African Studies Staging the Rwandan Diaspora: The ...

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Staging the Rwandan Diaspora: The Politics of Performance Simon Turner

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Aalborg University Published online: 11 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Simon Turner (2013) Staging the Rwandan Diaspora: The Politics of Performance, African Studies, 72:2, 265-284, DOI: 10.1080/00020184.2013.812888 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2013.812888

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African Studies, 72, 2, August 2013

Staging the Rwandan Diaspora: The Politics of Performance Simon Turner ∗

Downloaded by [Simon Turner] at 07:48 17 February 2014

Aalborg University This article explores how the Rwandan state ‘stages’ its diaspora as agents of change. I argue that ‘staging’ – in the sense of creating a specific, positive image – is an important aspect of the present government’s effort to create a new Rwanda of national unity and reconciliation. Although the diaspora mostly is articulated in policy documents in positive terms, there is also a strong acknowledgement of the so-called ‘negative forces’ of the diaspora. Staging the diaspora as agents of change is therefore a means to deal with this ambiguous perception of the diaspora and cultivate only its positive sides, and becomes part of a larger state-building project that is about ‘staging’ or ‘performing’ national unity and asserting state sovereignty. I argue that the Rwandan state performs its sovereignty and governs its hostile diaspora through processes of categorising the diaspora and through processes of inclusion and exclusion of certain categories. Key words: diaspora, genocide, state, sovereignty, performance In Rwanda, we have no natural resources, no oil, but we have our diaspora. They are our gold, our diamonds. (Head of the Diaspora General Directorate, Ministry of Foreign Affairs)1

In this article I explore how the Rwandan state ‘stages’ its diaspora as agents of economic development, as ambassadors for Rwanda abroad and as a source of knowledge and skills. I argue that ‘staging’ – in the sense of creating a specific, positive image – is an important aspect of the present government’s effort to create a new Rwanda of national unity and reconciliation. While many studies have critically analysed the state’s performance (Strauss and Waldorf 2011), surprisingly little has been written about the state’s relation to its diaspora (for an exception see Purdekova 2008). This is particularly surprising, considering that the present ruling elite is comprised more or less of returnees from the diaspora and that a large number of Rwandans still live in the diaspora; whether in Europe, North America or neighbouring African countries. Thus, the Rwandan authorities are acutely aware of the impact that the diaspora may have, negatively or positively, on the future of the country. In this article I explore how the Rwandan state performs in relation to the diaspora in order to remove the political and security threat of a hostile diaspora and create a supportive, developmental diaspora. By performance I do not mean how efficient the state is but rather how the state is able to establish sovereignty by staging itself as a state and the diaspora as citizens of the state, inspired by ∗

Email: [email protected] ISSN 0002-0184 print/ISSN 1469-2872 online/13/020265 – 20 # 2013 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd on behalf of the University of Witwatersrand http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00020184.2013.812888

266 African Studies, Vol. 72, No. 2, August 2013


Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat’s (2001) concept of ‘state spectacle’. Through concrete case studies of state initiatives, I explore the interface between state and diaspora and explore how state sovereignty is enacted and state effects are created. By state effects I mean how the idea of a functioning state is created amongst its citizens and other actors such as the international community. The state is, in other words, not given a priori but rather an effect of concrete performances. State performances govern diasporas by categorising them and creating supportive citizens out of them. Meanwhile, it also excludes groups that fall beyond the bio-political governance of the state and are subjected to pure sovereign power (Hansen and Stepputat 2005). The diaspora in Rwanda is heterogeneous. Waves of Tutsi left the country after the Hutu revolution in 1959 while large numbers of Hutu fled after the 1994 genocide. Finally, some Rwandans from both ethnic groups have fled since 2000. When the Rwandan state reaches out to its diaspora, it is therefore to a divided diaspora, and although the diaspora mostly is articulated in policy documents in positive terms, there is also a strong acknowledgement of the so-called ‘negative forces’ of the diaspora. Staging the diaspora is therefore a means to deal with this ambiguous perception of the diaspora and cultivate only its positive sides. Staging the diaspora as progressive and as contributing to national unity becomes part of a larger nation-building project that is about ‘staging’ or ‘performing’ Rwanda as a show-case of national unity. The audience here is not only the diaspora, but also Rwandans inside Rwanda as well as the international community. In the meanwhile, the diaspora is categorised by the state into three categories: a positive diaspora that supports the state, a sceptical diaspora whose members may be converted, and finally a hostile diaspora beyond reach. This article explores this process of, on the one hand, staging and, on the other hand, categorising the diaspora; both of which are means to establish statehood. Theoretically I argue that statehood relies on the one hand on spectacle to establish sovereignty, and on the other on more mundane, meticulous processes of categorisations, establishing who belongs and who does not belong to the nation and establishing degrees of citizenship. In other words, I argue that the Foucauldian perspective on bio-political, bureaucratic categorisation and organising of populations (Foucault 1978, Dean 1999) must be supplemented with a perspective that includes spectacle, performance and staging as visible manifestations of sovereign power (Mbembe 2001, Hansen and Stepputat 2005). Sovereignty is not given a priori, and such manifestations need to be re-enacted in order to maintain sovereignty. This research is based on policy documents and public statements by state officials and on fieldwork in Kigali in January 2009 and between July 2011 and January 2012. During this fieldwork, I interviewed state officials from relevant ministries and departments, representatives from various diaspora initiatives in Rwanda and a large number of persons who had returned from neighbouring countries, various European countries and North America since 1994.

