To many of you I may sound cynical or sadistic but let me grab this opportunity and ask my question: Why should we remember the Rwanda Genocide? Is it because there are some people who are more dead than others? I ask this question in the same context that I ask: Why should we remember 11 September?

To me, there seems to be a justifiable move towards remembering the dead within the human rights movement but unfortunately hijacked by misguided "guilt cleansing". Arguments that exist to date is that the Rwanda genocide happened because of prejudice, racism, failure of the international community, ineffectiveness of the UN, ethnic or tribal clashes, etc.

While many or all of these arguments maybe true, I do not see any difference in the way the world that I know has operated and continues to operate each day. For example, genocide is neither new in Africa nor unique to Rwanda. The mass massacres of protestors, secessionists, demonstrators in colonial Africa have never received the kind of attention that Rwanda receives today. The slave raids and trade of Africa's human resource into Europe and North America has never received historical global attention.

Sadly, hardly do any school curricular or national programs in Africa recognize it. In fact we are told in some corners that we should forget and move on. Why then do we have to remember 1994 Rwanda? The argument about racism (of the West) towards Black Africa is not convincing to me because this is the global structure in all corners of the world each day except with varying end results. In any case, assuming that the west is racist against Black Africa is a misguided assumption that each person in the West is "White" thus denying the diversity of colours.

We are also not told if indeed everyone in the West stood by in silence before and after the genocide. Instead we are told that the international community (which has become an oxymoron of USA and Europe) did nothing. Any keen observer would know that the Organization of African Unity (now AU) was engaged in the Rwanda peace process for many years; countries like Tanzania supported and hosted the Arusha Peace Process while Uganda supported the Rwanda Patriotic Front in their struggle to return home. Sadly, these and many other achievements (in my judgement) are shadowed in a misguided naming of the International Community.

The argument about the ethnic or tribal warfare between the Hutus and Tutsi fails to recognize the historical stimulants of such divisions. Why we cannot deny that surely the Tutsi exerted hierarchical power over the Hutus before Belgian colonialism, these differences and divisions became more sharp and antagonist during colonial rule when the Tutsi were granted racial accession close to Europeans. Thus, we cannot excuse the effects of such propaganda on the Rwanda of 1959 and 1994 by ignoring the ethnicitizing of the Banyarwanda.

Lastly, while the United Nations indeed shares the blame given its avowed promise in 1948 to prevent human suffering, save lives and save the world of another holocaust, one wonders whether it should indeed take all the blame and the accolades? In my opinion, it is high time that we recognized that the UN is a group of Member States, each with their own interests and their conduct will always reflect their priorities. For example, the US's decision to block UN efforts to stop the Rwanda Genocide reflected its memories of the Somali engagement. As one of my colleagues mentioned, the US withdrew from Somalia after 11 US soldiers died but is still in Iraq after more than 500 deaths. France did not want to see another French culture disappear into oblivion to the Anglophone RPF. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UK were still making money selling arms and military hardware to the Habyarimana government while The World Bank was still lending and hoping to collect its debt from Rwanda.

Therefore, it is not that I do not want to mourn the dead; it is in realizing that there are too many dead and always let to die by the same people who come to mourn. What is the impact of parading skulls of the other people’s dead in national memorials on the customary closure of life and transition into after-life? What is the impact of the victim mentality on the future of Rwandese Tutsi-Hutu and the creation of Rwanda of national unity? Shouldn't we really ask what is the impact of selective memories on state responsibility towards its own people and reconciliation (in Rwanda) if there is ever going to be?

(Uganda)