المستخلص: |
After a violent conflict, the experience of bloodshed and terror leaves deep scars amongst the parties of conflict. In cases where violence perpetrated the intimate realm of a community, such as during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, future cohabitation is profoundly affected by the experience. Coming to terms with the past is a major challenge. The division of Rwanda has a long history, central to the Hutu-Tutsi conflict lies the interplay between ethnic realities and their subjective reconstruction (or manipulation) by political entrepreneurs. Over time, ethnic belonging has become meaningful for many Rwandans, even more so for a section of population in the post-genocide environment. It is therefore necessary to address these cleavages through changing the way the members of a community relate to each other. Otherwise, violence and aggression may remain a mode of solving inter-community problems. In this article, I have demonstrated how processes of post--conflict political, social and economic transformations, or the absence thereof, reflect the way the past is remembered. In Rwanda today, people who lived through the 1994 genocide of Tutsi have different recollections of the past, depending on their roles at the time and their situations today. Rwanda s society is highly diverse, reflecting various experiences of the genocide as victim or participant, bystander, absentee or savior
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