“So, is it raining in Kigali?” I looked up from the phone messages I was reading to see an elderly peasant at the next makeshift table and decided his question was addressed to me, since we were the only two occupants of the simple but clean café, apart from the young man at the counter. As a Rwandan, of course, I knew this to be a form of greeting-cum-introduction and I answered: “Yes, Kigali is wet but I see that it cannot be as wet as your Northern Province, generally!”
I knew also that it is a way of opening a conversation for Rwandans and his next question indicated to me the line he wanted our conversation to take: “I’m sure you followed the events in Boston, do you think Americans learnt anything from our agaciro?” I’d have gone on to explain how USA was too vast to notice ‘the droplet’ of a few Rwandans in one of its many cities but knew that that was not his area of interest.
You’ve probably noticed that, as I am wont to when my brain is faced with a rot threat, I was on my way to the village. I’d only stopped by the roadside to ‘clear the travel dust in my throat’ before proceeding to my people’s homestead. So, with only a few kilometres to cover now, I had the time to ruminate over this Rwandan idea of agiciro in connection with USA as I shared my thoughts with Muzehe (a Kinyarwanda corruption of the Kiswahili word, Mzee, as you’ll have guessed). But as soon as I mentioned homeless people and beggars on the streets of Boston, Muzehe literally picked the conversation out of my mouth and appropriated it!
“You see, younger brother,” said Muzehe, startling me with his use of ‘younger’ in reference to me! And from then I sealed my mouth and listened to his ‘lecture’.
Younger brother, repeated he, let me tell you about agaciro. If you can talk about a country of riches and then mention ‘homeless persons’ in the same breath, you’ve already demonstrated that these are a people who cannot appreciate agaciro for what we take it to be. That’s why, I’m sure, you wouldn’t find one word to describe it in their language, and perhaps in many other languages. Actually, agaciro is not a word; it’s a way of life; it’s the values you hold dear and it’s the worth that you accord others. When in your family there is a single beggar, you cannot talk about agaciro. It’s the same with a clan, a tribe, a society.
That’s why, contrary to my question, you cannot pick agaciro from anybody. Agaciro embodies all the values that you strive to ‘live’. These include, but are not limited to: honour, courage, integrity, dignity, responsibility, self-worth, selflessness, self-sustenance, free expression, democratic practice, I can go on. As a family or a society with agaciro, you cannot accept a situation where an individual is disadvantaged in any way. To quote the examples you gave, there should be no single wanting American; there should be no single tin-shack dwelling South African. If there is, those countries cannot be said to be rich, whether the riches are in public or private hands. Agaciro is only for a dignified whole.
So, you’ll ask me, did our ancestors in Rwanda set unachievable standards? When we sing about agaciro, are we empty drums that like to make empty claims? Can we ever reclaim the agaciro that our ancestors envisaged?
You’ll most likely quote the most glaring example: we are not a self-sustaining country. What you’ll have forgotten, however, is that we live in an undignified world. It’s not exactly harping on colonialism but we must acknowledge the facts of our history. Colonialism dehumanised us, sapped our energies and our creativity and set us decades back in terms of growth – and in terms of numbers (and here I refer to Genocide; it had its root in colonialism). When Western countries harangue us about their few crumbs that sustain us, they should know that’s not even a fraction of what they owe us. They owe us our very dignity. And what can compensate for that? Zilch.
So, agaciro for us is an ideal, but an ideal that we must strive to achieve. That’s why we are back to the basics, to the drawing board. We are now building our society, single value-block by single value-block. As we build our unity, pool our energies, maximise our resources and drive hard on our single-minded journey through the diversionary-forces-mired tunnel towards the light of dignity at the end, the fact is not lost on us that we must arrive whole.
And arriving whole means no Rwandan will want when a fellow Rwandan has. No child will die in infancy. No mother will die in childbirth. No malnutrition; no grass-thatch; no street child; no beggar, no poverty. All must be empowered through creatively collaborative effort. Individuals together; individuals with governments; private companies with governments. Look at our nascent private sector; it’s involved in government programmes. And Government helps it to grow. As we seek to empower ourselves, so do we wish humanity empowered. That’s agaciro.
Younger brother, how can you talk about huge private companies with massive daily profits and beggars and the homeless, in the same breath? And you say those companies sponsor candidates to lead their governments instead? Lead them in what, if it’s not in looting the world and feeding on its misery? After which, they appease their conscience by equating us to their greedy, slimy nature. To the point of even exacting on us “their anger over their marital wrangles”!
It’s no wonder then that these Western countries think it’s an abuse to democratic practice when we rein in errant members of our society who seek to lead us into darkness. Nor is it a wonder that they believe that, like them, we scavenge on the gloom of our neighbour and hunger for its wealth – mineral or otherwise. If to them it is the expected practice, to us it is spittle in the face of our agaciro……
I offered Muzehe one, said “Cheers!” and bade him bye.
