The killers speak (Rwanda 2)

Posted on March 13, 2010 by doradueck

(Second in a series on Jean Hatzfeld’s book on the Rwandan genocide.)

Back in 1994, between April 11 and May 14, more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were hacked to death in Rwanda. They were killed in their own communities, by their Hutu neighbours.

In his three books on Rwanda (so far), Jean Hatzfeld, a French international journalist who has also written on the war in Croatia and Bosnia, focuses his attention on the Nyamata district of Rwanda, where some 50,000 Tutsis out of a population of 59,000 Tutsis (5 out of 6) were killed. In his first, (Life Laid Bare), Hatzfeld presents narratives by survivors. In his second, Machete Season: The Killers Speak, he listens to the killers.

Machete Season, which I read first of the three, is a harrowing book. Continue reading →

Let’s add Rwanda

Posted on March 11, 2010 by doradueck

I believe that we must continuously educate our own compassion and moral understanding. One of the ways we can do this is by informing ourselves of injustice and suffering in history, and then remembering what we have learned.

This is a pedagogical imperative as well. Our children need to be exposed, in both school and home, to books and film and photographs that will teach them – in age appropriate ways – that terrible things have been done to people, that they have been done to these people unfairly, and that it is utterly wrong that they should have been done at all.

The historical events whose stories have been especially relevant for my own practice of this so far, and those I tried to ensure my children were exposed to, include slavery in America, Stalin’s regime, and the Holocaust. I’m sure these are very much a part of the moral awareness of most of us in North America. They belong to Western culture. (The tribulations under Stalinism additionally play a role in my Mennonite heritage.)

These periods, further, offer a compelling array of literature to help us. A few books I recall reading for myself, or aloud to the children, are The Diary of Anne Frank, Night by Elie Wiesel, I Am David by Anne Holm, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Underground to Canada by Barbara Smucker. There are also numerous good movies around these horrors, which work to stir our minds to a posture of “never again.”

I would like to suggest that we add Rwanda to the above – specifically the Rwandan genocide of 1994 — as a site of learning, compassion, and remembrance.

There are several reasons why I think it’s important we do this, besides the broad education of mind and heart already mentioned above. There’s a general knowledge of the genocide already, especially if we’re old enough to remember the media reports of some 15 years ago, reinforced by the public agony of Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, his book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, the film of the same name, and other films such as Hotel Rwanda.

Second, there’s a significant and growing literature on the genocide to help us listen and learn.

Third, the international community is complicit in the genocide, for its withdrawal, for its non-response. Perhaps caring now can continue to turn us around, even if it does nothing to reverse the murder of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Fourth, Rwanda is statistically a “Christian” country (65 percent Catholic, 15 percent Protestant) and, if we are Christian, we might ask how those who worshipped with someone one week could be hacking them to death with a machete the next.

Last, various groups, such as Mennonite Central Committee, are currently involved in reconciliation efforts in Rwanda. Is reconciliation even possible? And what can we learn from Rwandan attempts to live well, side by side?

Entering into the burden of the Rwandan genocide may be a more difficult task than entering the “Western” historical pieces cited above. At least, that’s how I’ve found it. I wasn’t schooled in African history, other than its broadest strokes, mostly linked to colonial conquest. Far away from it all, geographically and culturally, I sometimes struggled to remember how the narrative went, and even which group it was that killed the other. At one point, I have to admit, I wrote “Hutus killed Tutsis” on a piece of paper to fix it in my mind. (I refer to the genocide itself; there were also reprisals later in the other direction.)

However, little by little, I’m getting there. I recently discovered the work of French journalist Jean Hatzfeld, who presents the memories of a group of Rwandans in one small area of the country. I find that the stories of individuals are often my best path into a larger history and its larger demands.

In subsequent posts, I want to briefly introduce these books, as a way of remembering and reflecting on the Rwandan genocide. You may have books, movies, or other resources to suggest as well.

