Quotes & Sayings About Rwanda

The beautiful faces of the children I've met in Rwanda and in other countries are with me every day and fuel my passion to raise awareness of the global hunger issue. That's why I'm urging everyone to join me and #PassTheRedCup for Yum! Brands' World Hunger Relief effort. Together we can move millions of children from hunger to hope. — Christina Aguilera

Paris Hilton is going on a goodwill mission to Rwanda. It's the first time an entire Third World country will have to get immunizations for a visitor. — Chelsea Handler

The only contry in the world where there's a majority of women in parliament is Rwanda. Rwanda. That's when women get power, real power - if the men are either dead or in prison. — A. L. Kennedy

I certainly think that another Holocaust can happen again. It did already occur; think of Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia. — Miep Gies

One of the matters that must be addressed is that Rwanda and Uganda have to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We're also supporting processes to ensure that the political dialogue among the Congolese themselves takes place so that the people there can decide their future. — Thabo Mbeki

I've never subscribed to the notion that poverty is quaint or that isolation is somehow ennobling. And anyway, this is Rwanda. There is very little innocence left to lose. — Will Ferguson

One of the difficulties about interviewing people in Rwanda is that the country is trying to get on with ordinary life and some people just don't want to get involved in this. — Tony Greig

Everywhere I go, I see young people: Confident, forward looking. I have seen them in Lagos, in Rwanda, in the suburbs of London. — Binyavanga Wainaina

It always amazes me how people in Europe and the United States can be so indifferent to the speeches of their chancellor or president, for these worlds from the top can be a wind sock for what might happen next. — Paul Rusesabagina

'Hotel Rwanda' is an American product, not a Rwandan one, made primarily for American audiences. — Lee Siegel

... the war about the genocide was truly a postmodern war: a battle between those who believed that because the realities we inhabit are constructs of our imaginations, they are all equally true or false, valid or invalid, just or unjust, and those who believed that constructs of reality can - in fact, must - be judged as right or wrong, good or bad.
While academic debates about the possibility of objective truth and falsehood are often rarified to the point of absurdity, Rwanda demonstrated that the question is a matter of life and death. — Philip Gourevitch

Rwandans have a funny relationship with God, which they convey through a story that anyone can tell you: "God worked very hard for six days creating the heavens and the earth. But on the seventh day, he needed a break, so he picked Rwanda as the place to take a much needed sleep. God sleeps in Rwanda, then keeps busy at work everywhere else."
This story has two meanings: The negative take is that God is not in Rwanda to protect you or answer your prayers, that He comes here only to shut His eyes. The other interpretation of "God sleeps in Rwanda" is that the country is a mile up, cooler and more beautiful than any other place, and so, naturally, this would be where God comes when He is not punching the clock. His favorite place. It was the second interpretation that we needed to believe. — Josh Ruxin

It is a great tool of dictators and tyrants, who want to get masses of people to do what they want, to make sure there are no libraries...The fact that there was no public library in Rwanda is one reason why genocide was possible. — Stephen Kinzer

The genocide [in Rwanda] was not a spontaneous eruption of tribal hatred, it was planned by people wanting to keep power. There was a long government-led hat campaign against the Tutsis. — Jonathan Glover

On the last Saturday of every month, Rwanda goes to work for itself: clearing land, building classrooms, making roads. On these national days of community work, known as umuganda, most shops and businesses are closed. Umuganda is a national priority, and everyone is expected to participate. — Patricia Crisafulli

This year marks 20 years since the Rwandan genocide
the world's greatest humanitarian tragedy of the late 20th century. The international community had pledged 'never again' in the aftermath of the genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s. Yet, we are witnessing today a different type of humanitarian disaster unfolding in Syria and Iraq. — Park Geun-hye

Rwanda is a very open and free country. Key to our recovery as a nation has a range of grassroots, citizen-centered polices we call "homegrown solutions." The idea that Rwanda is highly controlled from the center belies the reality, which is that citizens in every village have a powerful say in how things get done. We prize accountability and Rwandans are quickly adapting themselves to the possibilities of a digital economy. — Paul Kagame

