Wise words I once heard while buying bananas in a bar in Kigali, Rwanda in 2008: ‘Nothing can heal without truth; education seeks truth; so, nothing can heal without education.’ *** Occasionally on the way home from work at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda, I would go down to a little grocery shop down…
Tag: genocide
Electric-green unplugged
Today it’s April the 7th 2018, a day that marks the 24th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide. One million people were killed in a hundred days in one of the darkest, most horrific, most shameful periods in history. This post is part of the series ‘Letters from the Heart of Africa’ first…
A Festering Malice: the Grenade Attack
What kind of person would throw a grenade at a cemetery? What must happen in a person’s mind for them to be that sick? A heady mix of festering malice, an arrogant disrespect for the sanctity of the dead, a remorseless psyche filled with hate. So many years after the event, I still found that…
The Day When Time Slowed Down
Einstein said that the faster you travel, the more time slows down. In fact, if you travel at the speed of light, time slows down a lot. What Einstein never mentioned though was that time also slows down with grief. After my first few days working at the Memorial Centre I noticed there were piles…
We Need To Talk About Why People Kill Each Other
Continuing the series, Letters from the Heart of Africa No narrative on Rwanda can really ever avoid the genocide. Its magnitude and barbarism is unfathomable. In 1994, one million people were murdered in a hundred days; neighbours and friends turned on each other; the nature of the killing was especially cruel with the majority killed by…
A special place of remembrance, hope and beauty
It was the most beautiful place I’ve ever worked in: a creamy-white building with balconies facing the hills of central Kigali, nestled in rose gardens and shaded by palms, in a peaceful air filled with birdsong. But more than just beauty, this quiet, modest site, the Kigali Genocide Memorial is one of the world’s truly special…
