Rwanda

Rwanda

Rwanda is a country that has been in an ethnic war since at least 1959, when the majority ethnic group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king (Rwanda, www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rw.html, 1999).  Since 1990, the descendents of those Tutsis that were driven into exile have begun a civil war.  In 1994 the Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime, but at a cost of over 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. (1999)  This caused over 2 million Hutus to flee to neighboring countries.  

Migrations such as this have hurt Rwanda, with predictable results. This exodus of one quarter of the countries population caused “the economy to suffer from failure to maintain the infrastructure, looting, neglect of important cash crops and lack of health care facilities.” (Rwanda, www.immigrationusa.com/wfb/rwanda_economy.html,  1996)

        If Ruhly’s concept of a cultural iceberg (1974) is applied here, one has to wonder what the underlying two-thirds are when the upper one-third is genocide.  I would imagine fear would be one of the underlying factors; fear of retribution, starvation, and even extinction.  Another underlying factor would be hate or revenge.  This leads to killing which leads back to fear.  It would seem that this country has a hard time ahead of it to break this vicious cycle and return to a culture that is more productive to its people and Africa.

The National University of Rwanda seems to be the center or heart of the country.  The main goal, as seen on their web site, is “to provide our country with the badly needed skilled manpower for the reconstruction effort.” (Rwamasirabo, E, 2002)  The University has a population of 4500 and is trying to focus on communications technology to get Rwanda connected to the rest of the world.  If the web site for the University was an indication of whether or not the educational system reflects the culture, then I think it does.  Much of the website was non-functional, somewhat like the rest of the country.  

        The University seemed full of hope and seemed to be looking towards the future.  While acknowledging that the genocide had taken place, they also wanted to move forward and join the rest of the world.  This, to me, puts a human face on all the statistics and shows an attempt to break the circle of violence. Hopefully they can achieve these goals and bring some measure of peace to the people of Rwanda.

Technology

        Technology has not had a profound effect on Rwanda, at least not in the last fifteen years.  The country is still recovering from the genocide in 1994, which killed many if not most of its skilled labor. The two institutes of higher education in the country have implemented several programs to reestablish Rwanda’s’ skilled labor force, but there is much to do still. Both factions have used the radio for propaganda purposes, mainly to further their ethnic agenda both prior to and after the civil war.   Overall the main purpose of using technology is to get the country back on its feet and replenish the human loss caused by the genocide in 1994.