Tag: Western Media

  • Kwibohora & A Western Media Imprisoned In the Coloniser’s Dream Of A Divided Rwanda.

    Kwibohora & A Western Media Imprisoned In the Coloniser’s Dream Of A Divided Rwanda.

    Rwanda security forces on a parade during Kwibohora 30 celebrations at the newly refurbished Amahoro Stadium.

    In his address to mark Kwibohora30, the 30th anniversary of Rwanda’s liberation, President Paul Kagame stressed to his audience, especially young Rwandans, the majority in that audience, that true liberation begins after the guns fall silent. An article published last Thursday, in the The Conversation, is as good a vindication of what he was saying, if any such vindication were needed.

    The Conversation describes itself as an “independent news organisation dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good.” It has a section dedicated to Africa, The Conversation Africa. The site has published a number of articles on Rwanda of late, most of them, including this latest, rather than unlock the experts’ knowledge, may instead be an opportunity to unlock our knowledge, about the lack of theirs.

    The article, titled, “Rwanda’s Tutsi Minority has been in power for 30 years – but study finds ethnicity doesn’t matter to people if their needs are met,” is authored by two researchers, Associate Professor Marijke Verpoorten, of the University of Antwerp, and her colleague, Associate Researcher, Réginas Ndayiragije.

    The research we are told is based on data collected by Bert Ingelaere, a professor at the university, who sadly died unexpectedly in 2022. As well as collecting the data, he also led the writing of the first draft of a paper, from which the article is presumably drawn.

    Three academics therefore, who it seems rather than research Rwanda under the leadership of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), began with a preconception, and proceeded to find justification for it. All we have in the way of research, seems to be the fruit of the search for the justification of the preconception.

    To point out that the thesis of the article was conceived at a Belgian university, and that the two senior researchers were Belgian, may seem unkind, but it is of some relevance. Belgium is of course, the former colonial power, responsible for the cleaving of Rwanda along ethnic lines. It is a division to which the researchers cling like an article of faith, or perhaps, as an article of faith.

    In a way, the article, comes at an opportune moment, just a few days after Rwanda completed the hundred days of Kwibuka, or remembrance of the over a million men, women and children, murdered during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. On 4th July 1994, the RPF forces captured the last stronghold of the genocidal forces, and delivered the nation from the hell into which it had been plunged.

    The National Ballet Urukerereza display the Intore Dance during celebrations to mark 30 years after Rwanda’s liberation.

    As President Kagame, the then commander of the liberation forces, put it, with the guns quietened, if not completely silenced, as might have been wished, the liberation ideology could begin to be heard over that of the colonial divide and rule.

    Had the researchers been able to hear that liberation ideology, over the colonial din ringing in their ears, they might have allowed themselves a chance to understand the true meaning of Kwibohora. That it was not only the saving of lives from genocidal forces, the physical liberation of those intended to be wiped out, overwhelmingly important as though that was, but that it was also the liberation of the entire nation, from the divisive policies that would lead to genocide.

    It is not uncommon to hear Westerners claim that the RPF has “outlawed” ethnic designations, that Rwandans are obliged to call themselves that, and only that, Rwandans. The reality of course, is that not only is there no such law, there is no imposition of any kind.

    Over the last thirty years, the RPF has merely invited Rwandans to look to their history and culture, before colonialism planted the malignant seed of hate and division that would grow into a genocide ideology.

    Every Rwandan knows and understands the inescapable truth, they are united as one, as Rwandans, before all else. In a sense, in the light of Rwanda’s history and culture before colonialism, all the RPF has had to do is point to the absurdity of seeing Rwandans as anything other than one people. With this self-evident truth rationally understood, began the more painstaking liberation of mindsets. That liberation has happened steadily, because it is now no longer just a historical and cultural reality, but a fact of people’s day to day lives.

    Since 4th July 1994, the governance of Rwanda, from the lowest rung of local government, to the very top of government, has been in the hands of Rwandans. Were they to be asked to which ethnic group this minister, that director, civil servant, or parliamentarian belongs, Rwandans would be bemused.

    Today’s Rwanda, is a country that for the last thirty years, has been marching resolutely, to a Rwanda that was, before the colonially manufactured divisions. It is a Rwanda these researchers are either unable, or unwilling to grasp.

    And they are of course, not alone. They are in fact part of what is quite a phenomenon. The West insists on seeing Rwanda as a colonial dream, which for Rwandans was a nightmare. The RPF, has led the deliverance of a nation, banishing the nightmare.