Somewhere in Rwanda, a rural farmer is dreaming of providing an education for her children. Not just high school, but maybe even a university degree. Such a dream used to seem out of reach. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell

The civil war in Rwanda and other ethnic massacres were an integral part of US foreign policy, carefully staged in accordance with precise strategic and economic objectives. — Michel Chossudovsky

Rwanda has emerged from the devastation of genocide and become more secure and prosperous than anyone had a right to expect. — Stephen Kinzer

We have a chance here to prove that [Rwanda], a country that almost slaughtered itself out of existence, can practice reconciliation, reorganize itself, focus on tomorrow and provide comprehensive, quality health care with minimal outside help. — William J. Clinton

Perhaps we have failed as human beings. Perhaps we have embarrassed ourselves to the natural world. We have been rigorous and willful in all the wrong ways. But it doesn't have to be this way. Maybe you don't want to deal with (marching), the permanent marker and poster board. But try something else. Carry someone's groceries. Chat with the custodian in your office building. Donate blood. Live in Rwanda for a year. Write letters to the Department of Buildings. Learn to knit. It is only going to get better from here on out. — Sufjan Stevens

Rwanda really did take very strong steps towards development. I mean, this place is unrecognizable. There's a very good management of economy and resources - it's a success story, and that's great. — Mo Ibrahim

Rwanda is a landlocked country, but it hasn't stopped developing. They built a high-end tourism industry around the mountain gorillas. — Robert Zoellick

Rwanda's Muslim community is an example of a group (a full community rather than isolated individuals) that resisted the appeal of dangerous speech and other pressures to participate in the genocide. The Muslim community, which had both Hutu and Tutsi members, not only refused to participate in the genocide but actively opposed it. Its actions during the genocide included rescuing, hiding, and taking care of Muslim and non-Muslim Tutsis, and providing safe haven in mosques. Muslims also rejected commands to kill or reveal Tutsis hidden in their communities, on several occasions going so far as to fight back and be killed themselves. — Rachel Hilary Brown

We got involved in the Rwanda peace process for the simple reason that there was a decision which was taken by the Security Council, because the troops were in Uganda, and we decided to have a military presence. — Boutros Boutros-Ghali

The UN lacked the ability to act without the support of its more powerful members, notably the United States. The American government wanted to avoid a repetition of its unsuccessful intervention in Somalia, in which thirty American troops were killed. President Clinton issued a directive on UN military conditions. The operations would also have to be directly relevant to American interests. These conditions excluded American support for UN intervention to stop the genocide [in Rwanda]. — Jonathan Glover

One other thing struck me. The margin between life and death was so very slim in Darfur, where people eked out a harsh semi-desert existence. The ability to cope was that much more limited than it had been in, say, Rwanda, a relatively fertile tropical country. Consequently, the ability to destroy people's means of livelihood was that much greater. — Mukesh Kapila

Weber also saw that a bureaucratic world contained risks. It produced increasingly powerful and autonomous bureaucrats who could be spiritless, driven only by impersonal rules and procedures, and with little regard for the people they were expected to serve. Weber famously warned that those who allow themselves to be guided by rules will soon find that those rules have defined their identities and commitments. — Michael Barnett

When I got back I found myself being very emotional about the time spent in Rwanda in a way that I hadn't been able to or allowed myself to be when we were there. — Hugh Dancy

The history and national interest of Rwanda and the Rwandan people dictate our national orientation. — Paul Kagame

As far as the political, military, and economic interests of the world's powers go, (Rwanda) might as well be Mars. In fact, Mars is probably of greater strategic concern. But Rwanda, unlike Mars, is populated by human beings, and when Rwanda had a genocide, the world's powers left Rwanda to it. — Philip Gourevitch

