Humanitarian Revolution: “We are Rwandans”
“We are not Hutu. We are not Tutsi. We are Rwandan.” Isn’t it powerful?
People forgive each other, help each other, and work together as a nation. In Rwanda, no shadow of the national tragedy can be seen, expect in certain tourism spots. People even talked about the issue with us peacefully. Isn’t it strange and confusing?
I thought the forgiveness would be a forever myth to me until I came across a TED talk delivered by Steven Pinker The Surprising Decline in Violence after I came back to Monterey. It was not so late to understand it.
He mentions Rwanda’s genocide at the beginning of his speech and presents four explanations on why violence declined. The first explanation comes from Thomas Hobbes taking about the necessity of establishing states that can regulate individuals and groups’ behaviors, make deterrence credible, and improve peace. The second explanation is from James Payne, a political scientist, mentioning that by developing technology and economic efficiency, people can enjoy better life conditions and longer life expanse. Therefore, people have higher life value and eliminate violence. The third explanation talks about nonzero-sum game origin from Robert Wright, a journalist, who stresses that both parties can achieve more if they cooperate and treat each other in an non-violence way. The fourth explanation is new to me, which comes from Peter Singer, a philosopher, written in his book The Expanding Circle: people have empathy on each other within certain circle which grows wider along with history. “It expanding from the village, to the clan, to the tribe, to the nation, to other races, to both sexes.”
These explanations can be all applied to Rwanda case. However, before we apply all explanations to Rwanda case. I want to mention another concept addressed by Pinker: humanitarian revolution, discussed in his work The Better Angels of our Nature. Education and innovation on social concepts make people much rationale and have more empathy on others.
With no offense, I saw the Rwanda before as a tribe society and customary society, though they had a present and performed in modern political system. Before 1994, the country ran stably under governance and the social concepts among country had less change through thousands of years. People even lived in straw houses which had less change compared to ancient society. Before 1994, education, technology and economy developed less actively so that people’s circles were limited to local clans and villages. Distinctions and hatreds were easily generated with less empathy among people. Diseases and early death were common as well which made situation even worse. In this way, people with worse social status could be easily instigated and manipulated. People, even president’s family, would have less empathy on other races. Genocide became an option to express their hatreds and achieve “satisfaction” which is an ancient and tribe-like way to govern and show off power.
However, crisis can generate opportunity. The genocide can be seen as an Enlightment for Rwanda. Following historical stages, the country changed through thoughts and concepts to hard power, economy and technology. Thanks to the national tragedy, Rwanda went through a gradual humanitarian revolution. “We are not Hutu. We are not Tutsi. We are Rwandan” came at an exact right point. As we can find out, after conquering race issue, Rwandans expanded circles to a national level. Therefore, in the future of that time, in the past 22 years, now, and maybe in the future, they gradually move focus to enhance education, advocate gender equality, develop Internet Computer Technology (ICT), and increase international cooperation.
Now let’s come back to my confusion: Why they forgive? They have to? Or they are willing to? Both answers work because both of them have been going through humanitarian revolution unconsciously.
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Civilizations: some feelings and guesses
I felt so magical that though the planet has given all civilization same amount of time, different civilizations have created totally different cultures and cultural patterns.
As a Chinese, visiting the History Museum and King’s Palace, I felt that I was chinaware in potteries. Everything displayed in the History Museum is so bold and unconstrained, patterns, materials, and meanings. Everything was in brown, pots, containers, chairs, clothes, accessories, and arms. Everything brought a feeling of nature to me. Everything tried to show me the original and natural appearance of human civilization. Everything was so lovely and clumsy. If I saw several straw houses without explanation from tour guide, I’ll never associate them with emperor family. However, they did. In fact, after listening to the guidance, I could feel the solemn from every straw the “palace” was made by. It is the power of history. People can feel alienated and even uncomfortable. They can hardly be disrespectful to history because it is what forms visiting country’s civilization and influences people’s own history directly or indirectly.
It is very interesting to discover that the tastes of Rwandan food, especially spring rolls and meatballs, and language pronunciation are very similar to Chinese food and pronunciations. In fact, in 15th century, Ming Dynasty, Zheng He, a Chinese official appointed by a Ming emperor, sailed around Indian Ocean and came to the coast of Africa. He took giraffes which was considered as mythical creatures back to China. As Rwanda’s territory was much bigger in the former time than nowadays. There is possibility that Zheng He had come to Rwanda and might bring Chinese culture here. But they are all my guesses. However, because of facts of tastes of food, language pronunciation, and the history that Zheng He had been to Africa, the blend among civilizations cannot and should not be neglected.
The blend of civilization in history may be guess and the one is going on today is visible. The U.S. helps Rwanda in a way providing soft power. China cooperates with Rwanda with construction and agriculture, working on tangible existences. The communication between civilizations becomes more direct, active, and positive broadening all communication participants enlarge their empathy circles and developing as active participants in world civilization. International citizen has become buzzword for a long time, along with phrases such as international scope especially MIIS population. Intercultural competence is highlighted by anthropologists and instructors. However, the aim of forming intercultural competence should serve as a foundation of cultivating world citizens, developing world civilization, and enhancing international scopes.
The development of human civilization is from the universe to tiny particle, and from tiny individual to universal international world. It can be described as a circle and cycle. Following such trend can be a good idea. To better understand what I scribble here, Rwanda is a nice place recommended to visit.