PHOTOS: MARILENA UMUHOZA DELLI | December 9th is World Genocide Commemoration Day. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the largest Rwandan genocide.
When people speak of the Holocaust, for those in Cambodia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Indonesia, Rwanda, and beyond, there is often understandable confusion as to what event is being referred to so definitively.
Almost all Rwandans born before 1994 qualify as “genocide survivors.” Yet, throughout the populace, trauma and suffering are so widespread that few wallow in having had family members killed. Strikingly, the majority opt for the more subdued verb ‘died’ instead. This trait stands in sharp contrast to the glorified culture of victimization that sometimes plagues America and other Westernized countries.
The musical group, The Good Ones, sought solace in music after their mentor’s murder. Their formation actually embodied a spontaneous unification—through shared interest and friendship—of Rwanda’s three tribes, with the original trio’s members each having Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa (“Pygmy”) origins, respectively.
The Good Ones were the first group ever to have original music in Kinyarwanda widely-distributed internationally. Their simple, direct, and plaintive love songs are sung in the street dialect of the rural outskirts of the nation’s capital, and speak more to the healing power of peace than a thousand academic treatises or preachy goodwill ambassadors ever could. Literally, four of the songs on their 2010 debut record were titled with the names of the women whom they were written for. And their follow-up albums have continued this trend, with one song on the new record even proclaiming “My Wife is as Beautiful as a Sunset.”
