Rwanda
Buying a one-way plane ticket home from a destination halfway across a continent is a bold plan. There are many potential reasons that could have kept us from reaching Rwanda by our deadline of August 1st. But as we arrived in Kigali on July 25th during our 182nd hour of travel on bus or train, it became official. We had made it! I felt a surge of pride that we had completed our journey, a twinge of sadness that it was coming to a close, but most of all, an eagerness to learn more about Rwanda.
I had strategically designed Kigali, Rwanda to be the final destination. As someone passionate about sustainable development, Rwanda is in many ways a model for the rest of the world in terms of what is possible within a generation. Many are familiar with Rwanda’s brutal 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 were killed, leaving 300,000 children orphaned and 85,000 children as the head of their household. Unfortunately, that is all most people know. What has happened since is nothing short of remarkable. Unfortunately however, you will rarely hear this story told fully by the Western media. Rwanda’s turnaround has been dismissed because it represents a threat to those who hail democracy as the only suitable system of governance. The media consistently dwells on stories of the genocide or the alleged human rights abuses committed by President Paul Kagame and his regime. Peering at Rwanda through a Western political lens, there are all sorts of issues. Yet inside the Rwandan borders, few are skeptical. President Kagame’s approval ratings are through the roof and he consistently gets upwards of 98% of the total vote in the elections (of course, these numbers are disputed by the West). People consider themselves happier and better off each year. Access to healthcare has skyrocketed along with primary school enrollment and foreign investment. Universal healthcare is provided to anyone that pays the fee of around $3 USD per year. Rwanda has a higher percentage of women in government than any other nation in the world (64% of Parliament seats in 2018). Kigali, the capital city, is one of the cleanest in the world due to strict anti-littering laws. On the morning of the last Saturday of every month, the entire nation of Rwanda does community service together. There are mandatory “no car days” to encourage exercise and healthy lifestyles. And yet, it also clear that many freedoms are restricted here. Mr. Kagame has served as president since 2000 and shows little sign of transitioning power to anyone else. Discussing sensitive topics can wind you up in prison. Speaking poorly about the government can get you in very serious trouble. Welcome to Rwanda…the most progressive dictatorship in the history of the world.
To understand President Kagame’s current role as ruler of Rwanda, one must first understand how he rose to power. In pre-colonial times, Rwanda had two main tribes which were based on class: Hutu and Tutsi. Then the Belgians, during colonization, made these divisions stronger with mandatory identity cards. The divisions become racial. During the 1994 genocide, radical Hutus slaughtered Tutsis and moderate Hutus using a variety of weapons, including guns provided by the French. Paul Kagame was a Tutsi. He led the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to take power and stabilize the nation. Since then, he hasn’t looked back. Mr. Kagame has taken Rwanda from a post-genocidal state to a model for sustainability and public health for the rest of the world. He has taken a landlocked nation with bad neighbors and turned it into the IT hub of East Africa, building a knowledge-based economy focused on services. The current administration has invested in science and technology and created a goal to end foreign aid. Per capita GDP quadrupled from 1995 to 2010, infant mortality has been reduced two-thirds, and primary school enrollment is nearly approaching 100%. And yet, Mr. Kagame has quite ironically been the enemy of global human rights organizations which say he stifles free speech and accuse him of assassinating political opponents.
It may be true that many of these claims are overstated, but even if they are true, it seems that the net gain of “human rights” has increased under the Kagame regime. The rate and scale of progress is literally unprecedented. The vast majority of the threats on freedoms in Rwanda have been for the people’s own benefit. Littering and not wearing helmets on bikes are strictly punished. You can be jailed for speaking about tribal differences. The words Hutu and Tutsi have been banned from the vocabulary, as people are taught they are all equal Rwandans. From an outsider’s perspective, this seemed a little harsh, until I learned about the genocide in more detail. According to UNICEF, 80% of children survivors experienced a death in the family, 70% saw someone being killed or injured, 90% believed they would die. I simply cannot comprehend the amount of trauma that has caused in the population. Why risk allowing that sort of rhetoric when it could be psychologically damaging to the majority of the population?
