Kigali is the capital of Rwanda - an African country known for the genocide that took place 26 years ago.
As soon as you land, you feel that there is something different about the country. At the airport, one of the first things that you will see is a sign not to use plastic bags. The law bans them. Once you reach the city, you'll notice that the streets are clean, and people are smiling. If you have traveled across Africa, you know that Kigali is not a typical African city. Immediately you want to know more why it is so. Then I discovered a beautiful word, "ubumuntu," that explained everything.
What Separates Us Leads To Problems
Exactly 26 years ago, Kigali was not a happy place. It was the darkest place where we could witness the worst of human behavior. There was a genocide happening where around 1 million people were killed.
The country was divided between two groups of people: Tutsi and Hutu. You would expect that these two groups are different from each other: origin, culture, language, religion - but no. The only difference was in their ID cards. One had Tutsi written beside their names, and the other had Hutu.
In 1932 Belgium was ruling over Rwanda, and they were doing a population census. People who had ten cows or more were labeled as Tutsi, and those who had nine cows or less were labeled as Hutu. Long after Belgiums left Rwanda, the division persisted. It started as a simple population census that later became a reason for hatred. Years of cultivated hatred led to genocide. Hutu (not all) hated Tutsi and committed a genocide that has been compared to the Nazi Holocaust.
One simple division of society led to disaster. The fact that over time some Tutsi had less than ten cows while some Hutu had more than ten didn't matter. The division already penetrated all spheres of life and fuelled hatred. For some, it was enough to justify genocide.
What Unites Us Leads To Solutions
The genocide ended, leaving many wounds within the country. But how do you heal a broken society, and how do you reconcile the two groups?
One of the first things that they have done was to forbid by law usage of Tutsi and Hutu words in any form or manner. Rwanda citizens got new ID cards. The division that almost wrecked society disappeared as if it never existed. People could not identify anymore with being Tutsi or Hutu.
Still, this wasn't enough to reconcile the two groups. Neighbors were killing neighbors. In a situation like this to forgive and forget is the hardest thing to do. But people with the greatness of heart became a bridge. Many Hutu selflessly risked their lives to help those Tutsi that were persecuted. Their example became a guiding light in championing humanity. Rwanda embraced "Ubumuntu" to develop a system that healed society and created a nation of one. One of the solutions was Gacaca: a system of community-based courts. These courts helped reconciliation in communities. They were promoting forgiveness by victims and ownership of guilt by criminals. Forgiving was the hardest thing to do. But ubumuntu helped unite the country, erase all the differences, and foster progress.
Ubumuntu means humanity - goodness, generosity, and kindness.
Championing Humanity
If Rwanda can champion greatness of heart, why can we all?
Dwelling on what sets us apart leads to disaster. Focusing on what unites us heals all wounds.
All conflicts in the world are rooted in what makes us different—religion, language, culture, etc. What divides us cannot help in solving the issues. As a society, we have better chances if we focus on what unites us.
Ubumuntu comes from the depth of a human heart. It is universal and transcends all the differences. It really doesn't matter where are you from as long as you put ubumuntu at the forefront of how you see the world around. For humankind, there is nothing more unifying than goodness, generosity, and kindness. Humanity (ubumuntu) must always come first and everything else second. That is all we need!
I know that I have touched a difficult topic, but the story of Rwanda has a powerful message that I needed to share.
Coming from the region where every generation witnessed war or conflict. None of those conflicts were solved entirely. They remain a barrel of gunpowder.
What was missing is "ubumuntu."