In Jean Hatzfeld’s very harrowing account of the Rwandan genocide, made up largely of testimonials by perpetrators we come to read grizzly accounts of human beings who describe in graphic detail the events of the genocide in which the processes of Othering and dehumanisation are made plain:
“JOSEPH-DESIRE: The one who rushed off machete in hand, he listened to nothing anymore. He forgot everything, first of all his level of intelligence. Doing the same thing every day meant we didn’t have to think about what we were doing. We went out and came back without having a single thought. We hunted because it was the order of the day, until the day was over. Our arms ruled our heads; in any case our heads no longer had their say.” “FULGENCE: We became more and more cruel, more and more calm, more and more bloody. But we did not see that we were becoming more and more killers. The more we cut, the more cutting became child’s play if I may say so. In the evening you might meet a colleague. For a few, it turned into a treat, would call out, “You, my friend, buy me a Primus or I’ll cut open your skull, because I have a taste for that now!” But for many, it was simply that a long day had just come to an end. We stopped thinking about obligations or advantages – we thought only about continuing what we had started. In any case, it held us so tight, we could not think about its effect on us”.
“ADALBERT: At the start of the killings, we worked fast and skimmed along because we were eager. In the middle of the killings, we killed casually. Time and triumph encouraged us to loaf around. At first, we could feel more patriotic or more deserving when we managed to catch some fugitives. Later on, those kinds of feelings deserted us. We stopped listening to fine words on the radio and from the authorities. We killed to keep the job going. Some were tired of these blood assignments.”162
Jean-Baptiste Munyankore, a survivor of the killings in the marshes of Rwanda describes how the ordinary man, associates, friends and colleagues each betrayed an unspoken human oath of trust between them, and moreover betrayed the human conscience that recoils at the taking of an innocent life. In the accounts of rescuers, it is remarkable that what is often said is, “I did what anybody else would do”, or we only did what seemed normal to do.
Jean-Baptiste Munyankore explains:
“The principal and the inspector of schools in my district participated in the killings with nail-studded clubs. Two teachers, colleagues with whom we used to share beers and student evaluations, set their shoulders to the wheel, so to speak. A priest, the burgomaster, the sub prefect, a doctor - they all killed with their own hands... They wore pressed cotton trousers, they had no trouble sleeping, they travelled around in vehicles or on light motorcycles...
These well-educated people were calm, and they rolled up their sleeves to get a good grip on their machetes. For someone who has spent his life teaching the humanities, as I have, such criminals are a fearful mystery.”163
One of the murderers, ‘Ignace’, explains what the prevalent campaign of dehumanising and subsequent murders had done to the human soul and to the human codes of recognisability between people. The Qur’ān highlights that differences between people are inconsequential in comparison to the greater purpose we serve - to know and love our Creator. ‘Ignace’ explains:
“They had become people to throw away, so to speak. They no longer were what they had been, and neither were we.”164
In this, one of the most evocative accounts from the Rwandan genocide, the explanation of perpetrator “Pio” resonates with much of what has been intended and written in this book.
The full scale of dehumanisation and its destructive effects on the human spirit, on one’s consciousness is laid bare. This book has sought to understand the Muslim’s role in a world of sometimes discordant relations festered by attitudes of Othering. It shows that such attitudes impinge upon the conviviality, harmony of existence and mutual understanding between peoples – as shown in the Qur’ānic paradigm. “Pio” begins by saying:
“PIO: Not only had we become criminals, we had become a ferocious species in a barbarous world. This truth is not believable to someone who has not lived it in his muscles. Our daily life was unnatural and bloody, and that suited us.”165
The transformation that such a removal from man’s pure conscience is reflected in “Pio’s” words: “For my part, I offer you an explanation: it is as if I had let another individual take on my own living appearance, and the habits of my heart, without a single pang in my soul. This killer was indeed me, as to the offence he committed and the blood he shed, but he is a stranger to me in his ferocity. I admit and recognize my obedience at that time, my victims, my fault, but I fail to recognize the wickedness of the one who raced through the marshes on my legs, carrying my machete. That wickedness seems to belong to another self with a heavy heart. The most serious changes in my body were my invisible parts, such as the soul or the feelings that go with it. Therefore I alone do not recognize myself in that man.”166
He compares his state to a kind of metamorphosis that one would expect in a Gothic horror fiction. The relevance of the soul and the heart in our very being are of crucial importance here as we deliberate on man’s ascent and descent, as revealed in this verse: “how it is imbued with moral failings as well as with consciousness of God!” (91:8)
The Muslim is reminded once again that it is man’s inner being, his soul and heart that speak though his behaviours. Pio says that he was “a stranger to me in his ferocity”. The Othering one unleashes on another and which, in the worst cases, initially generates genocidal tendencies and then acts of wanton killing stems from a process of Othering. That is, a setting apart other human beings from the frame of humanity; a castigating of those others as rodents and worthless.
The killing first broke out at Lake Mugesera, a site the Tutsis would use to dump bodies of Hutu victims. In one of the earliest acts of courage during the build-up to the genocide, Muslims took out their canoes to pull out bodies of Tutsi victims. In other places, Muslims would pay Tutsi villagers to prevent them from killing their Hutu neighbours. In Mabare, Muslims banded together to save the lives of Tutsis, locals would encourage locals to take possessions of the Tutsis and even their livestock, but to spare their lives, explaining Qur’ānic verses that offset ethnic polarities, such as: 49:13 – “People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another. In God’s eyes, the most honoured of you are the ones most mindful of Him: God is all knowing, all aware.” Muslim leadership issued announcements to be read on radio telling Muslims that they had to adopt positive values and not forget their common humanity, warning their countrymen about the dangers of ethnic polarisation. They often hid their victims; when Hutus would appear seeking shelter, they would take turns sending them over back fences to other Muslim homes for protection, disguising them as Muslims by providing their women hijabs to wear and the men prayer beads to hold in mosques and in the streets.