Staging the Rwandan Diaspora: The Politics of Performance 267


Politics of Performance The new Rwanda is a country that divides scholars and commentators into opposing camps, who either abhor its authoritarianism (Pottier 2002, Reyntjens 2004, Burnet 2008, Hintjens 2008, Ansoms 2009, Ingelaere 2009, Prunier 2009, Beswick 2010, Straus and Waldorf 2011) or applaud the steps that have been taken since the genocide in terms of rebuilding the country (Clark and Kaufman 2008, Kinzer 2008, Gourevitch 2009). I propose that one way to grasp the apparent paradoxes of the Rwandan state without evaluating its development performance or its human rights record is to explore its focus on performing and staging. Ironically, Rwanda is once again a donor darling, being praised for much the same virtues as the pre-genocide regime, despite its declared distancing from this regime (Newbury 1992, Uvin 1998, Marysse, Ansoms and Cassimon 2006, Straus and Waldorf 2011). Using the burden of guilt for not preventing the genocide in the first place, the government skilfully manages to get donor support despite its increasingly authoritarian rule and despite its military adventures in neighbouring Congo (DRC) (Prunier 2009, Zorbas 2011). In the words of Helen Hintjens, President Paul Kagame ‘has an excellent feel for what will work in the capitals of the English speaking heartlands’ (2008:10). While 60 per cent of the population live below the poverty line and the income gap between rich and poor is growing (Ansoms 2008), and while the urban-rural divide increases, the Rwandan state stages development and progress through decrees and performances. This includes, for example, ordering people not to be barefoot in public spaces in order to stage wealth and civilisation, banning plastic bags in order to stage environmental conscience, and ordering school children to have clean hands in order to stage hygiene and progress (Ingelaere 2009). Even Kigali appears like a façade – a stage – put up in honour of donors and wealthy members of the diaspora, with its clean roads, sophisticated traffic lights and new office buildings. Street vendors, slum dwellers and open-air markets have been banned and removed from the city centre in order to give the ambience of a well-functioning, bureaucratic capital. When discussing the progress that the country has made since the genocide with government officials in Kigali, they most often mention the banning of plastic bags as an achievement, rather than life expectancy, gross domestic product (GDP) or literacy rates. James Scott’s (1998) idea of the aesthetics of development seems very appropriate in the Rwandan setting, where development is less about substantial change and more about appearances of change. Rather than criticise the Rwandan government for its top-down social engineering (Pottier 2006, Ansoms 2008), its authoritarian tendencies (Hintjens 2008, Beswick 2010) and even for its poor performance in terms of development,2 we may instead perceive it as a performance that is successful in other aspects. The Rwandan state is successful, I will argue, in creating an imagination of a state (Hansen and Stepputat 2001) and in establishing its sovereignty (Hansen and Stepputat 2005). I argue that the aesthetics of development