Songs for the Chaco

Posted on March 8, 2010 by doradueck

The Chaco of Paraguay is one of those places that cries out to be captured — described — appropriated somehow. Its climate and landscape are often inhospitable, yet there’s a compelling beauty about it too. Blood and sorrow run over it — from the awful Chaco War (between Paraguay and Bolivia) through the suffering and difficulties of Mennonites from both Canada and Russia trying to settle and survive it. A complex and fascinating mix of people have gathered to live in it, side by side, from various indigenous groups to German-speaking Mennonites to Latinos.

There have been any number of fine attempts to reveal the soul of this place and its people through non-fiction, one of the most recent in English being Garden in the Wilderness by Edgar Stoesz and Muriel T. Stackley, and a classic in German being Immer Kreisen die Geier by Peter Klassen.

But the Chaco more than anything else, it seems to me, needs fiction and poetry and paintings and film and music — the kind of creative endeavours that tell its truth, but tell it “slant,” as Emily Dickinson put it. Here too, there have been various artists at work, including the afore-mentioned Peter Klassen, a resident of the Chaco, beginning with his stories in Kampbrand. For English audiences, there’s Rudy Wiebe’s stories in The Blue Mountains of China. I gave it a go with one woman’s story in Under the Still Standing Sun. Dave Dueck and Otto Klassen have done storytelling in film.

Locally, literature and the arts are beginning to flourish — something that is often possible once the heaviest problems of pioneering have finally been solved. So the above is no comprehensive list by any means, but it does bring me to “Paraguay Primeval,” a collection of 11 musical compositions by Carol Ann Weaver, soundscapes, photos, and readings, which premiered at Conrad Grebel College last Wednesday, March 4.

My husband and I arranged a visit to our son and daughter-in-law in Toronto around the date of this premiere. H. grew up in the Chaco, lived there until 19, and I came to know it through him and his family who are still there.

I’m afraid I don’t have the musical vocabulary to describe what Carol Ann Weaver (below) does with her impressions of the Chaco, gleaned through her visit there after the Mennonite World Conference in Asuncion last summer, and with the texts she discovered through her reading afterwards, except to say that we both found ourselves deeply moved by the work of this talented and energetic composer.

Weaver tells stories, yes, but because melody and rhythm, and the sound of voice and instruments, carry the words. Thus one perceives the narrative and emotion directly and quite intensely. You feel “magnificent the Chaco sky” and

strange beauty in this Chaco land
strange beauty in this promised land

The songs tell of coming from Russia by ship, by riverboat up to Puerto Casado, by train past swamps and into the dense bush and open campos of the Chaco. Of well water “hardly drinkable” because of the heat. Of the death of an entire family from typhoid fever. Of the village settled by women who lost their husbands in Russia. Of the contrast between the indigenous Lengua women who walk like “stallions in spring” and the Mennonite women who cast their eyes to the ground. Of the beauty of springtime and nighttime.

There’s even a tango, called, fairly enough, “Tango — If They’d Have Tangoed.”

One of my favourites was “Chaco Christmas” which sings of the heat and dust of December in the Chaco, and then breaks into “Leise Reiselt der Schnee” (Softly Falls the Snow), to the accompaniment of the harp. This was a Christmas song the Russian Mennonites brought with them. For those who’d known snow, homesickness wound through the words, no doubt; for their children who had never seen snow except on pictures, there was mystery.

“Paraguay Primeval” was performed to a more-than-full-house at the Conrad Grebel College chapel. Composer Weaver was at the piano, Rebecca Campbell did the majority of the vocals, and Paul Dueck, Chris Snow, Kyle Skillman, and Ben Bolt-Martin accompanied with harp, percussion, and cello. (Here’s a KW Record report of the event.)

I don’t think that anything quite like this has been done to bring the story of the Chaco to English audiences, and I can only hope that it will land on a CD so that many others besides the March 4 audience can hear it.