Muslim imams taught their congregations that they should not kill other human beings, but should instead rescue others from being killed. Muslims put up road blocks to prevent people coming in in their attempt to protect Tutsis. They would purchase food, drink and medicinal items to bring for Tutsi families. In Kigali, Muslims would proclaim: ‘Here, there are no Hutu, no Tutsi, we are all simply human beings.” In Mabare, a group of Muslims petitioned at the office of the district officer and announced that they refuse to hand people over.
One Mabare Muslim explained, “We refused to hand people over. I told him myself, ‘We want to rescue these people. If you want to take their cows, go ahead, but let us protect the people.’”167 A study by Kristin C. Doughty and David Moussa Ntambara outlines the factors that appear to provide an explanation for the positive role played by the Muslims during the genocide. They consider the importance of communal salah five times a day; that the bond between people, irrespective of tribal associations, is strengthened when they kneel together shoulder to shoulder and heel to heel as a regular daily practice. The fact that the genocide began just days after the end of the month of Ramadan is another factor drawn upon by the authors:
“The genocide began just a few weeks after Ramadan, the holiest of Muslim periods, a one-month period that is a time for inner reflection, devotion to God, and self-control. During Ramadan, Muslims fast during the day as a means of purification and self-discipline, and as a means of identifying with those in need and developing sympathy for the less fortunate. As well, Ramadan emphasizes the strength of community, and Muslim ideals of sharing with others are amplified, as people eat the break-fast meal together, after sundown, and consistently share food with each other. People suggested that particularly during this period, the solidarity within the community as they all perform this ritual together is strong.
Therefore, when the genocide began just a few weeks later, this strong cohesiveness within the Muslim community and the ideals of the Koran were still very present in people’s minds.” 168
Other social practices such as the sharing of food, the practice of sadaqa (charity) and zakat are also mentioned as important ways of helping believers to sympathise with the less fortunate and build a communal solidarity. Examples of empathic outreach are a remarkable testament to the human spirit. There are, however, examples of how rancorous hatred and stereotyping can produce an entrenched Othering fed on a long process of dehumanisation, such as in the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides. In the most horrific cases even family members and close friends turned weapons on the other. Muslims then, compared to now, were a small minority in the population. Prior to 1994, Muslims were marginalized to the degree that they were not respected nor were they considered as fully Rwandan citizens in the country.
When the Mufti of Rwanda, Saleh Habimana was questioned about what had made the role of the Muslims so special and unique in the 90 days of the genocide, his answer was phenomenal. It was, for the reason that Mufti Saleh envisaged the Muslim presence in Rwanda, their purpose, the achievement, the responsibility, the underlying foundation of their initiative, to be rooted in the Qur’ānic guidelines, to be active proponents of social goodness and to be bearers of Islamic values of conciliatory change. This is what Mufti Saleh envisioned as the heart of the Islamic call in the most hostile and barbarous environment.
Mufti Saleh cited the Qur’ānic verses about repelling evil with what is better than it:
41:34 - Good and evil cannot be equal. [Prophet], repel evil with what is better and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend, 41:35 but only those who are steadfast in patience, only those who are blessed with great righteousness, will attain to such goodness.
In conveying the message of Islam, a Muslim can sometimes be confronted with bad behaviour, stereotypical responses and an attitude already conditioned by negativity and stereotypes. This can manifest in the types of stereotyped questions being asked, emotionally charged responses, vilification, abuse, degrading, mockery, insult and even physical attack. In the course of the Rwandan genocide, many if not most, Hutu perpetrators said they felt coerced to kill because if they did not then they too would be killed. Groups of Interhamwe (armed militia, often youth) terrorised neighbourhoods with a “do or die” (kill or be killed)
proclamation.
What does “repel evil with something that is better” mean in such a volatile context? In a letter of instruction sent to mosques throughout the land, Imams and scholars called on Muslims to be stalwart in their rejection of any ideology not in keeping with Qur’ānic values; to remind those intent on sowing hatred and murder that Hutus and Tutsis are merely tribal designations and that we are all humans. In Kigali, Muslims were known to make public proclamations, sometimes at risk of death, announcing: “Here there are no Hutus, and no Tutsis, but here there are only human beings.” Where Hutu Interham we were keen to Otherise Tutsis with a kind of animalistic dehumanisation as “cockroaches” and “vermin” Muslim scholars endeavoured to convey the Qur’ānic worldview presented in the verse: 49:13 - People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should recognize one another. In God’s eyes, the most honoured of you are the ones most mindful of Him: God is all knowing, all aware.
The verse is essential in undercutting and offsetting binary distinctions fuelled by hate. It uproots the desire to sow division and dissension, and to castigate one group as inferior and unworthy. It is these sentiments of Othering that lie at the heart of intolerance and the burgeoning of genocidal tendencies. It is a verse that the Muslim would do well to learn and understand. It places between the caller and the addressee a commonality, far removed from superficial over-coatings and any claims of self-importance. It is more in tune with the one’s innate disposition, both for the caller and the addressee to be reminded that at the base human level, there is nothing that divides us. Seeking to be honoured, or being honoured, or ennobled is beautiful, since it both highlights and juxtaposes every human’s internal desire.
Man might seek to inflate himself and degrade another of a greater dignity, respect and self-worth. This becomes possible through the effacing of the worth of another. The verse emphasises that it is Allāh Who confers dignity upon man, even though our human framing of worth and greatness is often skewed and lacking.