April 22, 2022
Listening to some Brits, a few media personalities and MPs, you’d think Rwanda is a living hell. Even as a Rwandan who knows this country, it can scare you because the passion with which they overbearingly speak about the evil that we are living sounds ominously omniscient.
And they are adamantly unbending to reason; from their politicians, let alone our government officials or any of our many elucidators in, academia, the mainstream and social media. Certainly, they are badly wanting in education on world affairs.
Armchair and bench critics who seem to be there to only push opinions, however lopsided. Where Rwanda was in 1994 and why and where she is today, do they have a notion, you wonder.
But we are not here to mourn the lack of exposure of some opinion pushers. We are here to empathise with the plight of the migrants and asylum seekers who find their torturous way to the British Isles and elsewhere.
These involve gullible villagers from different countries who will usually have listened to human traffickers and smugglers out to milk them. The smugglers usually will have spread word that there are low-hanging fruits to freely pick in Western Europe and that there is an Eden to inhabit.
Those from Africa may’ve heard of the mass cemeteries that the Sahara Desert, the Mediterranean Sea and, in the case of the UK, the English Channel have become. Still, the young of the continent, including young women with babies strapped on their backs, will convince their families and clans to raise thousands of dollars for their attempt at braving the perilous journey in expectation of later multiplied repayment if they attain this ‘Eden’.
Those from Eastern Europe are filled with similar pipe dreams of escaping dangerous and correspondingly impoverished situations for those Western European Eden’s. Their saving grace: there’ll be no ‘thirst-deathly’ long Sahara and no turbulent ‘hungry-swallower’ Mediterranean to cross. But they’ll also contend with suffocation-overcrowding in dangerous lorry journeys.
It’s the indignity of it all that gnaws at the heart of Rwanda. Having suffered perhaps the worst of indignities, she will welcome anybody if only to accord them humane treatment and a dignified life, away from those succubus-smugglers and those receiving them but treating them like world rejects.
That’s how she readily accepted the UK’s partnership in seeking ways of putting an end to the infamy of human trafficking, mass deaths in deserts, seas and lorries.
Any money involved is for their upkeep. And somebody mouths something about Rwanda doing it for money? Bunkum! How many refugees, migrants and others is Rwanda hosting that didn’t come with a penny?
British officials know Rwanda has restored the dignity of migrants in Libya, rescuing them from there, some of whom were being auctioned as slaves, as well as Afghanis who were denied education at home.
And it’s true. Here, migrants are spoilt for choice. They can study; work; do business; go into farming; apply for nationality. All these, in total 24-hour security of person and property. Plus, in a humane, orderly and climate-friendly environment of sunny and clean-air mountains.
In this tiny land, you’ll ask. Yes, because as we say here, where there is no acrimony, a rabbit’s hide can cover a bed for two (aho umwaga utari…). In other words, working together in harmony, we can turn a seemingly impossible task easily doable. This country can play host to millions.
Of course, even with all those choices, few migrants may be impressed. But no sweat! Those who are not can apply for relocation to any other country willing to accept them or opt to return to their homes. All done in a humane, orderly, clean, warm and non-freezing conditions.
Those opting to relocate, that’s as it may be. However, wherever they may go, they’ll have seen that there are places where people are hosted with dignity. Dignity built from indignity by Rwandans, together working in harmony. Because none else can build a better country for you; east or west, home is best. If people here can do it, so can the migrants in their own countries.
At the end of the day, however, we must know that there is no better resource than the human resource. All humans are assets; citizens, refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, say them. Given the requisite empowerment, they are talents that can build societies like nothing else can.
Examples of migrants building superpowers are a dime a dozen. It’s rooted in dishonour, for lack a worse word, but the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, you may think of others, are the powers they are, thanks to migrants.
A reason some of them shouldn’t return to that dishonour by trying to illegally spread their influence over other countries. Some of these countries may be too close to some other powers for comfort, a fact which provokes a conflict whose ‘burning’ sparks fly in our direction. The world can do without this Ukraine-NATO-Russia conflagration.
Upon which I agree with some other British opinions about the mistake of outsourcing migration burdens. Migrants can be a resource that can help build societies, which can integrate to form a world of unanimity. Together, we can build a world of one congruent society.