that the Rwandan state stages, is also about creating ethical self-governing citizens (Foucault et al. 1988). Poverty and its elimination become moral and ethical issues of self-control for the individual. When, for instance, I discussed the law on wearing shoes in public spaces with a civil servant in Kigali, he argued that it is not a question of money. ‘Anyone can afford a pair of these Chinese plastic slippers. It is a question of attitude,’ he claimed with a smile. ‘It is good that these people learn to change their attitude.’3 Similar reasons were given for the government’s so-called ‘bye bye Nyakatsi’ programme to eradicate grass thatches. A lecturer at a University in Kigali who had returned from the diaspora and who is active in a diaspora-led project to build houses with tin roofs in a poor region, explained to me the difficulties of persuading peasants to stop using grass thatching. He explained how the grass roof protects from the heat of the sun during the day and from the worst cold during the night, and is less noisy when it rains. Still, his conclusion was that this simply made it all the more difficult to convince the peasants to change their habits: ‘They say that it is better than iron sheeting because it keeps out the heat. So you see, it’s difficult to convince these people.’4 In other words, poverty is a question of attitude, work ethics and morality. Poor people need to change their attitudes and be convinced of the need to develop. Hence, it is more important to appear less poor by wearing shoes and cleaning themselves and their houses than actually eradicating poverty in terms of income or living costs. Appearance comes before substance. The question then is how the state performs in relation to the segment of the population that lives outside the sovereign borders of the state. This article argues that the state’s engagement with the diaspora serves several purposes. At one level it is about attracting resources of various kinds – money and knowledge. At another level it is about bringing members of the diaspora under closer control. And finally, it is about performing – and hence creating – the state itself. The literature on transnationalism has dealt extensively with the first level, exploring various state initiatives to attract the funding and skills of the diaspora (Basch et al. 1995, Guarnizo and Smith 1998, Levitt 2001). These studies tend, however, to ignore political contestations and public authority, reducing the interaction to a technical question of development. The issue of political contestation and establishing state control over the diaspora has been explored in studies coming less from the tradition of transnationalism and more from studies on diaspora, nationalism and conflict (Fuglerud 1999, Skrbis 1999, Axel 2002, Ellis and Khan 2002, Wayland 2004, Cochrane 2007, Smith and Stares 2007). Benedict Anderson’s (1994) thoughts on long-distance nationalism in the early 1990s have been fundamental in understanding how diasporas engage with the homeland, and how their engagement is affected by their lack of accountability; often with the result that they are more uncompromising in their nationalism. While many have explored the way the diaspora engages in conflict in the homeland, fewer studies explore


the reaction of the homeland (see, however, Bernal 2005, Spoonley et al. 2003, Koser 2007, To¨lo¨lyan 2007, Turner 2008).


In this article I will not only explore how the Rwandan state is attempting to reap the development benefits of its diaspora and reign in the diaspora and bring it under control, but will take the analysis a step further by exploring how these policies may be perceived as transnational state spectacles that establish sovereignty and hence reify the state in itself. In other words, the state’s initiatives vis-a`-vis its diaspora may be perceived as part of a larger state-making process where it stages itself as the moral defender of development, progress and national unity.

A Diasporic State In 1959 a so-called Hutu revolution led to anti-Tutsi violence and massive flight of Tutsi to neighbouring countries, most notably Uganda. Through the 1960s, new waves of violence created new waves of Tutsi refugees. In 1990, RPA (Rwandan Patriotic Army, the armed wing of RPF, Rwandan Patriotic Front) invaded Rwanda from bases in Uganda. The leadership of RPA, including present president, Paul Kagame, had been active in Museveni’s freedom struggle in Uganda and had since Museveni’s victory held important posts in the Ugandan armed forces and administration (Mamdani 1996, Otunnu 1999a). However, antiRwandan sentiments in the Ugandan population had forced Museveni to demote these Rwandans who therefore saw no future in Uganda and decided to invade and ‘liberate’ Rwanda, secretly backed by Museveni (Mamdani 1996, Reed 1996, Otunnu 1999b). The civil war continued through to 1994, when the genocide broke out, and RPF was instrumental in stopping the genocide (Prunier 1995). It is this elite from Uganda that now comprises the core of the political elite inside the country. The 1959 Tutsi diaspora has been described as what Robin Cohen has termed a ‘victim diaspora’ (Cohen 1997, Hintjens 2008). However, they do not only identify themselves as victims but also as heroes, because they liberated the country from the Hutu regime and stopped the 1994 genocide, according to the official RPF narrative. After 1994 an estimated one million Tutsi returned – mainly from Uganda, Tanzania, DRC and Burundi but also from Europe and North America. When the state reaches out to its diaspora, it is most obviously reaching out to those 1959-ers who chose to remain in diaspora – most often because they live in Europe or North America where their standards of living are higher than in East Africa. This is the diaspora of resources and goodwill. There is, however, another diaspora which is perceived to be ‘problematic’ in the new Rwanda; this is the diaspora that left the country during and shortly after the genocide in 1994, where close to two million Hutu fled the country – mostly to neighbouring Zaire and Tanzania (Eriksson 1996) where they settled in enormous refugee camps, organised and run by the same leaders who had planned the genocide (Prunier 1995). This hostile and well-organised diaspora just outside the national



