Reflections on Rwanda -- The Program

From June 28-July 11th, a group of Canadian university students will head to Rwanda.  This program, sponsored by SHOUT Canada, will let the students see Rwanda, meets its people, visit genocide memorial sites and, ideally, create a strong foundation for a future national program. We want to take students from across Canada on an annual educational program to the region, and create local programming around our experiences.

This program is similar in spirit to the March of Remembrance and Hope, an incredible multi-faith program that takes students to Poland to visit the sites of the Holocaust, meet survivors and learn about genocide from the relics of the Holocaust.  One of my favourite aspects was the opportunity to partake in Jewish culture with multi-faith students (things like Shabbat dinner or a Tish, many have never seen).  This program is life altering-- no one walks away the same person, with the same perspective.  The education it offers is unparallelled, and the goal of Reflections on Rwanda is to give students a similar opportunity to be witnesses to history.

What happened in the Holocaust and in Rwanda was not "the same".  I would be grossly oversimplifying to say one genocide is the same as another-- as well as incorrect.  However, the common ground is that one group of people, in a position of power and fostering great hatred for anther, systematically annihilated a population.  More parallels will be drawn between the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide as this blog grows.  The purpose is to not simply discuss genocide or "why it is bad"-- I would hope that is self-evident.  Its purpose is to let people think about and discuss the common ground.  Much stems from hatred.  Some from a desire for dominion over another people.  Some from a difference of religion.  Hatred and racism have fuelled much of the war in this world, both historically and at present.  To begin to state "Never Again" and truly mean it, we must tackle the barriers against understanding our neighbours.

This blog will share the experiences of five students in Rwanda, beginning in late June.  Until then, you are invited to read the following links for more information on Rwanda and its history.

À Bientôt--

      Candace

After the Genocide, The New Yorker, 18 December 1995 by Philip Gourevitch

Why we Must Never Forget the Rwandan Genocide, Pambazuka News, 2004 by Dr. Gerald Caplan

The Promise and Limitations of Comparison: The Holocaust and the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, from Is the Holocaust Unique, 29 Dec 2008 by Scott Straus (**NB- this is a book preview and, as such, not all pages are included.  Still, an informative read)

An excellent booklist re: Rwanda, as compiled by Gourevitch