Collective memory and sacred space in post-genocide Rwanda: Reconciliation and rehumanization processes in Mureithi’s ICYIZERE

ABSTRACT

We assess Mureithi's 2009 documentary, ICYIZERE: hope (Motion Picture, Josiah Films), as a document of representational space and collective memory. We argue that the post-genocide reconciliation workshop represented in the film embodies and constructs a sacred/secular space. The reconciliatory space is produced through (1) negotiations of dialectical tensions between past/present as well as individual/collective memory, and (2) (re)presentations of rehumanization within the workshop whereby participants (and audiences) can (re)interpret the Other. We analyze the rehumanization process in the documentary via identity widening theory (Ellis, D.G., 2006, Transforming conflict: Communication and ethnopolitical conflict. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) and empathetic human interaction. Finally, we detail how the documentary situates participants within a transformative space of negotiated memories of the genocide with current day reconciliation efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Collective memory
• Rwanda
• reconciliation
• post-genocide
• ICYIZERE

Acknowledgements

Eric Aoki, PhD (University of Washington, 1997) is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University. Kyle M. Jonas, MA, MTS (Colorado State University, 2011 and Vanderbilt University, 2014, respectively) is a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School and current staff at Vanderbilt University. Jonas wrote an initial section of this essay in a graduate class taught by Aoki as well as presented it at the Western States Communication Association (WSCA), 2011. A newly co-authored essay was presented in Kigali, Rwanda, January 2012, at the SIT Symposium: Conflict, Memory, and Reconciliation: Bridging past, present, and future; the version of that essay is included in the symposium proceedings of SIT. Thank you to SIT and WSCA respondents as well as exceptional feedback provided by the unknown reviewers for the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication. Finally, thanks to the College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University for travel support to the symposium in Kigali. Both authors contributed equally to this essay.

Notes

1. Mamdani (2001b) argues, “the Rwandan genocide needs to be thought through within the logic of colonialism” (p. 9). Mamdani notes “the history of European colonies is rife with massacres and forced marches, conscript labor and expulsions. Colonial powers often stopped at nothing to subdue their restive populations … annihilation was always an option” (p. 32). Rwandans and surrounding territories witnessed the genocide of the Herero during German General Lothar von Trotha’s bloody campaign in the early 1900s—the first genocide of the century.

2. Radio has historically been a means of spreading propaganda that leads to violence. Although speaking specifically to “The Social Construction of a Hate Crime Epidemic,” Jacobs and Henry (1996) point to an historical U.S. case where the use of radio was used as a powerful and influential medium to incite hate and violence (p. 366). The authors state,

An avowed enemy of the New Deal, Coughlin founded the National Union for Social Justice (NUSJ). By 1936, NUSJ recruited over five million members. His radio broadcasts, which boasted an audience of at least ten million listeners, were peppered with anti-semitic attacks; he praised Nazi Germany and the Third Reich. His anti-semitic message appealed to nativism’s past victims, Irish and German Catholics. Young followers of Father Coughlin bragged about attacking Jews in Boston and New York (p. 390).

3. Using an intercultural lens, the viewer can began to process dialectical tensions such as Differences–Similarities, Privilege–Disadvantage, and History/Past–Present/Future Dialectics (Martin & Nakayama, 2013, pp. 399–400).

4. Gee (1996) argues that discourses are “ways of being” in which we relate to each other and make sense of reality (p. viii).

5. During the genocide, Tutsis were referred to as “cockroaches” (Mureithi, 2009).