So finally after 17 stations I got a seat and laid myself onto it, I took the newspaper from my bag which I kept to pass the time of my one and half hour journey. As I was turning the pages I came across an article depicting a very horrific incident which occurred in April 1994; Rwanda genocide. More than million people including women and children of Tutsi community and moderate Hutu’s were killed in a series of mass killings carried on by the Hutu majority (Hutu and Tutsi are two ethnic group of Rwnada, Hutu being in majority). It all started when the airplane carrying the then president of Rwanda and the Hutu President of Burundi was shot down when it was about to land in the capital city of Rwanda. The following day Hutus started killing Tutsi people.
The people who were once neighbors started killing each other. Children were beheaded in front of their already terrified parents. Women were raped repeatedly and were infected with AIDS so that they die slow deaths and for this purpose AIDS patients were released from hospitals and were recruited in what was called ‘rape squad’. Atrocities have been even considered more brutal than Holocaust.
As I moved past the background and happening of this atrocity, I came across two names, Alice Mukarurinda and Emmanuel Ndayisaba. Alice is the treasurer and Emmanuel is the vice president of the group that helps the genocide victims. Alice’s baby daughter was killed in front of her and her right hand was chopped off in the maniac killing spree. Emmanuel was the person who killed Alice’s baby daughter and took her hand with his machete. Emmanuel in total killed 14 people. He was recruited by the militia and was encouraged to kill the tutsis. After the genocide Emmanuel was pervaded by guilt. He pleaded the survivors and victims of genocide for forgiveness. He then joined the group which was helping the victims and eventually came face to face with Alice. He pleaded, begged for forgiveness. After two weeks Alice gave that one thing to Emmanuel that changed his life forever, forgiveness.
In just two weeks of time Alice forgave the man who killed her baby daughter and took her arm. Not only she forgave him, she also attended many programs with him regarding the supply of aid to the victims. 20 years later they are friends and still work together. Not only Alice but whole country has moved past the feeling of anger and revenge and has indulged themselves in developing the society and economy of the country. They have had their achievements to some extent in 20 years. They still mourn the deaths and shed the tears remembering those who lost their lives and soul but they move with it. They don’t encourage it as an agenda to build politics. They don’t use it as an excuse to point out each other’s drawbacks. They use it as a teaching tool and learn from it to build their country’s future.
Many such things happened in our country too but we have not been able to move past those things and when we try to do, we are constantly reminded of our misery through rallies and speeches from the Khadi laden intellectuals and some religious police. One might say, how can we forget what they did?
It is not about forgetting it, it is about acceptance, learning and forgiveness. Accepting what has happened brings truce to the fight that fight from ourselves, learning from the past glorifies the future and forgiveness leads us to humanity and peace.
But the quality being a human does not come by wearing a T-shirt with the inscription saying ‘being human’. It comes from feeling it, being empathetic to others. Those who created the slogan must have felt it that is why they made it. Anger is something that leads us to believe only in revenge and nothing else. It takes a courage like Alice to forgive and be a real human. So who is brave Alice or the one who destroy lives and takes it or encourage people to do so out of anger?
Gandhi Ji said “An eye for an eye will only make whole world blind”. Blindness comes the moment you are filled with anger. The forgiveness and atonement can only make the world a brighter place.
As for me, I forgave that girl thirty minutes and one article later.
