Rwanda
With the unrelenting, fevered focus on oppression, American style, let me ask: How much time have you spent in foreign countries where real racism, class warfare, oppression, and injustice prevail? Fly over’s and layover’s need not apply.
Have you walked through a Rwandan genocide memorial and can still smell the stale air amidst the countless stacks of skeletons, left as they fell? Have you stood on a sidewalk in Manilla where police routinely shoot suspected criminals in cold blood, only to leave the body for a day or two in order to send a message?
Have you had church planters pray for you while clenching your feet in Andra Pradesh, India, who had been beaten nearly to death, dragged out of their village and left to die on the road only to revive and return to that same village to continue sharing the message of Christ?
Do you know what it sounds like as you walk into a bar on the strip in Angeles City where an estimated 15,000 girls are trapped in the sex slave trade? Have you ever had a crowd press in around you wanting to touch your skin and hair because in this remote village, you were the first white person they had ever seen?
It is with profound gratitude that I have not only been blessed to have been in these places but also stay in touch with friends there today.
Tragically, as is the history of many African nations, Rwanda holds a uniquely horrific and cataclysmic legacy of terror and murder on an unimaginable scale. And yet, from these ashes and mass grave sites has risen one of the most spectacular volumes of reconciliation the earth has ever seen. And as God would have it, I have been humbled to see it firsthand.
In a day when phrases like, “Silence is violence” and “Micro-aggressions” spread their leaven through our culture deceiving unaware masses, most other nations on the earth would find us at best, preposterous, and at worse, mortifyingly ignorant. Only activists living peacefully under the blanket of safety and freedom would have to reach so deep into the mist to find a foe so formidable.
In April, 1994, Rwanda erupted in a demonic maelstrom that resulted in over a million innocent people slaughtered in three short months. Not a bomb was dropped and there were no modern weapons of warfare. Unthinkably, the vast majority were hacked to death at the end of a blood-stained machete. With no oil fields to protect in this tiny, deeply landlocked country, the world changed the channel as the genocide ripped through every square acre of the country.
You may remember this happened during the Clinton administration. As the nightmarish body counts were beginning to leak to the world, Press Secretary Dee Dee Meyers twisted and contorted as she fielded questions in the White House briefing room. (However, if you do a quick search on the Google Archipelago today, the revisionist Fact-makers purport this quote was not made by Meyers, but by then State Department Spokesperson, Christine Shelley.
Why change history, you ask? Turns out, California Governor Newsome appointed Meyers as Senior Advisor in his State House. (Note to reader; when history is being rewritten before your eyes, don’t stop to blink).
The 1948 Genocide Convention Act required the United States and the United Nations to immediately intervene in the unfolding of any genocide - if genocide was officially declared. Painted into a corner, she pathetically said, “There are acts of genocide occurring.” To which, an astute reporter followed, “And how many acts of genocide does it take to call this a genocide?”
Our family was part of a church planting movement in the early 2000’s that was under Rwandan oversight. The political leaven had already begun to spread through many denominations and a rapid rise of infected dough was well under way. Affiliating with any of these denominations here in the states was deeply unappealing, so we were thrilled that Rwanda stepped up as a welcoming harbor for our little group of families here in our living room.
A team of Rwandan Pastors had come to America in the late 1990s to visit and evaluate the condition of the church. What they learned concerned them. Historical patterns taught them that the new progressive Christian movement beginning to flourish in America would undoubtedly be exported to African nations under the banner of, “Missions”.
After receiving the report, a Rwandan Archbishop was quoted saying, “What happened to our people here in Rwanda was a physical genocide. What we see happening in America today is spiritual genocide. And even though the world sat quietly while our people were slaughtered, we will not do the same.” Even typing these words today arrests me deep in my spirit.
Today, the term “Colonizer” has been hijacked by dimwitted justice warriors and carries no heft of meaning. But in Rwanda’s case, colonization in the early 20th century proved genocidal.
The colonizing Belgians ensconced the minority Tutsi’s as the governmental and societal leaders. At the same time, they relegated the majority Hutu’s to the lower rungs of society, mostly to work the land. Inevitably, the majority Hutu’s despised the minority Tutsi’s and rose up to flip the rigged game board.
What came next is a chilling example of how identity politics can be more deadly than racism.
Both the Hutu and Tutsi were native black African. Both had emigrated into Rwanda from other African regions. Both cohabitated in villages and cities and it was growingly common for mixed marriages to be normalized.
But it was the Belgians and French who called out and highlighted the immutable attributes of each group: One group was taller while the other a shade darker. One group was leaner while the other had wider noses. Ignoring the very God-shaped souls of these beautiful people, by the time the Belgians left in 1962, class tensions were rife for conflict.
Rwanda is the most breathtaking country I have ever seen. It is called The Land of a Thousand Hills because that is the aptest description. Subsistence farming is the predominant role of most Rwandan’s so the hillsides are a glorious patchwork of farm plots reaching from ground to sky as far as the eye can see. But the true beauty of Rwanda is its people. It is rare to find more joyfully content, generous people anywhere on the earth.
No one could have imagined that the stripping of land for farming combined with the rapid harvesting of eucalyptus trees for coal would eliminate virtually every hiding place for hunted Tutsi.
As Americans, we have little time for character development and want to fast forward to get straight to the plot. But, true humanity requires relationship above all else. So, it wasn’t surprising that it was at the end of our trips, not the beginning, that our new friends began to share their survival stories. We tend to think of genocide in terms of historic facts, figures, and timelines. But actual genocide happens one snuffed life at a time.
One pastor, who has been here in our home in the States, told the story of his 12yr old niece who was raped repeatedly in the middle of the street. Next, the perpetrators sliced both arms below the shoulder and pulled her skin off like a pair of socks.
Finally, they doused her with gasoline and danced as her body burned. Years later, I stood in that exact spot. Even now, I breathe and take a moment to recover.
Startlingly, as I look at the anger in our public discourse today and the rise of crime erupting in our cities, I ask; precisely what coefficient of restraint would have to fail to bring America to that point?
