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Paul Koring |
Huge and imperial, the Silverback gorilla moved with unruffled grace, powering close to a surprised clutch of other “primates” with no trace of fear. His mates, some clutching infants or trailed by rambunctious youngsters, followed, brushing by less than a metre away while we humans stood stock in awe.
Rwandans are justly proud of their compassionate and successful stewardship of one the planet’s last remaining gorilla populations. Not just park rangers but moto drivers and teachers and random seatmates on the battered buses that lean drunkenly on Rwandan’s hairpin mountain roads, will – with little prompting – deliver heartfelt explanations about the importance of safeguarding the magnificent primates, not just for the high-end tourists they draw, but because that protection reflects the care, compassion and human decency that epitomizes Rwanda.
There’s a jarring incongruity here. What about the serried rows of sightless skulls or the bloodstained piles of clothes still slowing rotting away in “memorials” – often churches where defenceless throngs of terrified women and children were hacked to death by their neighbors barely 15 years ago. Gorillas and genocide; the twin and seemingly irreconcilable pillars of Rwanda’s international reputation.
“Land of a 1,000 conundrums.”
Kigali’s bright lights, the jostling spires of construction cranes and broad new Chinese-built highways all suggest Rwanda may yet realize the grand vision of becoming East Africa’s Singapore-style logistics hub by 2020.
Yet in the pre-dawn darkness out in the countryside, roadsides are alive with men and women trudging in the timeless and backbreaking toil of fetching water or firewood. Millions live in illiterate poverty.
The journalists studying nights at the Great Lakes Media Centre must cope with issues that few in Canada ever face. Pay is irregular, bribes are proffered, basic equipment is scarce and the media’s reputation remains deeply sullied by the odious role it played in whipping up genocidal gangs. Yet after class, as an evening breeze cools the day, they evince an air of optimism and pride. Rwanda is building a new civil society, not just a post-agrarian economy, and they know a modern, free and independent media must be an integral part of that.
That sounds high-minded in a place where a controversial “media” law is hotly debated and two journalists just got busted for allegedly blackmailing a prominent Kigali woman. Yet it is no more incongruous that the principled devotion to protecting endangered primates. Rwandans know better than most grave perils of a tame, controlled media twisted into a propaganda apparatus.
