Up and Down in Kigali Town
Contributed by B. Comber

Kigali is a pleasant African capital. The trip I took for work in February of 2011 was my third in under a year, and I have enjoyed each one. The streets are remarkably clean, kept that way by various cadres of diligently sweeping women. Men in bright pink outfits place brick after brick into the steep embankments that keep the hills from falling onto the carved out streets that switch back and forth across the city. And, a fun fact that should surprise anyone who has ever taken a look around a major African intersection: there is not a stray dog to be found. It is not uncommon to see people jogging, for exercise. It is not a wealthy country or an untroubled city, but it is pleasant.

The Rwando-philes will tell you to forget what you heard, that this is an optimistic society looking to a bright and promising future, rather than a dark and frightening past. Indeed, Kigali is dotted with advertisements for flights to Rome or Cairo, and billboards with bright looking people emphatically enjoying insurance coverage or ATM machines. The foreign and the fashionable cycle through an agreeable selection of bars and restaurants, and proud depictions of the country’s mountain gorillas adorn eatery entryways and the many tour and adventure companies. Of course, my personal favorite indicator of progressive thinking: a loudly advertised eco-friendly public toilet facility on the city’s main square.

The skeptics will counter that the bright and shiny veneer is the product of unrelenting cultural control by the closed circle of political decision-makers. The locus of this control sits clearly with President Paul Kagame, the country’s political focal point since the summer of 1994. Anecdotes filter through international news outlets of the illegality of even uttering ethnic designations, university students who have been expelled for asking controversial questions, and the victor-based political process that has allowed few real electoral choices in over fifteen years.

After a few days in the country and a few cautiously-phrased conversations with Rwandans, it is difficult not to come to the unsatisfying conclusion that everyone is right enough. Rwanda is like an individual who has surprised himself with the vehemence of his outburst, and is now under strict self-imposed social constraints. Those bright pink outfits, worn by men laying bricks on the embankments, indicate past participation in an extraordinary crime. There are no dogs because dogs are carnivores, and during extraordinary times will feed however they can. It is a model of forward movement that no few countries have ever attempted, and if the world has any capacity to learn from the past, no country should ever again have to try. The question of whether the model works for Rwanda will be up to the dictates of time.