Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Memoricide, Negationism and Representation: Centring Rwanda’s ‘Double Genocide’ Discourse in the Present Tense

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Remembering Mass Atrocities: Perspectives on Memory Struggles and Cultural Representations in Africa

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies ((PMMS))

  • 53 Accesses

Abstract

Many claims have been made about what should account for the actual or real genocide in Rwanda. Many, if not all, of these claims focus on a tale of two genocides—involving the uniqueness of either Tutsi or Hutu memories—which has over time produced a curious faction of the post-1994 Rwandan subject. What these contending views seem to ignore is that there can never be collective memory to which all citizens subscribe since history and memory are unavoidably contested. With the aid of Rupert Bazambanza’s Smile Through the Tears (2007) and Pierre-Claver Ndacyayisenga’s Dying to Live (2012), this chapter argues that the vilificatory representations of the ethnic Other in the two texts have over time produced a Manichean tapestry of Tutsi victimology versus Hutu suffering, and vice versa. The essay does not attempt to offer a comprehensive or comparative treatment of ‘the two genocides’. Instead, it moves beyond textual analysis to pinpoint the broader political and social implications of memoricide in post-1994 Rwanda.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Appadurai, A. (2006). Fear of small numbers: An essay on the geography of anger. Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Barnett, M. N. (2002). Eyewitness to a genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bazambanza, R. (2007). Smile through the tears. Translated by Lesley McCubbin. Soul Asylum Poetry and Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Best, S., & Marcus, S. (2009). Surface reading: An introduction. Representations, 108, 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caplan, G. (2018). Rethinking the Rwandan narrative for the 25th anniversary. Genocide Studies International, 12(2), 152–190. https://doi.org/10.3138/gsi.12.2.03

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, P. (2010). The Gacaca courts, post-genocide justice and reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice without lawyers. Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Eakin, P. J. (2020). Writing life writing: Narrative, history, autobiography. Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Glover, J. D. (2011). Narrating crisis: Rwanda, Haiti, and the politics of commemoration. PhD thesis. University of Florida. Accessed from https://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0042730/glover_j.pdf

  • Herman, E. S., & Peterson, D. (2014). Enduring lies: The Rwandan genocide in the propaganda system, 20 years later. The Real New Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kagame, P. (2008). Preface. In P. Clark & Z. D. Kaufman (Eds.), After genocide: Transitional justice, post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation in Rwanda and beyond (pp. xxi–xxvi). HURST Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kamal, H. (2020). Trends in autobiography theory and writing. Studia Filologiczne, 33, 179–196. https://doi.org/10.25951/4270

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, D. (2016). Is eastern European ‘double genocide’ revisionism reaching museums? Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, 30(3), 191–220.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keane, F. (1996). Season of blood: A Rwandan journey. Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kisangani, E. N. F. (2000). The massacre of refugees in Congo: A case of UN peacekeeping failure and international law. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 38(2), 163–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lemarchand, R. (2005). Bearing witness to mass murder. African Studies Review, 48(3), 93–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lemarchand, R. (2011). Preface. In R. Lemarchand (Ed.), Forgotten genocides: Oblivion, denial, and memory (pp. vii–ix). University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Longman, T. (2014). The uses and abuses of media: Rwanda before and after the genocide. In C. Ramírez-Barat (Ed.), Transitional justice, culture, and society: Beyond outreach (pp. 246–277). Social Science Research Council.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mamdani, M. (2001). When victims become killers: Colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda. Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ndacyayisenga, P.-C. (2012). Dying to live: A Rwandan family’s five-year flight across the Congo. Translated by Casey Roberts. Baraka Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newbury, C. (1995). Background to genocide: Rwanda. Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 23(2), 12–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nyirubugara, O. (2013). Complexities and dangers of remembering and forgetting in Rwanda – Memory Traps (Vol. 1). Sidestone Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pappe, I. (2006). The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Oneworld Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Republic of Rwanda. (2013). Law No 84/2013 of 11/09/2013 on the crime of genocide ideology and other related offences. Official Gazette, (43bis), 31–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rooney, E. (2017). Symptomatic reading is a problem of form. In E. Anker & R. Felski (Eds.), Critique and postcritique (pp. 127–152). Duke University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ruuska, E. (2022). Refugee camps as spaces for genocide: Narratives from Rwandan refugees. MA Thesis, Tampere University. Accessed from https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/136655/RuuskaEveliina.pdf?sequence=2

  • Shafir, M. (2002). Between denial and ‘comparative trivialization’: Holocaust negationism in post-communist east Central Europe. Jerusalem: The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, ACTA, 19, 1–84.