The West has institutions that can punish the misconduct of individuals. What drove Rwanda and Africa into decline was the fact that certain people weren't held accountable. When we move to make corrupt mayors or officers answer to the courts, people always immediately say that we are repressive. But should we allow these people to continue to get away with it? — Paul Kagame

For many people in the U.N., the 1990s was the worst decade the organization experienced. This was the decade of Somalia, Srebrenica, of Rwanda and so forth, and yet the reality is, during this period, although there were these awful conflicts, the overall number of wars had gone down. — Andrew Mack

It always bothers me when I hear Rwanda's genocide described as a product of "ancient tribal hatreds." I think this is an easy way for Westerners to dismiss the whole thing as a regrettable but pointless bloodbath that happens to primitive brown people. — Paul Rusesabagina

Killing Tutsis was a political tradition in postcolonial Rwanda; it brought people together. — Philip Gourevitch

There becomes little doubt as to why power chooses to support power. Rwanda becomes invisible once again. We have nothing America wants. — Terry Tempest Williams

In their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda. — Kofi Annan

I think to a certain extent in Bosnia and among the Hutus in Rwanda and also among the Tutsis in Rwanda who then took revenge on the Hutus, there is a sense of being swept up and a sense that the society in which they live has gone mad. — John Pomfret

Gorilla tourism is vital to Rwanda's economy: It's the third highest source of income. — Andy Serkis

My dad was a journalist. He was in Rwanda right after the genocide. In Berlin when the wall came down. He was always disappearing and coming back with amazing stories. So telling stories for a living made sense to me. — Patrick J. Adams

Somali is turning into a desert. Rwanda, you can hardly find a place to plant a potato, it's so crowded. — Jim Fowler

I know that the fact that I am candidate to my own succession in 2017 can be perceived to be a bad thing by some part of the public opinion outside Rwanda and I don't mind because I know that I am doing it for a good cause. It really doesn't matter to me that my name is associated to those critics as long as I know that I am doing the will of the people. — Paul Kagame

Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. — Philip Gourevitch

Rwanda can be a paradise again, but it will take the love of the entire world to heal my homeland. And that's as it should be, for what happened in Rwanda happened to us all - humanity was wounded by the genocide. — Immaculee Ilibagiza

(On the beginning of the mid-1990s' genocidal war in Rwanda
Within six weeks, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi, representing about three-quarters of the Tutsi then remaining in Rwanda, or 11% of Rwanda's total population, had been killed. — Jared Diamond

The last time I heard an orthodox Marxist statement that was music to my ears was from a member of the Rwanda Patriotic Front, during the mass slaughter in the country. 'The terms Hutu and Tutsi,' he said severely, 'are merely ideological constructs, describing different relationships to the means and mode of production.' But of course! — Christopher Hitchens

Israel and Rwanda both play an active part in international organizations, including the U.N., but I think it's true that our unique experiences as nations have shaped a fierce independence that we will not relinquish. — Paul Kagame

We are preaching hope, standing on the bones of the past. — John Rucyahana

What worries me is that we want to close down our relationship to the world at large. In other words, people's instincts are overwhelmed by the amount of images, or they can't distinguish anymore between Rwanda or Bosnia or Somalia. — Susan Meiselas

It is better for a country to have a strong leader, this applies to the United States as well as to Rwanda. — Paul Kagame

Many signs point to the fact that the youth of the Third World will no longer tolerate living in circumstances that give them no hope for the future. From the young boys I met in the demobilization camps in Sierra Leone to the suicide bombers of Palestine and Chechnya, to the young terrorists who fly planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we can no longer afford to ignore them. We have to take concrete steps to remove the causes of their rage, or we have to be prepared to suffer the consequences. — Romeo Dallaire

In all my travels, I've never seen a country's population more determined to forgive, and to build and succeed than in Rwanda. — Rick Warren

