bad behavior
And I was ashamed
Because all I could say was that we had potential
But in all my shame I could not begin to understand how deeply our humanity had eroded
We were so rusty that our reflections were invisible to us
I do not know why I have said all of this
I just know that I had to say
But even as I write
I cannot begin to understand the depth of my emotion
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081119
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past
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shake_hands_with_the_devil
over the last week as_it_happens has been replaying some interviews with romeo dallaire from 1994. even when he sounds collected, you can hear the horrors we was witnessing in the back of his voice.
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081120
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They call me Truth
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yeah...He did so much but still felt like he didn't do enough...that is how you know that he really cared.
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081226
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Soma
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Dear Truth (or so I hear you are called),
After having spent my freshmen year with several Rwandan students, and getting to know them. I can only say that what you have said resonates in my very core. Were that I was the one with those words you have written, for they defined me once.
Emotion, as much of a mystery as it is, is passing. And how I regret that. Thank you for kindling it again. This past semester I had not talked to them much. How easy it is to forget when they are all smiles when you pass them by, how easy it is to forget the horrors that the human being is capable of. The unspeakable things some of us have seen.
Oh, that I could never forget. Oh that I could maintain that righteous fire kindled in my heart. I have such difficulty in remembering.
I hope...
Bah, I don't know where I'm going once again.
I guess I just hope that you don't allow youself to just forget emotions. Don't let the passing of time fade the things too important to forget.
Thank you, again.
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081227
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They call me Truth
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IT touches me that you found something valuable in what I wrote. I assure I have not forgotten. I have become much closer to the Rwandan girls that I have met and I use their experiences and the experiences of others as a motivation to do whatever I can. I will never forget.
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081228
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TCMT
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Milan Kundera once wrote in The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
"We need take no more note of [myth of eternal return] than of a war between two African kingdoms in the fourteenth century, a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world, even if a hundred thousand blacks perished in excruciating torment."
The analogy carries with it a dark implication. That nothing on the African continent had an impact on the world today. That even a war of incalcuable proportions was less significant than the flap of a butterfly's wing.
The world has too long reduced the history of a whole continent to a footnote. Has raped and pillaged it too long and then looked down on it like some ruined animal. Have spent too long blaming its primitiveness for the wounds that "civilization" caused. Has ignored its diversity of people and ideas for too long.
Let us question the idea that a war doesn't matter. A war matters no matter where it is fought.
Rwanda, I remember you.
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131113
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