    Google Scholar 

  • Silva, J. L. (2009). Graphic content: Interpretations of the Rwanda genocide through the graphic novel. MA (History) Dissertation, Concordia University. Accessed from http://lifestoriesmontreal.ca/files/Jessica_Silva_Graphic%20Content%20-%20Interpretations%20of%20Rwandan%20Genocide%20Through%20the%20Graphic%20Novel.pdf

  • Smith, S., & Julia, W. (2001). Reading autobiography: A guide to interpreting life narratives. University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Songolo, A. (2005). Marie Béatrice Umutesi’s truth: The other Rwanda genocide? African Studies Review, 48(3), 107–119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stapleton, T. (2017). A history of genocide in Africa. Praeger.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stone, D. (2004). The historiography of genocide: Beyond ‘uniqueness’ and ethnic competition. Rethinking History, 8(1), 127–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tembo, N. M. (2015). Paranoia, ‘Chosen Trauma’ and forgiveness in Leah Chishugi’s A long way from paradise. English Academy Review, 32(2), 70–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tembo, N. M. (2016). Writing Parrhesia, narrating the other Rwandan genocide: Marie Béatrice Umutesi’s Surviving the Slaughter and Pierre-Claver Ndacyayisenga’s Dying to Live. Matatu, 48(2), 418–434.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tembo, N. M. (2017). Trauma in selected Eastern African fiction and life writing on Civil Wars, 2000–2014. PhD dissertation, Stellenbosch University. Accessed from https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/101008

  • Tembo, N. M. (2022). Space, time and graphic wit(h)nessing: Rupert Bazambanza’s Smile through the tears. Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies Journal, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/23277408.2022.2096978

  • The Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda, adopted May 26, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Twagilimana, A. (2003). The Debris of Ham: Ethnicity, regionalism, and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. University Press of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uwizeyimana, D. (2014). Aspects and consequences of the Rwandan Law of Genocide Ideology: A comparative analysis. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(23), 2370–2379.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Alphen, E. (1999). Symptoms of discursivity: Experience, memory and trauma. In M. Bal, J. V. Crewe, & L. Spitzer (Eds.), Acts of memory: Cultural recall in the present (pp. 24–38). University Press of New England.

    Google Scholar 

  • Veld, L. (2015). Introducing the Rwandan genocide from a distance: American Noir and the Animal Metaphor in 99 days. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 6(2), 138–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2015.1027941

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Veld, L. (2019). The representation of genocide in graphic novels: Considering the role of Kitsch. Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Verwimp, P. (2003). Testing the double-genocide thesis for central and Southern Rwanda. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 41(4), 423–442.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Viebach, J. (2019). Of other times: Temporality, memory and trauma in post-genocide Rwanda. International Review of Victimology, 25(3), 277–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

    Nick Mdika Tembo

Authors
  1. Nick Mdika Tembo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nick Mdika Tembo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Journalism, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Mphathisi Ndlovu

  2. Department of Communication and Media, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Lungile Augustine Tshuma

  3. Department of Communication Science, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

    Shepherd Mpofu

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Tembo, N.M. (2024). Memoricide, Negationism and Representation: Centring Rwanda’s ‘Double Genocide’ Discourse in the Present Tense. In: Ndlovu, M., Tshuma, L.A., Mpofu, S. (eds) Remembering Mass Atrocities: Perspectives on Memory Struggles and Cultural Representations in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39892-6_9

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation