According to Charles Ntampaka, the sharing of drinks is a sign of reconciliation because “sharing drinks signified a pact and the putting to rest of mistrust” (Buckley-Zistel 145). Similarly, Stassen appears to use poisoned urwagwa as a symbol of distrust in Deogratias. Because Deogratias was forced to murder by his Hutu “brothers,” and because Benina and Apollinaria were his friends, he felt like he, too, was a victim of the Rwandan genocide. He recognizes the atrocity of his actions, and alcoholism is the only way he can cope with the post-traumatic stress illustrated in this panel. Perhaps living among the perpetrators is just as responsible for making Deogratias mad as the actual genocide itself, which is why he isolates himself from humanity when it gets dark. Deogratias feels like the perpetrators---including himself---must be punished. The urwagwa and revenge killings demonstrate that perhaps reconciliation cannot be achieved so easily.
Despite post-genocide trauma experienced by Deogratias in Stassen’s graphic novel, the modern-day Rwanda depicted in Susanne Buckley-Zistel’s scholarly article, “Remembering to Forget: Chosen Amnesia as a Strategy for Local Coexistence in Post-Genocide Rwanda,” the majority of the country has found it in their hearts to forgive the same people who destroyed their families after the killers were released from prison. Buckley-Zistel believes that many Rwandan’s have a condition that she’s deemed “chosen amnesia,” through which Rwandans consciously choose to forget about the past to cope with living with murderers and traitors (Buckley-Zistel 132). This “chosen amnesia” among individuals, which Buckley-Zistel studied and researched for two years, is the only way that reconciliation can be achieved. The forced reconciliation imposed on Rwandans, the effects of which are depicted in the video clip below, operates on a national level. As this video explains, the reconciliation that the world sees isn’t completely real. The survivors have accepted their losses, but there is still tension in their relationships with their neighbors. Beatrice says that she reconciled with the killers “because she was asked to,” supporting Buckley-Zistel’s argument about chosen amnesia. Peace between her and the killers isn’t possible because it wasn’t her choice as an individual to forgive, and the core problems in her community haven’t been solved. Beatrice, like Deogratias, cannot forgive someone with no remorse.
Mathias and Pastor Gahigi, however, are able to form a seemingly peaceful relationship. Mathias felt great remorse for participating in the genocide, and he comments on the inhumanity of his actions. As a participant, Deogratias feels the same guilt that makes him feel like an animal and transform into a dog in the illustrations. Pastor Gahigi, as a victim, expresses similar feelings as Deogratias when he says, “Before I forgave Mathias, I was like a crazy person.” Perhaps Deogratias’ madness is a result of his inability to forgive not only the men who forced him to murder his Tutsi friends, but also himself.
One of the difficulties when approaching the Rwandan genocide is how to appropriately represent the events that took place. A common way to address issues such as this one is through artistic representation. Visual artists who have attempted to explore the Rwandan genocide have produced some interesting work, but the question is who the work is meant to be viewed by. In the essay “Invisible Again: Rwanda and Representation after Genocide,” Nicholas Mirzoeff states “Making the genocide visible was a task that seemed unapproachable to those few Western artists who have the courage to address the subject. Their work has been driven to adopt given frameworks of Christianity, conceptual art, or documentary photography” (36).
The framework of Christianity is certainly visible in Deogratias from the narrative’s close focus on the Christian school and the character of Brother Philip. Stassen makes the idea quite blatant through the fact that the Deogratias means literally ‘praise be to God.’ This sentiment is not lost on other artists though; George Gittoes visited Rwanda during the aftermath of the genocide, and the photos he took in a refugee camp led to extremely expressionistic paintings. The most well known, The Preacher contains Christian themes. “It shows an African man from the waist up, holding a bible, with his arms extended and raised. His gesture is somewhere between surrender and supplication” (Mirzoeff, 89). The man’s pose in the painting is at once asking for forgiveness and offering up a sacrifice to atone for what was done; the man becomes a martyr. The bright color palette and the rough style in which the image was painted speak to the violence and horror of genocide; they express more than could ever be said with words. The colors used by Gittoes are similar to those used by Stassen in Deogratias, and like Gittoes, Stassen often uses frames with little to no wording to express feeling such as in the last page of the novel.
The Preacher by George Gittoes
Conceptual art has also been utilized quite effectively to speak about Rwanda. Alfredo Jaar made a project called Signs of Life, in which he found postcards in Rwanda and on their backs wrote the name of a survivor of genocide followed by the phrase “is still alive.” He then sent them to fiends of his living in Western nations. This project gains its strength from the power of exposure; Jaar’s works attempt to spread awareness about the genocide by speaking for survivors, while the pleasant fronts of the postcards speak to the fact that the Rwandan genocide is veiled and not often talked about.
Signs of Life from The Rwanda Project by Alfredo Jarr
By far the most visible art form for addressing the genocide has been documentary photography. Many photographers, such as Gilles Peress, travelled to the country in the immediate aftermath of the genocide in order to document the tragedy. Peress’ photographs, such as The Judgement, show us a view of sadness and devastation in Rwanda. They paint a picture of a nation in Chaos and have not necessarily achieved the ends the photographers had in mind. “The difficulty is that the view is precisely that which most Westerners would expect to see: one of pre-political formless chaos. Indeed, a number of photojournalists, including Peress, who worked in Rwanda and hoped that their work would lead to political change, have found that the experience of failure in this regard reduced their confidence in the medium to such an extent that some have left the field altogether” (Mirzoeff, 88). The work of many photojournalists, rather than enacting political change, has instead been used as a tool to memorialize the genocide in an attempt to bury it. This work, put on display in museums has been paraded under the slogan “never again” which situates the Rwandan genocide in the same vein as the Holocaust. These memorials put on a false front which suggests that we have learned from the events of Rwanda, when in actuality, violent atrocities are still occurring in Africa and around the world.
The Judgement by Gilles Peress
What is striking about Deogratias is its disavowal of both restrained and intense styles, instead offering cartoony visuals apparently discordant with the grave subject matter. However, this isn’t the first work which has the potential to cause agitation among its audience due to the artistic license it uses, and the medium through which it operates (Applegate 83). This is in part because it remains undetermined whether fictional literature even has a role in understanding either the execution or aftermath of genocide (Applegate 77). Those directly affected by genocide take precedence in determining what an appropriate treatment of it would be. However, Kersten argues that the artist, through “shared humanity” with the direct victims, is also a victim, and so gains some authority by engaging with the creative process (96).
Despite this potential bond, when considering the horror of Rwanda artists and writers, both native and foreign, have voiced their dismay at approaching what appears to be an irreducibly complex occurrence (Applegate 71). As regards the author of Deogratias, Jean-Phillipe Stassen, his nationality is of particular interest, given the uneasy relationship of Rwanda to the western world—the genocide was essentially marginalized during its execution, only to gain still growing infamy after its conclusion (Kersten 94, Applegate 80). In a certain sense, Stassen exemplifies the dilemma of the foreign artist in Rwanda: it’s unlikely that his output will ever distance itself from appearing motived by a search for personal identity separate from those of the Rwandan people.
Some factions in literary studies have pursued an accurate rendering of the Rwandan Genocide, criticizing overtly subjective accounts. This pursuit of a stable absolute reality, which, as Applegate points out, has no philosophical basis, seems to ensure that no single work of literature will ever provide a satisfactory narrative (79). Conversely, certain parties advocate forsaking a single, objective understanding, claiming that a narrative capable of navigating the moral complexity and indeterminacy of genocide can’t exist, and that, by extension, novels should embrace ambiguity (Applegate 82, Kersten 97). Still others assert that narratives which avoid the depiction of Hutu perpetrators as absolute villains are an affront to the many surviving victims of the genocide (Applegate 76).
Accordingly, attempts at morally ambiguous presentations, Gatore’s exploration of a Hutu killer’s remorse for instance, have distressed some critics for apparent sympathy with the genocide’s perpetrators (Applegate 73). This same mechanism is used by Stassen in Deogratias: while the protagonist’s complicity is gradually revealed, the narrative simultaneously develops his affection and sense of duty towards Tutsi peers (Applegate 72). Both Deogratias and Le Passé Devant Soi may, then, actually alienate portions of their audience in their attempt to make their characters more approachable (Kersten 98, Applegate 81).
Not all literature abstains from a clear political or moral message. In fact, literary works dealing with the Rwandan Genocide have frequently been commissioned and executed under a pretense of instruction (Kersten 93). Some of these initiatives have produced works of literature, such as the 1998 “Écrire par devoir de mémoire” (Writing by Duty of Memory) which tasked nine African writers of repute with producing a literary interpretation of the genocide (Applegate 77). Despite the premise of a moral actuality in these works, reality yields to fiction, as the reader is provided with what might have happened (Kersten 97).
Contributors:
Sara Mortensen
Lars Soderbergh
Jared Christensen
Works Cited
Applegate, Elizabeth. “Reimagining the Swallow and the Toad: Narrating Reconciliation and Identity in Postgenocide Rwanda” Research in African Literatures 43.1 (2012): 71-90. Web. 15 May 2012.
Buckley-Zistel, Susanne. “Remembering to Forget: Chosen Amnesia as a Strategy for Local Coexistence in Post-genocide Rwanda.” Africa 2006: 131-150. Print.
Kerstens, Paul. “’Voice and give voice’: dialectics between fiction and history in narratives on the Rwandan genocide” International Journal of Francophone Studies 9.1 (2006): 93- 110. Web. 15 May 2012.
Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “Invisible Again: Rwanda and Representation after Genocide.” African Arts. 38.3 (2005): 36-39+86-91+96. Print.
Stassen, Jean-Phillipe. “Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda.” New York: Roaring Brook Press. 2000. Print.