“You’ve got to understand,” says our host Francis, a 21 year-old Rwandan who attends school at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, “Post genocide…why would anyone care about democracy? Why would anyone care about free speech? All people cared about is that they and their families were safe. People need to stop comparing the US to Rwanda. The histories are too different to compare.” The Western media continues to discredit Mr. Kagame’s regime in Rwanda simply because it is not a real democracy. But what if a benevolent dictatorship works? This is a possibility few Americans have considered. We have a long history of imposing our ideals on nations which do not share these same values, and any slander on Rwanda is no different. It delegitimizes the real and tangible progress Paul Kagame has accomplished in making the day-to-day lives better for Rwandans and perpetuates harmful stereotypes. The West feels like it has an obligation to comment on and police the rest of the world, but there are times when we should back away. Instead, let’s consider another perspective, provided by a young Kenyan named Paul who I met in Nairobi and later connected with in Kigali. [I’m paraphrasing here] — “People need to stop assuming western democracy works for Africans. That’s not how we did things pre-colonialism and it doesn’t need to be the ideal standard today. We had traditional kings who stayed in power for long periods of time and encouraged grassroots community development. If that style of governance is working for Rwandans and Rwandans want it to continue, why mess with it?”
That grassroots community development, so integral in many African cultures, has been embraced by Mr. Kagame. He has introduced a series of “homegrown solutions” based on traditional cultural values which are intended to progress the nation’s development. Thus, Rwanda’s growth has not been based on Western models, but rather thought systems that make sense to its own people. The most famous of these is umuganda, which literally means “coming together in common purpose to achieve an outcome”. During umuganda, the final Saturday of each month, pre-designated community groups come together to better their neighborhoods by performing tasks like picking up trash, installing lights, trimming bushes, or building roads, bridges, and irrigation systems. The people I spoke to said that umuganda teaches them to take initiative and bond with their local community rather than expecting the government to provide everything for them. It also acts as an information channel to the grassroots. Community leaders update their groups on news from the top and report back with feedback and advice from those on the ground. Leaders told me that policy is often influenced by the feedback from umuganda groups. This is just the beginning of the homegrown solutions that have revolutionized the country. Girinka (an initiative to get everyone a cow to provide an additional source of income), Gacaca (a traditional communal court system), and Umwiherero (a retreat where leaders convene in a secluded place to reflect on the issues in their communities) are just a few more examples.
These homegrown solutions have transformed the country from a genocidal state to a tourist destination. But make no mistake about it, Paul Kagame only shows you what he wants you to see. There is still plenty of extreme poverty in the country, but you have to look for it. From the pristine and modern Kigali International Airport, tourists are swept on flawless asphalt roads lined with palm trees to the city center where they are greeted by their posh hotels. They can explore the well-manicured parks around town or the newly polished Kigali Heights neighborhood to shop prior to going on their gorilla-watching safaris. The dirty street vendors have long been swept away from Kigali’s center and beggars are very rare. Kigali is designed to attract foreign investors, and the strategy seems to be working. The disruptive Silicon Valley startup Zipline, valued at $1.2 billion, began its operations in Rwanda, making it the first country in the world to deliver blood and other lifesaving medical supplies by drone. The British football club giant Arsenal recently signed a sponsorship deal with the Rwandan government, and football fans who tune into Arsenal games will see “Visit Rwanda” on the players’ sleeves for the next three years.
Whether that foreign investment actually trickles down to the poorest of the city remains to be completely proven. Still, even in the poorer areas, support for Mr. Kagame seems unwavering. Even if they are not benefiting as much as those in the wealthier areas, most people’s quality of life has at least marginally improved recently, and probably more importantly, the country remains peaceful. We spent umuganda day with our friend Isaac, whose mother lives in the slums on the outskirts of Kigali. Even there, people were proud of Mr. Kagame and their country. “Neighboring African nations are jealous of Rwanda and President Kagame,” Isaac said. It is true that along with the negative press from the West, there are sometimes demeaning sentiments from those we spoke to in neighboring countries as well. Mr. Kagame keeps accumulating more titles and other leaders aren’t as pleased. But within Rwanda’s borders, I couldn’t find anyone who didn’t like the man. At umuganda, I asked a banker named Philbert why he devotes so much of his spare time to leading his local community group when he could be doing something else. “This is patriotism to me,” he instantly replied.
If Paul Kagame has done one thing, he has empowered a large majority of his people to take accountability for their personal and communal well-being. Of course, 25 years after one of the most horrific atrocities in human history, serious psychological and social damage still persists in the population. But arising from the ashes of genocide, hundreds of thousands of inspired Rwandans have taken the initiative to unify their fractured nation once more and make it a more peaceful and just place for all. We must not let their work go unnoticed.
Rwanda, like everything when you truly get to know it, is complicated. It’s rapidly growing, evolving, and becoming a nation quite unlike anything that has ever existed. It may become a cautionary tale against over-consolidating executive power, or it could become a model that not only the developing world, but Western nations as well, are forced to at least partially replicate. We would be wise to pay attention.