borders posed a very concrete security threat to Rwanda. Therefore, the government claimed that all refugees were welcome back, they could recuperate their property and only the guilty would be prosecuted (Van Leeuwen 2001). After prolonged attempts to convince the ‘civilian’ refugees to return, the Rwandan government decided in late 1996 to invade eastern Congo and force the refugees to repatriate (Pottier 2002, Prunier 2009). Shortly thereafter, the Tanzanian government also forced the Rwandan refugees back home (Whitaker 2002). Those Hutu who have remained in exile are perceived by the state to be potentially dangerous. Due to the RPF’s own experience of fighting a war from exile, the government is aware of the dangers in ignoring and antagonising this potentially hostile diaspora, and therefore continues to have massive campaigns to encourage the diaspora to return.5 In sum, Rwanda is a nation of diaporas who have either returned or who remain outside the country. Their relations to the nation-state depend not only on whether they are Hutu or Tutsi but also on where they have been exiled. The present state is the product of a successful diasporic struggle and a disporic dream come true. According to Andrea Purdekova´, the nationalist script of de-ethnicisation ‘appears to be an “imported”, “brewed-in-exile” recipe for a permanent escape from the past and attainment of an alternative future. It represents a curious “reterritorialization” of a nation building project conceived in exile’ (Purdekova´ 2008:4). The Tutsi who returned from exile after 1994, were able to create a country anew to a degree that would not have been possible for anyone from within the nation. This same state is now reaching out to all sections of society in the name of national unity – including not only Hutu and Tutsi but also its heterogeneous diaspora.

Diasporas as Saviours The government’s prestigious Vision 2020 report reflects its ambitions to become a modern and prosperous nation – while retaining a certain dignity in the nation’s cultural values and heritage. The diaspora is included in this vision for the future: Rwanda will become a modern, united and prosperous nation founded on the positive values of its culture. The nation will be open to the world, including its own Diaspora. Rwandans will be a people, sharing the same vision for the future and ready to contribute to social cohesion, equity and equality of opportunity.6

Annex Two of the Vision 2020 report explains how the colonial regime created ‘waves of emigrants running away from the colonial yoke and ruthless rule’, how the state in the period from independence to 1994 played a negative role vis-a`-vis the diaspora, and how the post-genocide state has ensured double citizenship, efforts towards good relations and contact, and a ‘participatory approach and generalized consultation’.7 There is, in other words, a perception that there has been a drastic change from pre- to post-genocide state-diaspora relations and that this is due to the progressive stance of the post-genocide state. This positive


stance towards the diaspora is due to the state’s attempt to create a new Rwanda that is radically different from the old Rwanda.8


In 2001 a desk in charge of the diaspora was created in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Corporation ‘to help the Rwandan Diaspora to acquire services they need from their motherland’,9 and in 2008 the Diaspora Desk was formalised into the Diaspora General Directorate (DGD). In 2009, the head of DGD claimed that Rwanda has a diaspora of up to six million people,10 and that they are the gold of the country.11 The diaspora is perceived potentially to be able to contribute to the homeland in three ways: as agents of economic development, as goodwill ambassadors, and as a resource of knowledge and skills. First and foremost, this entails a ‘constructive relationship with their motherland’ or as stated in the vision of the DGD ‘(a) United Rwandan Diaspora dedicated to and integrated in, the national development of their Motherland’.12 The DGD is, in other words, aware that not all members of the diaspora are willing to contribute to the motherland, and the task of the state, then, is not only to make it easier for the diaspora to contribute to development, but also to ensure that the diaspora has a ‘constructive relationship with the motherland’. Many of the concrete initiatives vis-a`-vis the diaspora are concerned with attracting investment in the private sector. Concrete initiatives include a mutual fund, as well as a number of initiatives to ease banking from diaspora13 and other initiatives to ease investment such as the Capital Market Advisory Council14 and Rwanda Development Board. Across the valley on the next hilltop from where I stayed in Kigali in 2011/2012, there was a building site. This building was the final result of the One Dollar campaign – where Rwandans in Rwanda and in the diaspora contribute as little as one dollar to mobilise development funds. The project was initiated during a diaspora conference in December 2008 by the Rwanda Diaspora Global Network (RDGN), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the DGD, and the campaign started in April 2009 in relation to the 15th commemoration of the genocide. The building that was being erected opposite my home, was to become student housing for genocide orphans. As it is the practice, the Rwandan Diaspora Community all over the world as well as all the friends of Rwanda, will join Rwandans inside the country to commemorate the Genocide, to fight genocide deniers and revisionists while reflecting on how they can contribute to building their nation, as it is stipulated in the theme of the 15th anniversary of the Genocide against Tutsi.15

