Santosh

As I walked out of the Kigali Genocide Memorial, after a harrowing half-hour inside, there was only one thought in my mind: How could anyone be so callous, savage, and brutal? Is it even possible for a human being to reach such depths of cruelty?

Before my first trip to Kigali, I had read about the genocide online and was familiar with it in an academic sense. It was another genocide among the many caused by the greed for power, money, or the vanity of racial supremacy. But I never anticipated that visiting the memorial would be so shocking and devastating to my sanity. I also saw something that warned me that genocides are not a thing of the past.

Genocides are an abominable manifestation of the extreme forms of our prejudices and discriminations. We all have our preferences, affiliations, and stereotypes, on which we build our “us vs. them” model. But when these prejudices and discriminations distort our thinking and erode our humane values to the point where we start dehumanizing others, we become genocidal. There is no other explanation for a friend killing another childhood friend with a machete in the most brutal way, without any remorse. Humans are biologically wired to empathize with babies and children, even strangers and animals. Yet, in a genocide, they decide to kill these small children, ignoring their pleas and pain. Hands that once held these children in their laps were slashing their throats in front of their helpless parents.

The most devastating part was walking into the Children’s Room’ – a room dedicated to the children who were killed in the genocide. The room was filled with photos of happy children’s faces, given by their surviving relatives (in most cases, few remained). Details written below each photograph told us about their likes and dislikes and what their lives were like before they became victims of the genocide. I had braced myself to enter the room, despite my fear of not being able to cope with what I would find there. But I think it was impossible for any father in that room not to be engulfed by emotional turmoil.

Inside the memorial, photography and videography were not allowed. However, there were some truly educational and thought-provoking infographics and posters. I asked permission, my voice betraying the emotional turmoil of a father emerging from the Children’s Room, and captured this picture.

The graphic educates us about the typical playbook or stages of genocide. Sadly the graphic did suggest that we are not far from another genocide unless we start appreciating diversity and fight the propaganda .(Later, I researched the different factors leading to a genocide and found this article by Gregory Stanton to be a great resource).

Apart from being a memorial for the unfortunate victims of the genocide, this memorial has another purpose: educating the public so that there are no more genocides. I think it surely contributes significantly to this goal. Most people who visit the memorial leave shaken, and I believe, more humane than they were before.