genocide

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Getting to know the “other”

One of the most commonly proposed solutions for prejudice and bigotry is getting to know “the other”. This solution presupposes that we are suspicious of those we don’t know, or that false ideas about others will be dispelled by getting to know them. There is no doubt that this works for individuals. I have heard people say that their fear or concern about people of a different race or religion was dispelled when they got to know someone personally.

As well as this seems to work in individual cases, it fails with whole populations. There are many examples. The genocide in Rwanda was perpetrated by Hutus on Tutsis. But the Hutus and Tutsis live side by side. They speak the same language and are mostly indistinguishable. In many cases, Hutus killed their Tutsi neighbors they had known well for decades.

Furthermore, this is not an anomaly nor is in confined to Africa. In most of the cases of violent conflict between groups of people in Africa with which I am aware, are characterized by close contact and mutual knowledge. The book Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz by Omer Bartov documents a case in Europe. Bartov is a professor of history at Brown University. He notes that the close relations between two groups can actually be part of the problem.

“You can take a society in which people had lived together for centuries, and that very proximity, that very relationship between neighbors can have a dynamic of violence and self-justification,”

Knowing the other is sometimes the problem. Just ask couples going through an acrimonious divorce. So getting to know the other is a naive bromide, perhaps even snake oil.

But there is something that works, at least in Ghana. In the southern parts of Ghana, the north has a somewhat deserved reputation as a place of conflict between its many peoples, of which there are about 30. In some cases those conflicts have turned deadly. In recent years, some of those peoples have received the first ever Bible in their languages. Dr Solomon Sule-Saa has done research into the effects of those translations. He found that people who read the Bible in their language are much more likely to promote non-violent solutions to conflicts over land or other resources. The result is less conflict. Where close contact generates conflict, the Bible is helping to calm it.

By the way, there is a widespread belief in Africa that if everyone spoke the same language there would be less conflict. That belief is also contradicted by the facts.

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God because…

The genocide in Rwanda started 25 years ago this month. About one million people were systematically killed. The anniversary is sparking reflection and comment across Africa and beyond. What went wrong? How could it have been prevented? Whose at fault? Those are valid questions, but I’m not going to address any of them.

Some say that the evil in the world is proof that there is no God. I think the opposite – it shows that there is a God.

Romeo Dallaire is the Canadian General who was in charge of the UN peacekeepers in Rwanda at the time of the genocide. His warnings that a genocide was impending, his pleas for changes UN policy and for more troups were all rebuffed by those above him. So he ended up helplessly observing the terrible events he wanted so much to prevent and stop. That experience forever scarred him as it did others. Of it, he wrote:

“I know there is a God, Because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.”

Endless Congolese forest

My experience is not nearly as dramatic as Dallaire’s, but it points in the same direction. When I worked in the Congo, the Rwandan genocide had spilled over the border. I saw once vibrant cities that had become ghost towns. I heard from some who had fled their homes and lived in the countryside without shelter, many dying there of their deprivations. I became friends with a couple whose son was brutally tortured for days before dying, just because he was from the wrong tribe. I didn’t see the devil as directly as Dallaire, but what I saw increased my faith that there is a God.

But I have another reason to believe that is different from Dallaire’s. In addition to hearing about the devil’s brutal deeds first hand, I also heard about God’s deeds opposing the Evil.

A pastor friend ministered to a congregation with members on both sides of an ethnic conflict. He himself was from on of the opposing ethnic groups. When the militia associated with his ethnic group arrested a member of his congregation from the other, he took the person food (something not provided by the militia). For that, some members of his own ethnic group and congregation considered him an enemy and therefore were trying to kill him. To avoid them, he and his family slept in a different house every night until they escaped the town.

His case was not unique in Congo. Many opposed the militias associated with their ethnic group. Many were not as fortunate as my friend to escape their reprisals

If you read reports of the genocide in Rwanda, you will get hints of similar bravery. You will read that the Hutus killed Tutsis and moderate Hutus. That is, the radical Hutus killed members of their own ethnic group who opposed them. That means, of course, that some of their own group opposed them. It’s a story of bravery and righteousness that doesn’t get told very often.

In the case of my Congolese pastor friend, his actions put his whole family in danger. But his wife never reproached him for that. Instead she stood by his actions even though they put her children at risk. In them, and in many others like them, I see God because I see a display of righteousness so brave as to be miraculous.

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Don’t forget the heroes

A few months ago I was intrigued by the following news article.

Jewish and historical groups in Poland have called for a special day be put in the Polish calendar to remember the thousands of Poles who aided Jews during WW II.

The Association of the Children of the Holocaust, the Jan Karski Association and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews have addressed an appeal to President Bronisław Komorowski to initiate a Day in tribute to Poles-holders of the Righteous among the Nations medals.

Those who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust deserve a special place in the nation’s memory and historical debate, the appeal says. Read more

Map of eastern Africa

Map of eastern Africa showing Rwanda, Congo and Kenya

Something similar is needed for Africa. We see the horrors in Africa, such as the genocide in Rwanda in which radical Hutus killed almost one million Tutsis. We rightfully ask why? How could such a thing happen? Those are excellent questions, but we should ask other questions too. If you take time to read about the genocide in Rwanda, you will notice that those killed are described as “Tutsis and moderate Hutus”. The fact is that many Hutus died protecting Tutsis from the murderous rage of the  radicals in their own Hutu ethnic group (or tribe). The movie, Hotel Rwanda, illustrates just one such case.

I was in Kenya when the 2008 election crisis caused ethnic clashes. One of my colleagues, a Kenyan who gave me computer support, was saved from certain death by people of the ethnic group which were supposedly against his ethnic group. They harbored him against the attacks of their own people.

Ed and Congolese graduate

Ed and Lamumba (not his real name) graduating with a degree in Bible translation

When I worked in Congo, we sponsored a Congolese Bible translator for advanced translation studies. I’ll call him Lamumba, as it still is not safe to use his name. When he came out of Congo to start the studies in Kenya, he told a harrowing story. In his area there was a tribal war going on. One tribe would take control of his town and then kill or imprison people from the other group, then the other tribe would take over and do the same in reverse. When the militants from his own tribe were in control, a believer from his church, but from the other tribe, was imprisoned. He took that person a meal in prison. Incredibly, people from Lamumba’s church, who were from his own ethnic group, perceived that as aiding the enemy and sought to kill him. He had to sleep in a different house every night to avoid them.

When we react in horror to ethnic clashes, as we should, we should also remember that God probably has his heroes right smack in the middle. There will be many Hutu martyrs for Jesus in heaven who died defending Tutsis against the attacks of their fellow Hutus. There are other Congolese, like Lamumba, who helped fellow believers in spite of the tribal clash that should have separated them. Some probably died for it. The instigators of the ethnic conflict in Kenya are going to be tried in the International Criminal Court, but no official body is looking into the stories of those in their ethnic group who acted against their machinations.

God remembers, and one day he is going to put on display the righteous acts of those who suffered to do right, and thereby thoroughly humiliate this world (Rev. 17:8). Don’t find yourself listening to the stories and saying, “Oops! I really should have expected that,” or, “Oh! How wrong I was to condemn all Africans!”