Forgiveness in genocide's aftermath (book reviews)
Dave Gordon - Monday, 16 March, 2009
From Catholic Register |
The slaughter lasted for 100 days in the spring of 1994. Some 800,000
Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered — neighbours, friends,
classmates.
Lay Germans often said they did not know what took place in the Nazi
death camps. Certainly, though, all Rwandans knew about the genocide
occurring in front of them. As a nation, they either swung machetes —
one by one, face to face, slashing and severing — or they were victims.
As We Forgive contains 21 chapters of various vignettes, outlining in
rich detail the experiences of ordinary Rwandans during the genocide.
Though the book at times is overburdened with repetition, and
overwhelming verbosity, it does try to tackle a penetrating moral
question. How do survivors and murderers live with each other?
For
Rwandans, it’s a predicament writ large. Since 2003 their government
has released 60,000 accused genocide attackers from prison. About a
thousand of those were placed in a “solidarity camp” where they
received instruction from government officials on how to be good
citizens, then set free.
According to the author, the backlog of cases would have taken two
centuries to sort through. To wit: a smattering of lawyers and judges
remain, innumerable Hutus are in exile and the landscape remains a
forensic nightmare.
One can only imagine how mortifying it would have been post-Holocaust
for Goebbels to have run the local newspaper next to a synagogue. Or
Mengele running an outpatient clinic next to the kosher bakery.
A survivor’s choice is unenviable: live amongst murderers or flee and
hope to become established and welcome in another country. As We
Forgive posits that one may discover hope in a people who forge lives
anew, despite the breathing reminders of their nationwide massacre.
For
them, a turning point may begin with a traditional Rwandan
reconciliation ritual, known as gacaca, where trusted members of the
community hear cases under fig trees, called umuvumu. The goal is to
create a place for the guilty to offer apology, some form of
restitution — such as build homes for survivors — and vow comprehension
of their crime. Many have participated. The author lauds such gestures.
“If Rwandans can find the courage to forgive,” writes Larson, “then
perhaps there is hope for us in those problems that seem to pale in
comparison.”
But it is inapt to characterize as an act of courage the forgiveness of
someone who butchered family members. To say such implies a lack of
courage, or even laziness, on the part of they who seek justice. As
noble as it is to forgive, the truly brave man willingly owns up, and
rightly pays for his misdeeds.
The author speaks of an apparent national rapprochement, a country
working together once again. Did they have much choice? Perhaps it was
less an all-embracing absolution but a suppression of anger and grief
by necessity — a faking of normalcy for survival’s sake.
The author warns of a “vindictive future” (read: violent) in the
absence of forgiveness. Yet, Holocaust survivors — very few of whom
forgave their tormentors — never took justice into their own hands.
Until his death recently, Simon Weisenthal hunted Nazis for
prosecuting, never offering an inch of forgiveness, for which he was
never criticized.
The author’s oft-repeated bury-the-hatchet lessons (literally and
figuratively) often sound more like a huggy, hand-holding Kumbaya
circle than realistic life. In fact, the book is a bit patronizing,
with its bullet-point, hammered-over-the-head, school-like assignments,
listed after certain chapters, including, “make a list of ways you are
holding on to forgiveness.”
Catholic priest Fr. Emmanuel Katongole, a son of immigrants from
Rwanda, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, are less forgiving in Mirror of
the Church. One sentence sums up the book’s premise: “Maybe the deepest
tragedy of the Rwandan genocide is that Christianity didn’t seem to
make any difference.”
They submit that nowhere else in Africa was Christianity so well received. Yet, scores were murdered by fellow churchgoers.
Tutsis often fled to churches for sanctuary in the hope their pursuers,
who professed faith in Jesus, would not be so bold as to murder in
God’s house. But clergy locked them in to allow the militia to lob in
grenades or fire bullets through windows. Clergy turned a blind eye or
became willing executioners.
Archbishop Vincent Nsengiyumva Kigali, for example, participated in the
government’s council during the genocide. One Fr. Wenceslas Munyeshyaka
handed over refugees in his care when the authorities came for them. To
add insult, in August 1994, 29 Catholic priests wrote a letter to Pope
John Paul II in which they denied Hutu responsibility for the genocide.
So too, Fr. Athanase Seromba consented to bulldozing his church, with
2,000 souls trapped inside.
The book’s flaws are where it detours into a screed against materialism
and finesses Scripture too easily, too often, to prove grand themes.
Nonetheless, one burning question is addressed: How does is the
reputation of Christianity rebuilt in light of genocidal complicity?
“Without lament, we move on too quickly to reconstruction,” say the
authors, adding that amends must include “the honest admission of
failure.”
For Katongole and Wilson-Hartgrove, recovery is less about a want for forgiveness, but more about the fulfilment of atonement.
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