The One Dollar campaign is, in other words, not simply about building student accommodation in Kigali but also about creating a more patriotic diaspora. Furthermore, it positions the diaspora as the actor that is able to heal the nation and assist the survivors to recover after the genocide that destroyed the national fabric. The symbolism is evident. First, the government, as is evident in the



quote above, is drawing the diaspora into the dense symbolic fabric of the nation by drawing it into the commemoration of the genocide; the void around which the nation and the people are constructed as one.16 Second, the choice of ‘beneficiaries’ is not arbitrary; the survivors of genocide are often the first choice for donors, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and state initiatives, and they occupy a very specific position in the national ideology of post-genocide Rwanda.17 While the (Tutsi) diaspora who returned from exile in Uganda, are venerated as the heroes who ended the genocide and brought peace and enlightened progress to the country, the Tutsi who had survived the genocide are depicted as pure victims who did not have the capacities, will or vision to help themselves and prevent the genocide. In an interview with representatives from the Association of Student Survivors of Genocide (AERG), who are the beneficiaries of the project, they repeatedly told me about the problems they had as survivors, mentally as well as financially. They recounted how some survivors had difficulties getting the government scholarships for survivors and emphasised their suffering, appealing to governments and individuals to ‘have mercy inside’.18 The rhetoric was a striking difference to the interview I had had a few days previously with the project manager of the One Dollar campaign in the office right next door. The project manager was an assertive, friendly and confident man who had returned from Uganda in the years after 1994. Occasionally, he slipped into a discourse on the project being for vulnerable, traumatised genocide survivors in need of assistance, but mostly he discussed the practical planning issues of the project, while proudly showing me the model of the housing project that was on display in his office.19 While the survivors are staged as the helpless victims of the genocide, the diaspora – as it is staged in the One Dollar campaign – emerges as the active agent that is able to protect and save them. In other words, when the government is urging the present diaspora to support the survivors, it is symbolically asking the diaspora – with its knowledge and money – to protect the vulnerable and helpless citizens from the threats of a repeated genocide. The state ‘stages’ the survivors as hapless victims and the diaspora as heroic saviours as part of a greater state spectacle. What is interesting in this case is how the actors play their part. The representatives of the genocide survivors act as helpless, traumatised victims who cannot do anything but appeal to the mercy of others. The project manager, on the other hand, plays the part of the active and resourceful returning diaspora.

Courting a Sceptical Diaspora While remittances and investment are encouraged, the state regards knowledge and skills transfer as more important than financial support. In a speech to the diaspora in Cambridge, President Kagame juxtaposes the present regime’s focus on science and research with what he calls the ‘lost decades’:



much of the past five decades [in Africa] up to the mid-1990s were characterized by instability, conflict, weak institutions, and dismal economic performance . . . The ‘lost decades’ also led to severe shortage of scientists, researchers and trained medical personnel . . .20