    The West, however, is attached to their dream, and in that dream, it is they, not Rwandans, who determine what Rwanda is. Since the liberation, Kwibohora, Rwanda is governed by neither Tutsi, nor Hutu, it is governed by Rwandans. Understanding this, seems a bridge too far for Western commentators, from whatever sector, be it media, academia, or politics.

    “We are researchers who study political representation in post conflict contexts. We recently sought to understand to what extent Rwanda has managed to overcome the fault lines that got it to a dark place in 1994…” the researchers inform us, “our findings show that the country’s Hutu majority have over time reported feeling more represented by the government. This is despite it being largely made up of a Tutsi ruling elite.”

    They found, they say, that “the inter-ethnic gap in perceived political representation has narrowed over time. In other words, despite a concentration of power in the hands of a Tutsi elite, Hutu respondents experienced improved political representation over time.”

    Any dispassionate scholarly work, that was unburdened by the almost religious belief in an idea of a divided Rwanda, as imagined by the colonialists, might have asked themselves whether the notion of a “Tutsi ruling elite,” might be in some way flawed, given the evidence contradicting its supposition. But rather than question, let alone abandon what seems more a belief than a political theory, the researchers contort the reality to make it fit their belief.

    “This finding can come across as puzzling. But we found an answer to the puzzle in the respondents’ narratives, that is, their explanations for changes in their perceived political representation.”

    “Our study found that the Tutsi regime in Rwanda boosts its legitimacy by adopting policies that appeal to both the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority. These policies include the universal healthcare policy and improvements in public infrastructures.”

    Because the authors would never even consider that it might be their dogma that needs reevaluating, it must be the simple Rwandans, who mistake something else for political representation. That something else, improvement in all aspects of their lives.

    Like so many before it, and no doubt many that will follow, this article, and the research on which it is based, are rooted in a pernicious insistence to imprison Rwanda, into a divided people, a divided nation of the colonial imagination. It is at Kwibohora, that the tearing down of those prison walls began.

  • BBC Rwanda Coverage, Preference for Sensationalism Over The Truth?

    BBC Rwanda Coverage, Preference for Sensationalism Over The Truth?

    Rwandans, how they express their support to the country’s leadership

    The British Broadcasting Corporation, better known the world over, as the BBC, is undoubtedly a great institution. For a number of years now, Rwanda, a small African country, has been at odds with this August news organisation. In the judgement of many Rwandans, the BBC harbours a malign agenda against their country. Could the latest story on the country by one of the corporation’s most experienced journalists, suggest that they might be right?

    Few, if any brands are as recognizable as the BBC. Enviably, the corporation is able to use words like trust, reliable, in its promotion material. It has quite the reputation to uphold. 

    In any disagreement over the coverage of Rwanda stories, the corporation has wielded this reputation, with the implication that the Rwandan authorities’ objections are to the BBC’s mission to uncover truth, to “tell difficult stories” as the BBC put it, in response to what for Rwanda, was a particularly glaring offence, against that truth. 

    And because of this reputation, well earned over almost a Century, most disinterested observers will accept the word of the BBC, over that of the Rwandan authorities. 

    A closer look at three main areas of contention however, starting with this latest story, demonstrates that the BBC may have had a free pass for far too long. 

    Under the attention grabbing headline, “The loyalty Oath keeping Rwandans abroad in check” Andrew Harding, a veteran foreign correspondent, claims to have uncovered “a controversial oath ceremony that has fuelled allegations of an aggressive global crackdown on dissent by the authoritarian government of the small East African nation, dubbed the new North Korea, by its critics.” The words oath and North Korea put in invited commas. 

    The “oath” taken in the Rwandan High Commission building in central London, was, we are told, discovered through a “leaked video” on WhatsApp. 

    The story acknowledges that some of the people swearing fealty to the governing Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) party, were there of their own free will, but goes on to claim that many were there “under duress”. A startling claim is made, that failure to take the “oath” means that relatives back home in Rwanda, would be “targeted.” 

    Equating Rwanda with North Korea, is a trope much favoured by the loyalists of the former genocidal establishment of pre 1994 Rwanda. They know that this plays well with the media and some NGOs. It was a constant refrain by one such loyalist, turned self styled human rights activist, Rene Mugenzi, who seems to have been the main source of the story.