I knew that to really minister to Rwanda's needs meant working toward reconciliation in the prisons, in the churches, and in the cities and villages throughout the country. It meant feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the young, but it also meant healing the wounded and forgiving the unforgivable.
I knew I had to be committed to preaching a transforming message to the people of Rwanda. Jesus did not die for people to be religious. He died so that we might believe in Him and be transformed. I'm engaged in a purpose and strategy that Jesus came to Earth for. My life is set for that divine purpose in Jesus Christ. I was called to that
proclaiming the message of transformation through Jesus Christ. — John Rucyahana

I can't think of a better model for Haiti rebuilding than Rwanda. — Paul Farmer

I can't say that you should extract this or that value from my books explicitly. They are up for interpretation. In terms of the obligation, I think we're all individuals on this planet, trying to scratch our way through the day, and if you're writing a book exposing atrocities in Rwanda or writing a murder mystery set in a mountain village, I think both ways of spending you time are valid and both books are probably fine to read. — Colson Whitehead

The typhoon of madness that swept through the country [of Rwanda] between April 7 and the third week of May accounted for 80 percent of the victims of the genocide.
That means about eight hundred thousand people were murdered during those six weeks, making the daily killing rate at least five times that of the Nazi death camps. The simple peasants of Rwanda, with their machetes, clubs, and sticks with nails, had killed at a faster rate than the Nazi death machine with its gas chambers, mass ovens, and firing squads. In my opinion, the killing frenzy of the Rwandan genocide shared a vital common thread with the technological efficiency of the Nazi genocide
satanic hate in abundance was at the core of both. — John Rucyahana

Without mutual tolerance emerging as the foundation, terrible situations like those of Tibet and Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Rwanda, can never be effectively improved. — Dalai Lama

Rwanda is not over needing aid, but we can survive with less aid than before. — Paul Kagame

So this is why I'm always say happy that somebody mentions Rwanda, because behind Rwanda, we have Africa. — Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Nobody tells you Rwanda looks like Tuscany with its tiled roofs. — Joanna Lumley

Rwanda had presented the world with the most unambiguous case of genocide since Hitler's war against the Jews, and the world sent blankets, beans, and bandages to camps controlled by the killers, apparently hoping that everybody would behave nicely in the future. — Philip Gourevitch

At the time of the liberation of the camps, I remember, we were convinced that after Auschwitz there would be no more wars, no more racism, no more hatred, no more anti-Semitism. We were wrong. This produced a feeling close to despair. For if Auschwitz could not cure mankind of racism, was there any chance of success ever? The fact is, the world has learned nothing. Otherwise, how is one to comprehend the atrocities committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia ... — Elie Wiesel

One is reminded of Primo Levi's observation about the Holocaust: 'Things whose existence is not morally comprehensible cannot exist. — Michael Barnett

Ach bloodletting hastens the next, and as the value of human life is degraded and violence becomes tolerated, the unimaginable becomes more conceivable. — Bill Clinton

Today we are less likely to speak of humanitarianism, with its overtones of paternalistic generosity, and more likely to speak of human rights. The basic freedoms in life are not seen as gifts to be doled out by benevolent well-wishers, but as Casement said at his trial, as those rights to which all human beings are entitled from birth. It is this spirit which underlies organizations like Amnesty International, with its belief that putting someone in prison solely for his or her opinion is a crime, whether it happens in China or Turkey or Argentina and Medecins Sans Frontieres, with its belief that a sick child is entitled to medical care, whether in Rwanda or Honduras or the South Bronx. — Adam Hochschild

The fact that you had disruptions in the peace process was not only in Rwanda. We had the same problem in Cambodia, we had the same problem in Mozambique, we had the same problem in Salvador. — Boutros Boutros-Ghali

I was on the ground, I was in command, I had been given the mission, and I took the decision. — Romeo Dallaire

The story of U.S. policy during the genocide in Rwanda is not a story of willful complicity with evil. U.S. officials did not sit around and conspire to allow genocide to happen. — Samantha Power

It depends on the situation. I mean, on one hand there's the argument that people should be left alone on the other hand, there's the argument to wade in a stop slaughters in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and what we probably should have done in Rwanda. — Jello Biafra