Knowledge and education are fundamental values of the dominant ideology in Rwanda. The elite perceives itself as an enlightened avant-garde whose duty it is to ‘sensitise’ the population in everything from hygiene to women’s rights and Rwandan history. Students of the National University of Rwanda are, for instance, expected to contribute to the community with their knowledge.21 This approach reveals not only the state’s emphasis on progress and development, but is also significantly – and often explicitly – linked to combating ‘genocide mentalities’, as genocide is perceived to have been the result, in part at least, of the ignorance of the ordinary population. Only due to the ignorance of the Hutu masses was the previous regime able to manipulate them into killing their Tutsi neighbours, according to this line of reasoning. It is therefore of no surprise that the Rwandan state is also keen to bank on the assumed knowledge of the diaspora to support the state in spreading enlightenment and combating ignorance and divisionism. It is, however, a balancing act for the state, since it is also in the diaspora that Rwandans are assumed to lose their patriotism and host ‘divisionist’ ideas. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) Belgium and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have been engaged in skills transfer programmes to Rwanda.22 The aim of the programmes is to reverse the brain drain and ensure that Rwandan knowledge and skills contribute to development inside Rwanda. Although the IOM and UNDP conceptualise these programmes in purely developmental terms, they may also have ideological dimensions for the Rwandan state and for the diaspora. In Belgium, the former colonial power, the Rwandan diaspora is split along political factions and is not behaving the way it is expected, shedding light and progress on the nation, and combating divisionism and ignorance. The finding of a preliminary survey of the IOM programmes notes that the Rwandan community in Belgium ‘is complex and divided because of the genocide’. Dr Gaston Rwasamanzi who presented the finding, said: ‘The Rwandan Diaspora lives in a country where there are powerful Belgian networks linked to the former regime who work to undermine the policy of unity and national reconciliation.’23 The quote acknowledges the divisions in the diaspora in Belgium, but then skilfully puts the blame for this on Belgium, the former colonial power, which the current regime argues invented the terms Hutu and Tutsi in the first place to divide and rule the Rwandans. In this sense, the diaspora is still part of the nation, while divisionism is perceived to be caused by external forces. The state’s ambiguous relations to its diaspora reflect its ambiguous relations to the West. On the one hand, knowledge, rationality, enlightenment and progress come from being exposed to the developed and wealthy countries in Europe and North America. On the other hand, it is Europeans who have sown the seed



of divisionism in Rwanda in the first place, by pitting Hutu against Tutsi in their racial thinking and their attempts to divide and rule (Pottier 2002). For these reasons, the present regime is also wary of western influence and does not accept donors who dictate what Rwanda is and is not supposed to do (Zorbas 2011). Likewise, the regime is suspicious towards the host societies where the Rwandan diaspora lives, alert to the fact that they may be encouraging divisionism and genocide mentalities. At the ninth Rwanda Diaspora Global Convention, held in Kigali in December 2009, the diaspora was briefed on the country’s current security situation by the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) director of Research and Development, Charles Karamba, and Joseph Nzabamwita of the National Security Service (NSS) who emphasised that the diaspora can contribute to national stability if they could ‘counter the activities of the Negative Diaspora, their sympathizers and enemies of Rwanda and confront the propaganda of subversive groups’.24 When interviewing senior state officials in Kigali, I was initially surprised to learn how acutely aware they were of what they term a ‘negative diaspora’, and a number of state initiatives have been taken to tackle this ‘problem’. In an interview with the head of the DGD, he claimed that there were ‘challenges’ in mobilising the diaspora; apart from a lack of structures to aid them in assisting their homeland, there was also the problem of lack of unity and cohesion. He claimed that the diaspora was more divided than the population inside Rwanda, where various campaigns had managed to create national unity. One of the reasons given for this lack of unity was the misinformation that they were given over the Internet, and it was therefore a major task for the DGD to create an informative website in order to counter this information. He placed the diaspora into three categories: those willing to assist, those who could be convinced, and the hard-core of divisionists who would never be converted. The main DGD target was the middle group who risked being convinced by the last group and who could equally be convinced to join the positive diaspora. All they needed, he claimed, was information about the facts of unity and progress in Rwanda since 1994.25 In the following sections, I analyse some of the initiatives that have been taken by the state to demonstrate to the diaspora the progress that it has made in terms of security, stability and development.26 Rather than examine to which degree the state succeeds in tackling the ‘problem’ of a hostile diaspora, I will show how these state initiatives may be perceived as examples of state performance and staging of the diaspora.

