The genocide museum in Kigali seems out of place amongst the bustle of a Sunday-morning city. Set slightly below the main dirt road, it offers a cool blue fountain and serene landscaping with a clean, modern, air-conditioned building.
The museum documents Rwanda's history - before, during, and after the genocide - and also has exhibits on many of the other recent genocides in human history (the Holocaust, Cambodia, Namibia, and Serbia, to name a few).
There were videos and photos and descriptions. There was cool silence, broken only by a woman crying.
But one cannot fail to notice - indeed, one is supposed to notice - the messiness of genocide and its patterns. Rwanda in 1994 was not an isolated incident. There are precursors and indicators to genocide. And then we see that genocide is both a modern invention (the word, its politics) and an ancient ideal (ethnic cleansing, tribalism).
One leaves the museum subdued and pensive, disappointed in humankind perhaps. But also confronted with the vivacious realities of Kigali, and the exceptional resilience of people.
The museum documents Rwanda's history - before, during, and after the genocide - and also has exhibits on many of the other recent genocides in human history (the Holocaust, Cambodia, Namibia, and Serbia, to name a few).
There were videos and photos and descriptions. There was cool silence, broken only by a woman crying.
But one cannot fail to notice - indeed, one is supposed to notice - the messiness of genocide and its patterns. Rwanda in 1994 was not an isolated incident. There are precursors and indicators to genocide. And then we see that genocide is both a modern invention (the word, its politics) and an ancient ideal (ethnic cleansing, tribalism).
One leaves the museum subdued and pensive, disappointed in humankind perhaps. But also confronted with the vivacious realities of Kigali, and the exceptional resilience of people.
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