The 20th century merits the name "The Century of Murder." 1915 Turks slaughtered 2 million Armenians. 1933 to 1954 the Soviet government encompassed the death of 20 to 65 million citizens. 1933 to 1945 Nazi Germany murdered more than 25 million people. 1948 Hindus and Muslims engaged in racial and religious strife that claimed more lives than could be reported. 1970 3 million Bangladesh were killed. 1971 Uganda managed the death of 300,000 people. 1975 Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia and murdered up to 3 million people. In recent times more than half a million of Rwanda's 6 million people have been murdered. At present times genocidal strife is underway in Bosnia, Somalia, Burundi and elsewhere.
The people of the world have demonstrated themselves to be so capable of forgetting the murderous frenzies in which their fellows have participated that it is essential that one, at least, be remembered and the world be regularly reminded of it. _Consequences of the Holocaust — Raul Hilberg

The number one killer of children in Rwanda is malaria. Since the United States of America stood up and working with Rwandans, we have been able to cut those deaths by two-thirds. — Bill Frist

Poverty is too complex to be answered with a one-size-fits-all approach, and if there is any place that illustrates that complexity, as well as a better way forward, it is Rwanda. — Jacqueline Novogratz

In my heart of hearts I knew I was wrong. The World Cup was about to begin in the United States. The planet was interested in nothing else. And in any case, whatever happened in Rwanda, it would always be the same old story of blacks beating up on each other. Even Africans would say, during half-time of every match, "They're embarrassing us, they should stop killing each other like that." Then they'll go on to something else. [9-10] — Boubacar Boris Diop

You see, each country has a colour, a smell, and also a contagious sickness. In my country the sickness is complacency. In France it's arrogance, and in the United States it's ignorance."

"What about Rwanda?"

"Easy power and impunity. Here, there's total disorder. To someone who has a little money or powere, everything that seems forbidden elsewhere looks permissible and possible. All it takes is to dare it. Someone who's simply a liar in my country can be a fraud artist here, and the fraud artist gets to be a big-time thief. Chaos and most of all poverty give him powers he wouldn't have elsewhere. — Gil Courtemanche

Strong economic growth, and especially a significant increase in private sector investment, is the only sustainable path forward for Rwanda. — Paul Kagame

I fell in love with Rwanda the moment I saw those verdant, rolling hills rise up beneath the wings of the plane as we descended toward Kigali airport. — Naomi Benaron

There is something living deep within us all that welcomes, even relishes, the role of victimhood for ourselves. There is no cause in the world more righteously embraced than our own when we feel someone has wronged us. Perhaps it is a psychological leftover from early childhood, when we felt the primeval terror of the world around us and yearned for the intervention of a mother/protector to keep us safe. Perhaps it makes it easier to explain away our personal failures when the work of an enemy can be blamed. Perhaps we just get tired of long explanations and like the cleanliness of an easy solution. It is for wiser people than me to say. Whatever its allure, this primitive ideology of Hutu Power swept through Rwanda in 1993 and early 1994 with the speed of flame through dry grass. — Paul Rusesabagina

Rwanda has its own problems and never sought to blame others or cause others trouble. I advise Burundi to do the same. — Paul Kagame

I felt it absolutely essential that we plant the U.N. flag in Rwanda and plant it in a place of significance to show all the political entities, all the signees of the agreement and the Rwandans ... that the international community were here and we're here to stay and we're going to be doing our job. — Romeo Dallaire

Rwanda was considered a second-class operation; because it was a small country, we had been able to maintain a kind of status quo. They were negotiating, they'd accepted the new peace project, so we were under the impression that everything would be solved easily. — Boutros Boutros-Ghali

I dream of a world liberated of all diseases. Ignorance also upsets me a lot. How can one calmly look at the pictures from Rwanda and not instantly want to take action and try to ease the suffering? — Naomi Campbell

My father was an agricultural economist. In 1989 he was posted to Mbarara, a small town on the Uganda-Rwanda border. — Giles Foden

