The PANAFRICAN Review
Is The " Rwandan Model " Replicable ?
Frederick Golooba-Mutebi
There is a tendency among fans and foes to frame the new order as a ‘ model ’ or , more specifically , “ the Rwanda Model ”. Post-genocide Rwanda is the subject of many debates . One concerns whether the socalled ‘ Rwanda Model ” can work anywhere else in Africa . Within some intellectual circles a consensus has developed that it cannot . It can . Perhaps the most important issue to resolve right away is what this “ Rwanda model ” is or what it looks like . Suffice it to say that within Rwanda , many , among them the very architects of the country ’ s post-genocide evolution , question the very idea of a ‘ model ’, let alone whether what they have achieved should be replicated elsewhere without regard to context .
Commentators who consider this issue on the basis of conventional ideas about political reform , post-conflict reconstruction or even societal transformation believe that Rwanda ’ s single most important achievement are the strides it has made in the economic and social spheres , as seen in the consistently high economic growth rates , declining poverty , declining maternal and infant mortality , and rising literacy . These are all important advances .
Looking at the country ’ s achievements only in these terms , however , disregards something fundamental : the very foundations on which they are built . The foundation is the way politics is organised and practiced . To grasp the importance of politics one has to start from the period just before independence . As an independent country , Rwanda was born amidst political instability . It is to that early instability that one can trace the origins of the war that brought the Rwanda Patriotic Front to power , and of the mass violence , including the genocide against the Tutsi , which wiped out a substantial portion of the country ’ s population . So extensive was the physical and psychological damage that it was almost foolhardy to believe that Rwanda would recover . Even among the RPF ’ s leadership and wider membership , few dared feel optimistic .
However , from their country ’ s troubled history and the cataclysmic events which turned it into
24