    It is clear that Mugenzi cut and pasted what we know of North Korea, onto Rwanda. That he would do so, is only to be expected from him. But why would any journalist, let alone one as highly regarded as Harding, take such obviously tendentious claims at face value? 

    The truth of this supposed ceremony is in fact a polar opposite of how the BBC tells it. The research for it was done by other more junior journalists for Andrew Harding. Not for the first time, they seem to have started with a story they wanted to tell, and any facts that stubbornly got in the way of that, were bent to fit the narrative that had already been decided.

    Far from anyone being forced to swear allegiance to the RPF, it is in fact the party itself that has been prevailed upon by Rwandans in the Diaspora, to allow them to establish a Diaspora chapter of the RPF. 

    It is one of the founding principles of the party, when still a movement, that all Rwandans are to be given a way to play a role in the development of the nation. 

    It is a principle that informed the new constitution of 2003, which was itself framed after consultation with ordinary Rwandans across the globe. 

    It is what informs ‘Rwanda Day’, an event which entails virtually the entire Rwanda government, starting with the head of state, presenting itself before the Rwanda Diasporas in different countries around the globe. 

    On the day, Rwandans and ‘Friends of Rwanda’ are briefed on the country’s progress, questions are taken, grievances heard, and everyone is reminded that Rwanda is more the Rwandan people, than a geographical entity. Wherever they are, they are assured, there Rwanda is. They are reminded of their rights, as well as their responsibilities as Rwandans. 

    In spite of these efforts and re-assurances that they are part of all that happens in Rwanda however, many Rwandans across the world still complain that more needs to be done, for them to feel included.  

    It is difficult for non Rwandans to understand the emotional attachment Rwandans feel for their country of origin. Many know what it is like to be refugees, stateless, often marginalised, disregarded, and at times persecuted. 

    It is only after the RPF victory over the genocidal establishment, in 1994, that for the first time in living memory, a Rwanda for all Rwandans would once again, come into being. To be a part of that, is not something any Rwandan takes for granted.  

    Even those who are too young to have known life as refugees, feel the reality they never lived, through their parents, older friends and siblings. The notion that they would need to be forced, threatened, into loyalty to country is quite bizarre to them.

    For those who survived the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, their attachment to Rwanda has particular poignancy. 

    Donatille Ingabire was a young woman in 1994, and clearly remembers being holed up with others, in St Paul Catholic Church in Kigali, for days that seemed like years, suspended between slim hope and despair. Would the RPF fighters, or the killers get to them first. 

    When insistent knocks at the door announced themselves as RPF/Inkotanyi, the terrified refugees would at first refuse to admit them, fearing being tricked by the killers. She remembers how it felt to finally accept that she would be spared a gruesome end. She is incredulous at how the BBC could have arrived at the story they put out. 

    “I am proud to feel part of the RPF, and to give the undertaking that I will fight for my country, and against the discrimination, the genocide ideology and the divisionism, that so many of our young people sacrificed their lives fighting against. And I would encourage every Rwandan to ask to join” she says emphatically. 

    Over the years, the Rwanda government seems to have decided that there was no longer any use in raising its concerns with the BBC, convinced of the corporation’s innate bias. But the government was moved to respond to this latest evidence of that bias. 

    “Andrew Harding’s manufactured story plays into the BBC’s bias on Rwanda” read a statement, “BBC’s editorial line on Rwanda, can’t be distinguished from propaganda.” 

    It is undoubtedly difficult to divine why the BBC would have an agenda against Rwanda, and it would be all too easy to dismiss Rwandans’ conviction that such an agenda does exist. 

    But how else to explain such blatant twisting of the truth, by such highly skilled, experienced journalists? The melodramatic description of a shared WhatsApp video as something that had to be “leaked.”

    The amateur video was in fact excitedly shared by people pleased that, finally, after years of persuading, cajoling, the RPF had relented, and allowed for a Diaspora chapter. Yet, for all the way it was presented in the BBC story, it might as well have been a glimpse into the goings on within some satanic cult.

    There is something transparently concocted about the story, which a journalist of Harding’s calibre would have smelled a mile away. Why did his researchers not go beyond Rene Mugenzi’s claims, clearly their main source? They have to have been aware of his agenda. The story could only have been published, because they, as well as Harding, were happy to turn a blind eye to Mugenzi’s fabrications, for the sake of a sensationalist story. 

