We Wish To Inform!
We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Philip Gourevitch (published by Picador Classics)
This was a very difficult book to read.
Covering the genocide in Rwanda, this award-winning book by Philip Gourevitch (former editor of Paris Review and a long-time staff writer for the New Yorker) is considered to be one of the best pieces of investigative journalism and an authority on human rights or intervention. The book is based on the first-hand accounts of those who actually lived through the genocide, both, the victims and the perpetrators
For 100 days in 1994, over half a million minority ethnic Tutsis were slaughtered ( the most common weapon used was the machete) by the armed militia, comprising the majority Hutus, in Rwanda. I was very inadequately informed about the genocide in Rwanda and the lack of international intervention. That such a chilling culling of humans could take place while the world looked on is critical to understand the world we live in. It was just not state-sponsored violence. Common citizens were exhorted by the Hutu Power to kill over 800,000 of their Tutsi friends and neighbours and Hutu oppositionists. They did so mindlessly.
Author:- Philip Gourevitch
“Following the militias' example, Hutus young and old rose to the task. Neighbors hacked neighbors to death in their homes, and colleagues hacked colleagues to death in their workplaces. Doctors killed their patients, and schoolteachers killed their pupils. Within days, the Tutsi populations of many villages were all but eliminated, and in Kigali, prisoners were released in work gangs to collect the corpses that lined the roadsides. Throughout Rwanda, mass rape and looting accompanied the slaughter. Drunken militia bands, fortified with assorted drugs from ransacked pharmacies, were bused from massacre to massacre. Radio announcers reminded listeners not to take pity on women and children”
Documenting the meticulous planning behind the genocide, Gourevitch minces no words in lambasting the international community, especially the United States and France, for failing to stop the genocide in accordance with obligations under the Genocide Convention of 1948. The aftermath of the genocide was equally chilling and indicative of the double standards of the international community again. Visiting Rwanda one year after the genocide, he chronicles its psychological toll on survivors and the continuing threat to the Tutsi minority by the Hutu Power who were accommodated in refugee camps in the neighbouring countries. The author is scathing in his attack on the international community because even after the genocide the fate of the Tutsis remained fragile and terrorized. The Hutu Power was finally ousted by Paul Kagame who led the RPF ( Rwandan Patriotic Front). With this victory, Hutus fled the country in droves. In neighbouring states, international agencies established refugee camps for these Hutus. Cholera was rampant, and there was much suffering and death during the mass exodus. The media failed to provide the right context in its coverage of the exodus, essentially equating it with the genocide and casting Hutus as victims. Worse still, because the killers were not segregated from innocent refugees, the Hutu Power, taking advantage of international aid, continued to operate from the camps.
Throughout Rwanda, Philip Gourevitch encounters evidence of genocide when he visits one year later. The most heart-rending one is the memorial site –a church in Nyarubuye- where the bodies of victims were left in place. A vast majority of Tutsis were betrayed by the Church. In fact, the title of the book is based on the letter that two thousand refugees hiding in a large church in Mugonero to their pastor asking to be saved from the slaughter:
“Our dear leader, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana…We wish to inform you that we have heard that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. We, therefore, request you to intervene on our behalf and talk with the Mayor. We believe that, with the help of God who entrusted you the leadership of this flock, which is going to be destroyed, your intervention will be highly appreciated, the same way as the Jews were saved by Esther’’
It was, unfortunately, the very same Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who connived with the killers and not only surrendered his flock to be ruthlessly butchered but also actively participated in the senseless frenzy of killing.
The book received several prestigious awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and was also a New York Times bestseller.
In my opinion, however, what makes it important is that post-Holocaust, one would have liked to think that human depravity would perhaps not rise its ugly head again. That we had learned our lesson. That the World would never look away. But, this didn’t happen…the machete replaced the gas chamber.
A 5 * Star Read. A Must Read.
To remind ourselves repeatedly that we need to make ethical choices and be responsible for one another.
Lest we forget.
(In this photo, you can see a golf cap that says ‘Visit Rwanda’. Someone gifted it to me very recently, just as I started reading the book, in fact. Strange coincidence? Or perhaps, the cap is some sort of a divining rod urging me to go to visit this country. To be frank, I identified Rwanda only with Diane Fossey and the mountain gorillas and had some not very structured plans about visiting the country. But after having read this book, Rwanda tops my travel bucket list…I want to know from its people how such deep cuts and fractures on the human heart, mind and soul can heal? I want to learn resilience and courage from them.
Book review by:-
SunheriSufi
