Identities in Transition

The Enkidu Summer Conference 2007

June 1 - 5, 2007

Mexico City

in:

Shifting Burdens: Memory and History in Post-Genocide Rwanda's Unity and Reconciliation Project

Laura Eramian

Department of Anthropology

York University, Toronto

Canada

The events leading up to and during Rwanda's 1994 genocide are by now relatively well-known, thanks to popular books, films, and documentaries on the subject. In the thirteen years since the genocide, however, there have been a number of lesser known strategies implemented by the state in order to address and cope with the atrocities which occurred there in 1994. Collectively these strategies are known as the national unity and reconciliation project. They include judicial processes to prosecute alleged génocidaires, namely the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the so-called "semi-traditional" courts called gacaca. These two systems are in many ways conflicting, as the ICTR pursues a punitive model of justice while gacaca is billed as a customary, indigenous response to conflict based in restorative justice, helping people to manage their conflicts at the interpersonal level. Another prominent aspect of unity and reconciliation is the eradication of the identity cards which denoted each citizen either a Muhutu or Mututsi, and were so instrumental in distinguishing enemy from comrade during the genocide. Now, so the discourse goes, everyone is simply Rwandan. All of these strategies to overcome past schisms in Rwanda have been implemented by the state under the pretext that there is an idealized, harmonious precolonial past to which social relationships can and should return. This paper explores the relationship between memory and history for Rwandan genocide survivors in the context of the state unity and reconciliation project. In one sense, unity and reconciliation is about making public the events and experiences of the genocide. Testimony, truth-telling, and witnessing are key elements of the judicial processes at the local, national, and international levels. Likewise there are widespread efforts to commemorate the genocide and honour its victims through ceremony and memorials. Here the emphasis is on remembering. On the other hand, state priorities suggest that individuals ought to 'forget' and move beyond the memory of violence and the loss of family, friends, and neighbours, the unity and reconciliation project paving a more peaceful way forward. There are thus conflicting messages emanating from the state regarding remembering, forgetting, and the construction of an official historical record. In this paper I will explore how the burden of negotiating these state-engendered tensions is shifted to the individual. How are survivors mediating the tension between pressures from the state to both remember and forget? How is the relationship between memory and history implicated in this tension? Genocide ideology is always a project of social engineering, but so is the current unity and reconciliation project in Rwanda. Ultimately both are concerned with the construction of some 'better' society. I will question the ability of the state campaign for unity and reconciliation to achieve its intended goals by concentrating on public spaces and institutions while private memory and relationships are mostly overlooked.

About Laura Eramian

Laura Eramian is currently a second year doctoral candidate in anthropology at York University. She completed her M.A. at the University of Western Ontario for which she undertook fieldwork in Rwanda to inquire into transformations in family life and gender relations in the post-genocide period. Her main research interests are in political and legal anthropology, particularly theoretical and ethnographic approaches to political violence, the politics of post-conflict reparation, and memory/history. Her doctoral research will focus on popular conceptions of justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation in Rwanda in light of the state campaign for unity and reconciliation currently under way.