    The story stiches together by now familiar claims. From David Himbara, self exiled in Canada to avoid trial for various offences, including corruption, we hear once again, how villainous are his former employers. Whenever it suits him to have publicity, Noel Zibahamwe regularly surfaces, to claim that he is in fear of his life, because agents of the Rwandan government are trailing him around Australia. 

    The sad, tragic death of the singer Kizito Mihigo, inevitably, continues to be used by Rwanda’s detractors. And despite umpteen videos circulating on the internet, during which he incriminates himself in the acts of terrorism for which he is now under trial in Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina’s arrest is still held up as evidence of the Rwanda government’s irredeemable wickedness. 

    Harding and his colleagues will have more than suspected that Rene Mugenzi is little more than a fraudulent chancer, who is at last where he has always headed. Jail. The story which hinged on his claims, was held for weeks, until the courts had sentenced him to prison, for defrauding his local church.  

    For Rwanda, the latest story is par for the course, with the BBC. The BBC World Service Kinyarwanda section has been banned in Rwanda. Rather than address the cause for it to be banned, the corporation tries to push the programme into Rwanda, from neighbouring countries. 

    The programme, Gahuzamiryango, a somewhat incongruous name, given its meaning in Kinyarwanda, uniting families, was in real danger of becoming the Fox News, for the planners and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. 

    Hardly a week went by, without one or other member of the so called Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) or their affiliate, pontificating at length, from their jungle hideout in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on how they planned to “liberate” Rwandans. And Rene Mugenzi became a regular contributor.

    After several failed attempts to persuade BBC management to understand their concerns, an exasperated Rwanda government, finally, had the offending programme taken off the airwaves. 

    Predictably, the BBC sanctimoniously claimed the Rwandans were failing to understand the need for journalistic balance, that it was legitimate to air voices from “all sides.” 

    The FDLR was formed by the planners and perpetrators of the genocide, including the Interahamwe militias, as an armed group to fight their way back into Rwanda. It is now proscribed by the UN as a terrorist group. 

    For Rwanda, entertaining their views in any way, was as if the BBC were to invite Nazis, or Neo Nazis on any of their programmes, in the name of balance. 

    Most egregious of all, was a BBC documentary in 2014, which sought to rewrite the history of the genocide against Tutsi. Provocatively broadcast on 1st October, the day RPF forces launched their armed struggle for national liberation, the documentary all but claimed that genocide did not really take place.

    It based mainly on assertions by American researchers, Allan Stam and Christian Davenport, whose thesis was simple: when in Rwanda in 1998, they noticed that almost everyone to whom they spoke about the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, told the same or similar story. From that they concluded that Rwandans had been brainwashed, and the true story had to be found out, which they duly announced that they did.

    What they postulated was dismissed by every other academic who had researched on Rwanda. Despite that, the BBC judged it worthy of a major documentary, “Rwanda, The Untold Story.” It would be fronted by one of the corporation’s most experienced reporters, Jane Corbyn. 

    Here too, any fact that did not fit the story the documentary had set out to tell, was ruthlessly excised, or circumvented in one way or another. 

    To strongly expressed protests from Rwanda about the documentary, the BBC would dismissively say, “We reserve the right to tell difficult stories”, to which, as American politician Patrick Moynihan might have said, you are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own set of facts.

    Then, as in this latest story, the BBC seems to want to have its cake and eat it too. It rests by its reputation, even as it perverts the principles that won it that reputation. Like Harding, it is well nigh impossible that a journalist of Jane Corbyn’s calibre, would have been unaware that she was subverting the truth. Why let the facts get in a way of an exciting story. The answer to that is in the adage from the great journalist, CP Scott, “comment is free, but facts are sacred.”  

    As it has done each time Rwanda has expressed dismay at the failure of its journalists, or programme makers, to live up to the standards the corporation professes to uphold, the BBC will almost certainly dismiss Rwanda’s concerns in this case too. It has the power, influence and standing to front it out, claiming to serve the very journalistic values that have clearly been perverted.

    Such disdain however, will chip away at the corporation’s journalistic integrity. For Rwanda at least, suggestion of such integrity now draws derision. It is not an impression the BBC will want to take root.

    The corporation’s newly appointed director-general Tim Davie, has vowed to put impartiality at the heart of BBC journalism. He could do worse than begin by directing the relevant departments to take a dispassionate look at their Rwanda coverage, starting with this latest tendentious offering. 

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