Part of review forum on “Navigating Cultural Memory: Commemoration and Narrative in Post-Genocide Rwanda”
In his important new book, Navigating Cultural Memory: Commemoration and Narrative in Postgenocide Rwanda, David Mwambari consciously seeks to apply “decolonial approaches to memory” (26) to inform his analysis of Rwanda. He challenges both the degree to which understandings of Rwanda are modeled on the example of the Holocaust rather than genocides and mass atrocities in the Global South and ways in which a master narrative embraced by Rwanda’s new elite, in cooperation with the international community, silences alternative narratives about Rwanda’s past. Mwambari argues for a “dignity-centered turn” (37) to the analysis of memory, centering his work on the Rwandan concept of agaciro, which means “dignity, self-worth, and self-respect in relation to another’s Agaciro” (7). Mwambari then explores both the hegemonic master narrative of Rwanda’s past and of the genocide in particular and the diverse ways in which the Rwandan public has responded. He finds that Rwandans fall into the categories of Champions, who embrace the master narrative; Antagonists, who challenge it and offer counter-narratives; and Fatalists, who seek to avoid focusing on the narratives entirely. A major observation is that even in the face of an attempt to create a hegemonic discourse about past events, people react differently, and their reactions are not determined by their ethnic identity, status as a genocide survivor, or other social positioning. In addition, he notes, people’s perspectives change across time.
Mwambari’s book is welcome in part because so few of the publications on Rwanda are written by Rwandans. Going back to the late colonial era, Rwanda has long received disproportionate focus from scholars. Since the genocide, international scholarly interest in Rwanda has exploded even further, with countless articles and books appearing on both the genocide and postgenocide society and politics in leading journals and publishing houses. Yet very few of the titles published in the Global North are written by Rwandans. According to analysis by Phil Clark, Nicola Palmer, and Felix Ndahinda, only 13 out of 398 articles published in leading journals between 1994 and 2019 had Rwandan authors. Although a project they led has helped publish a number of articles, Jean-Paul Kimonyo’s two books, Rwanda’s Popular Genocide and Transforming Rwanda, are among the very few recent scholarly book-length studies of Rwanda written by a Rwandan scholar.
To suggest that Mwambari’s new book is vital only as a Rwandan academic voice would, however, diminish its significance. His analysis offers important new ideas both for understanding Rwanda and exploring collective memory more generally. As Mwambari explains, he is both an insider and an outsider. As a Rwandan and native speaker of Kinyarwanda, he experienced the trauma of Rwanda’s terrible violence in the early 1990s. But he is also someone educated in Western schools who has lived in other parts of Africa and in Europe and Australia (xvi–xx). What, specifically, does a Rwandan scholar who is trained in Western methods observe that scholars from outside Rwanda have overlooked?
Mwambari’s position as an insider allows him, first, to think differently about what warrants academic attention. He notes that most of the work on postgenocide Rwanda, including my own Memory and Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda, focuses excessively on the state, reflecting a general state-centric fixation among scholars from the Global North. While he does not deny the importance of the state, he argues that many other actors also contribute to building and promoting Rwanda’s master narrative. His book analyzes poetry, music, and theater as spaces where Rwandans work both to build and challenge the master narrative. He also explores the key role of the media in shaping public memory. Overall, his book argues for a wider lens to study how memories and narratives are formed and challenged, understanding that the state operates within a broader social, economic, and historical context.
Mwambari’s deep understanding of both Kinyarwanda and Rwandan culture also give him access to local concepts and language that even outsiders who have long studied the country may not fully grasp. Kinyarwanda is a complex language with considerable nuance that is a challenge even for many Rwandans fully to grasp. He also discusses inanga, a genre of music named after the stringed instrument on which the songs are played. Many of the inanga tell the country’s extensive folklore and its history. Mwambari notes that in the inanga that he heard in his youth, he learned contradictory accounts about Rwanda’s past that introduced him to the idea of counternarratives. His discussion of the concept of agaciro similarly grows out of his insider knowledge of Rwanda.
These are just a few examples of the rich ideas that Mwambari brings to our understanding of postgenocide Rwanda and that make his book valuable. I would not dismiss the contributions of outsiders, since some foreign scholars have done deep and respectful research within Rwanda, learning Kinyarwanda, spending long periods in the field, and producing insightful texts. Yet what Navigating Cultural Memory clearly demonstrates is that the dearth of research and publications by insiders has impoverished our understanding of Rwanda and other African societies. Bringing Rwanda into the comparative study of memory and genocide is inherently decolonial, whether done by a Rwandan or an outsider. Yet, if we are to understand the genocide against the Tutsi and its aftermath—or any other aspect of Rwandan culture and politics—we clearly need more scholars like Mwambari and more books like Navigating Cultural Memory.
