What is Rwanda like today?

A review of Rwanda - From Genocide to Precarious Peace, by Susan Thomson. Yale University Press, New haven, 2018.

This book updates the situation in Rwanda today - some 24 years after the genocide.  Author Thomson details the changes and continuities since that terrible time. She describes how the current rulers of Rwanda have crafted a society of rules and regulations enforced by societal norms, peer pressures engineered by the regime and outright authoritarian control.  She sees much precedent for the strict codes and enforcement thereof arising in Rwanda’s pre-colonial history and carried forward to modern times.  Rwandans are used to being ordered about and coerced into conformity by whomever the ruling elites are.   Thomson delves into the self centered state and society now in place where although ethnic identity is squashed, Hutu citizens remain implicated and collectively guilty of genocide against Tutsi.  The charge of genocide denial or participation is an effective deterrent to political activism. Consequently, the state is firmly controlled by a small ruling Tutsi elite, who intend for the nation to evolve into a progressive entity dispensing economic and social progress for all.  For now however, it is only the ruling elites and a growing middle class that reap such benefits.  The poverty stricken masses see few paths out of their circumstances. But that is where Rwanda is - trying to move ahead, but enacting counterproductive policies - with greater social and political openness stymied by the impact of genocide. 

Thomson’s critique is pretty harsh and probably justified in looking at Rwanda through western eyes.  Her judgment of “precarious peace” is an accurate depiction of Rwanda today.  Western criticisms aside, Rwandans are inextricably bound together in their society and polity and they are going to have to work this out by themselves. Class rather than ethnicity will probably shape political divisions in years to come and the authoritarian state is unlikely to disappear.  Whether or not this might lead to violence is speculative, but another genocide as properly defined is unlikely.

Readers interested in Rwanda and/or the recovery of societies traumatized by violence will find this an interesting read.