"I've seen lots of scenes on television myself that were hard to take. Guys in slips and masks pulling bodies out of a mass grave. Newborns they toss, laughing, into bread ovens Young women who coat their throats with oil before going to bed. "That way," they say, "when the throat-slitters come, the blades of their knives weren't hurt as much." I suffered from these things without really feeling involved. I didn't realize that if the victims shouted loud enough, it was so I would hear them, myself, and thousands of other people on earth, and so we would try to do everything we could so that their suffering might end. It always happened so far away, in countries on the other side of the world. But in these early days of April in 1994, the country on the other side of the world is mine" (10).
So speaks Michel Serumundo on the day he is about to die. A fictional character in Murambi, the Book of Bones by Boubacar Boris Diop, Serumondo is one of the victims that die in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. However, his constructedness doesn't negate the stinging reproach held in these words: How often do we simply turn away from tragedies in the world? And particularly striking about the Rwandan genocide is the fact that it was one where the rest of the world clearly turned their back away and did nothing to intervene while in a period of 90-100 days, 800 000 - 1,2 million people were killed.
As Michel says to his wife:
"Don't worry, Sera, the entire world is watching them, they won't be able to do anything." [...] 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 asme odl story of blacks beating up on each other. Even Africans would say, during half-time of every match, "They're embarassing us, they should stop killing each other like that." Then they'll go on to something else. "Did you see that acrobatic flip of Kluivert's?" (9, 10).
What the novel really succeeded in doing was making me think about how the world reacts to events such as this. And the thing is, the Rwandan genocide is just one in many mass injustices that has left no continent untouched. And being of such a gross nature, it really makes key questions about our participation in social events strike home, and there's one particuarly question I'd like to leave you with: In cases of unjust, inhuman events (no matter how big or small), what is our response as Christians? Do we, like the rest of the world, turn away? Do we, like the rest of the world, blind ourselves to the fact that every human has been created in the image of God and remain apathetic? Because at the act of every sinful, unjust act is a lie. And in this case, the lie would be: it doesn't matter that I don't act, because they don't matter.
I'd like to point out two possible traps you might fall into when thinking about this answer.
1) Don't fall into the trap of thinking that I'm talking only about cases that are as huge and consequential as a genocide- we've all come across little cases of injustice in our lives to which we turn a blind eye.
2) On the other hand, don't think that you need to drop your work and life and move to Rwanda to make a difference. For some of us, this might mean that we do become social activists, but for the rest of us, it might just mean small changes in our lives that otherwise remain pretty much the same.
Having said all that, I don't know what this might mean in terms of your own context and lifestyle. But let's just think a bit mroe earnestly about our participation in the world, and how this might work itself out.
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