mation , taking the time to inform himself freed him from captivity . He is not alone .
Before that , Senator Marie Rose Mureshyankwano had repeatedly given her personal testimony that brought clarity to the issue of the genocide . So did Nelly Mukazayire who testified at the United Nations , distancing herself from the actions of her mother who is serving life in prison for genocide crimes .
As expected , those who would rather distort the story treated them as traitors to the “ ethnic cause ”. The result were attacks of all kinds on social media . Apparently , they had been bought off by the RPF .
And then there is Victoire Ingabire . While the RPF insists that her prosecution and conviction to a jail term were linked to the nature of her crimes and the ideological divide they reflect , which presents Rwandans with an existential threat that makes confrontation unavoidable , Ingabire insists that her Hutuness , and by extension that of millions of other Rwandans , is the real issue .
Ambiguity around the facts of the genocide serves one more purpose . It is used in a bid to prove that the RPF is no better than the government it overthrew , a regime that had ethnicity as the moral basis for its claim to power .
In other words , the ultimate goal of demystifying the RPF ’ s main achievement is to reintroduce ethnicity as a legitimate platform for pursuing political power in Rwanda . This is the terrain that the ethnicity entrepreneurs who would demystify the RPF are most comfortable with . They see it as a sure route through which to acquire power .
Going by their reasoning , once the moral foundation of politics in Rwanda is reduced to ethnicity , the RPF ’ s claims to legitimacy can only be assessed on ethnic grounds ; thereby making it legitimate , only to Tutsis . They see it as a smart way to reintroduce ethnic politics through the backdoor , which is necessary given the front door has been shut by law and kept locked by the aspirations of all right-thinking Rwandans who have taken lessons from our tragic history .
As we head towards the 2024 elections , the conscience of the nation continues to revolve around the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi . Those who saved people have a special standing because of their display of moral courage . They include the RPA soldiers and ordinary citizens who despite the danger they faced , actively put their own lives on the line so that others may live .
They represent the value system Rwandans cherish as they deepen their cohesion around shared values . The best way to counter these divisive narratives that seek to undermine the gains of the last 27 years , is to reaffirm the facts around the genocide and the values shared by those who defeated the genocidal forces .
Keeping Rwandans united around these shared values requires of every Rwandan of goodwill to amplify the courageous voices that reject ambiguity . This endeavour ought to transcend the potential political benefits the RPF would reap since , as argued before , genocide ideology is society ’ s underbelly regardless of which party is in power . When they seek to demystify the RPF , its detractors mean not only to erase these fountains of courage either literally through violence , or figuratively by drowning them out , but also , and most importantly , to erase the memory of the people we lost while also setting the ground for a recurrence .
Since those committed to confrontational western political models are here to stay , and if constructive criticism is what they aim for , then Rwanda needs an opposition that innovates around a complementary moral gravity of its own without feeling the need to destroy the one upon which the RPF stands .
Otherwise , no responsible and conscientious Rwandan , let alone the RPF ( or even its political partners who together with it constitute Rwanda ’ s post-genocide political landscape ), would countenance allowing such a discourse to pollute the air in our society .
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Dr Lonzen Rugira is a Rwandan independent researcher and former academic .
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