18th May 2012
In a surprise turn in the normal course of seasons, the rains are pounding the land of a thousand hills with increasingly heightened intensity this late in May. It has not happened in recent history and no one knows what to make of it.
It has always been that the rains rose to their peak around April and then slowly fell to scattered showers towards July, only to rise again towards a rainy-season apex around December. With a pattern that met the expectations of history, everyone was confident in the knowledge that the many hills and valleys of this land would always be equal to the task of ensuring safe drainage.
This year, that confidence is waning with every rainy day that passes. The rains are turning hills into mudslides and rivers into torrents that threaten to devastate the country. Where usually the country was spared from the hazards of too much rain that adversely affected other countries in the region, thanks to these hills and valleys, today the unrelenting rains seem set to wash down hills and overwhelm the drainage system that had come to be taken for granted.
So, as they are wont to do in the face of adversity these days, starting from last Wednesday, Rwandans have descended from their ‘high horse’ on hill-tops and hill-slopes to collectively moderate the effects of these floods on valleys.
In a move reminiscent of the spirit that drove them back to their traditional methods of co-operation, collaboration and alliance-formations, they are pooling their energies to resolve this problem wherever it occurs. They are not waiting for outside help or leaving the work of averting this crisis to affected communities alone. It’s a national concern, even if there are areas that are not affected.
18 years now, this spirit of turning to traditional self-help solutions and suiting them to modern times is becoming as Rwandan as these hills and valleys. And there is a reason: this spirit has continued to generate positive results.
Yesterday it was the Gacaca court system that was presided over by judges drawn from the populace. With it, over a million Genocide cases were resolved in less than 8 years and it contributed in reconciling a divided people. Ranged against the paltry number of cases that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha is still struggling to determine, the system is a testament to the power of numbers that are put together with a purpose.
Today it is similar collaborative initiatives that are giving hope to a people who once were consumed by despair. The efforts are by all Rwandans, irrespective of station, and include Umuganda, Ubudehe, Abunzi, Itorerero, Umushyikirano, Umwiherero…. As the Gacaca court system before them, these and other similar endeavours provide platforms where problems are identified and resolved together.
But, of course, Rwandans did not ‘discover’ the power of creative collaboration ‘only the other day’; that is, 18 years ago.
In the campaign to liberate Rwanda from génocidaire forces, when in 1992 the liberation leadership switched from conventional warfare to guerrilla warfare, it was to swell their ranks with collaborative numbers. When Rwandans from all over the Diaspora and inside the country joined the cause in massive numbers, the liberators had as good as sealed their victory.
And, of course, ‘discovery’ of the power of numbers is not solely Rwandan.
In India, Mahatma Ghandi saw the wisdom of collaboration in the early part of the 20th century. His Civil Disobedience Movement eventually succeeded in ousting British colonialism largely because he was able to bring together Hindus, Muslims and other disparate pressure groups.
In USA in the mid-20th century, Martin Luther King’s ability to talk many different Americans into turning the Afro-American Civil Movement into a mass protest is in great measure responsible for the possibility today of an Afro-American being president of USA. The president himself may be an ‘alliance’ of sorts but who would have thought it possible that anything but a person of pure Aryan breed would be at the helm of that country, in this generation?
Closer home, in South Africa, who would have imagined that Nelson Mandela would walk straight to state house, from prison? The moment the African National Congress cultivated the collaboration of other resistance groups like Communists and Coloureds was the moment they together created a formidable mass internal resistance and shone the spotlight on the racist Apartheid system for international appreciation.
More recently, the Arab Spring has shown us the ability of creative collaboration to influence the actions of man/woman.
But then therein lies the crunch. Floods are not forced upon us by direct actions of man/woman. They are unleashed by forces of the Powers-that-Be, on-high. Or, depending on your leaning, by forces of Mother Nature. Still, as the Bible says, we are better off praying together than singly. Or battling Nature together as a united community than as uncoordinated individuals watching impotently while a game of “survival of the fittest” plays out. Together we stand – as “the fit”.
And thus together, we cannot be overwhelmed by floods. For seeing us work as one, God and Nature have lately ‘collaborated’ to look kindly on us. Watch the sky – no rains. God is my witness!
