Rwanda Inc. Business plan

12.10.2011

KIGALI - Paul Kagame's Rwanda has been sailing its own political course for sixteen years now, with a great deal of international support. Joris Verhaegen and the theatre group A Two Dogs Company want to contribute to the debate about this development policy with their play Talk. Verhaegen wrote an opinion piece for MO*, an abridged version of his Rwanda Inc. business plan.

The concept of genocide was introduced by the Western world, which modelled it on the Holocaust as the main point of reference. As is often the case, Western culture considers its own values to be universal and exports the term without adaptation or nuance to other 'similar' contexts, such as Rwanda, despite these contexts having very different geographical, historical and cultural roots. By constantly referring to the example of the Holocaust, the consequences of such a massacre are considered to be predictable: trauma, the need to organise memory, and so on. The consequences of such massacres are considered to be predictable. This stereotypical thinking leads to self-fulfilling prophecies with each new genocide; the new reality confirms existing hypotheses rather than prompting thorough research. What value can we attach to such generalised conclusions?