I am not responsible for creating an opposition, neither am I responsible for appointing my own successor. My job is to allow for the opposition to exist within what the realms of the law. There is space in Rwanda for political parties - if fact we have about a dozen of them - as long as their objective is not to take us back twenty two years. On that point, we are and will always be very vigilant. — Paul Kagame

Nobody is asking you to forget," I said. "I'm asking you to remember those that you saved and to honour those you couldn't save. Giving up your life honours nobody, saves nobody. By living like this you're saying that life isn't precious. It is precious. Every life...including yours. Don't let Rwanda - don't let evil - claim one more victim. Don't let yourself be another casualty of Rwanda. — Eric Walters

Acumen Fund is my prayer in response to genocide and what happened in Rwanda. — Jacqueline Novogratz

Fossey, Fossey, you cranky difficult strong-arming self-destructive misanthrope, mediocre scientist, deceiver of earnest college students, probable cause of more deaths of the gorillas than if you had never set foot in Rwanda, Fossey, you pain-in-the-ass saint, I do not believe in prayers or souls, but I will pray for your soul, I will remember you for all of my days, in gratitude for that moment by the graves when all I felt was the pure, cleansing sadness of returning home and finding nothing but ghosts. — Robert M. Sapolsky

Colonisation is violence, and there are many ways to carry out that violence. In addition to military and administrative chiefs and a veritable army of churchmen, the Belgians dispatched scientists to Rwanda. The scientists brought scales and measuring tapes and callipers, and they went about weighing Rwandans, measuring Rwandan cranial capacities, and conducting comparative analyses of the relative protuberance of Rwandan noses. Sure enough, the scientists found what they had believed all along. Tutsis had a 'nobler', more 'naturally' aristocratic dimensions than the 'coarse' and 'bestial' Hutus. On the 'nasal index' for instance, the median Tutsi nose was found to be about two and a half millimetres longer and nearly five millimetres narrower than the median Hutu nose. — Philip Gourevitch

The perpetrators of genocides are usually men of the herd, men who follow orders without questioning them. Rwanda was no exception. — John Rucyahana

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.
[ Live 8 Concert, Mary Fitzgerald Square, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2 July 2005] — Nelson Mandela

The U.N. has been so disappointing to date on the whole Rwanda issue that despite the people they've sent through, and I have no doubt their competence, in the end, the decision is going to be made by other people and not by them. — Tony Greig

The night I flew out from Rwanda, I landed in Nairobi, and I was on my way back home, and my left side started to paralyze and remained paralyzed with pain, and the stress and so on began to appear physically. — Romeo Dallaire

The global village is deteriorating at a rapid pace, and in the children of the world the result is rage. It is the rage I saw in the eyes of the teenage Interahamwe militiamen in Rwanda, it is the rage I sensed in the hearts of the children of Sierra Leone, it is the rage I felt in crowds of ordinary civilians in Rwanda, and it is the rage that resulted in September 11. Human beings who have no rights, no security, no future, no hope and no means to survive are a desperate group who will do desperate things to take what they believe they need and deserve. — Romeo Dallaire

Rwanda is a monarchy not a democracy. — Paul Kagame

Yet, only years after the Nazi-era, millions were sent to their deaths in places such as Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, and the world once again took too long to act. — Allyson Schwartz

It is the first time in the history of Rwanda that political change in the highest leadership of the country has taken place in peace and security. — Paul Kagame

Wherever God spends the day, He comes home to sleep in Rwanda. — Naomi Benaron

I believe, in the years to come, America will look to Rwanda as a very bright light of hope: a country that has been restored by the healing hands of God., , — Tracey Lawrence

The genocide (in Rwanda) was a collective act. What made it possible, what made that final political crime possible, was the absence, the erasure, of seeing the other. Of knowing, of feeling, of being with the other. And when that's removed, then politics
can become genocidal. — James Orbinski

I think the only value of 'Hotel Rwanda' is the fact that it keeps the Rwandan genocide alive, but as far as content, it's Hollywood. — Romeo Dallaire