Thursday, July 22, 2010

Good news. I spoke with Gabo today about my ideas, particularly that the rwandan genocide dehumanized the survivors, and that recovery and healing is a process of rehumanization. He liked the idea, told me that it clarified for him the work that they were doing, and told me that if I needed to collect more data they would raise money for me to return. This is very gratifying, and also makes me nervous. I'm going to write them a brief concept paper which will summarize the ideas and we will take it from there. This is all I could have hoped for; no, it is more than I could have hoped for.

BTW, people here don't call what happened "the Rwandan genocide." They refer to it is "the genocide against the Tutsis." Language makes a difference.

I had lunch with Henny, Sheila's friend Pauline's friend. She is a therapist and a medical anthropologist. She told me about the dark side of traditional Rwandan culture. Traditional Rwanda was a patriarchal culture that subordinated women, and condoned violence against women as a mean's of social control and enforcing gender norms. Now that Kagame's government has greatly improved the status of women (may women in government, in business, etc) traditional men are threatened. They say that the government is taking away their manhood. Pauline is studying gender based violence in Rwanda.

So there is trouble in paradise. Another important corrective to the good things in traditional culture that I talked about in my earlier blogs.