‘Come and see’ Patrick is a freelance filmmaker who was born in Kenya and grew up and studied in Canada. After visiting Rwanda each summer for some years, he decided to stay in 2010. He was invited by the government to film the first group of Rwandans to



visit the country in the state-organised ‘come and see’ programme where sceptical members of the diaspora are invited to visit the country to witness the achievements of the new Rwanda. Apparently, it all started in December 2010 when President Kagame met the diaspora in Belgium. ‘The meeting in Belgium was interesting,’ Patrick explains, ‘because the diaspora is so split there. Much more than in the US or Canada. So these people were really grilling him!’ he adds with a big grin.27 Even Habyarimana’s28 supporters turned up, he explains. ‘In Belgium there are towns where you cannot go. There are bars and restaurants where I cannot enter as a Tutsi. People have even been killed.’ Due to the scepticism he met at the meeting in Brussels, Kagame promised that they could ‘come and see’ the country and see for themselves what had happened in Rwanda since 1994. He promised that the Rwandan state would pay all costs for one hundred people to visit the country. The only criteria for being eligible was that they had not visited Rwanda for at least 15 years. Patrick explains how overwhelmed he was, when he stood on the runway and saw these people touch Rwandan soil for the first time. The dramaturgical effects are quite efficient and an example of a state performance that is not just coined at the diaspora but a much bigger audience. Members of the diaspora who either fear revenge and hatred by those in the country or who themselves harbour feelings of hatred, are flown in, land on Rwandan soil, are welcomed by the president whom they fear/hate, and are driven around the national territory from north to south and east to west to witness the changes in the new Rwanda. The effects of this ‘mise-en-sce`ne’ may be found in the way it is recounted and commented on by the audience. An example is when Patrick describes how one member of the diaspora at one point asked to be let out of the car and allowed to walk. He was astonished, Patrick explains, to discover that he was able to walk the streets without anyone spitting at him or calling him names because he was a Hutu. Patrick’s commentary has two functions. First, it confirms the narrative that Rwandans in Belgium have remained ‘stuck in the mentalities of 1994’ and/or exposed to anti-Kagame propaganda, and that they simply need to see the truth to realise that they were wrong. Second, it subtly refers to the possibility that the whole exercise could be a carefully staged performance; that the members of the diaspora are given VIP treatment, driven in luxury cars and only taken to see the success stories that Kagame wants them to see. In other words, Patrick is aware that the whole exercise may be perceived as a charade. However, by using this example, he demonstrates that even when the spectacle is challenged – when one of the actors tries to move outside the script and leave the stage – the story still works. Firstly, the Hutu is allowed outside the car, which belies the claim that Kagame has them under sharp surveillance. Secondly, his experience on the streets only confirms and strengthens the overall moral of the story, namely that he is perfectly safe as a Hutu in Kigali.



Model Hutu In order to document the general success of the state’s policy to include all members of the diaspora in the new Rwanda, a few prominent Hutu are mentioned again and again. Countless respondents told me about a certain Hutu general who had been part of Habyarimana’s armed forces and had later been a general in the FDLR (Forces De´mocratiques de Libe´ration du Rwanda) in Congo, attacking Rwanda in the late 1990s. He had returned from Congo and was now a general in the RDF and head of prisons services. This individual who had made the transformation from a powerful enemy to an influential member of the new Rwanda, epitomised for my interlocutors the state’s inclusive diaspora policy and proved the sincerity of its intentions to create national unity. I was fortunate to interview the general who gave me a well-prepared account of this transformation and praised the ‘spectacular welcome’ he had received when he returned in 2003.29 Jean-Paul is another example of a successful Hutu returnee who gladly shares his story of success and who plays a major role in staging of the state’s narrative of unity and inclusion.30 He is now a successful civil servant with some business activities on the side. He fled ten days after the genocide started and ended up in Belgium. He had been active in opposition politics in Rwanda before 1994 and was therefore not close to the Habyarimana wing in exile. He felt that if he was not interested in being associated with ‘geńocidaires’ while still afraid of returning to Rwanda, because he was Hutu, his only option was to forget Rwanda and become Belgian. He finished his law degree, became a Belgian national and pursued a career as a successful lawyer. In 1999, he was approached by Senator Aloisea Inyumba who wanted a dialogue with him and around 200 others in Belgium about the security situation in Rwanda. He makes his story credible by emphasizing his original scepticism and how he criticised the government openly at the meeting in Brussels. ‘I expressed how I felt betrayed by the regime.’31 He also makes the Rwandan government look more magnanimous by showing how it tolerated his critique; in fact, Inyumba was apparently so impressed by his comments at the general meeting that she invited him to a personal meeting. We were ten who discussed with her all night. She told me: ‘Jean-Paul, you are safe. I will give you a ticket to return. Then it is up to you to testify for or against. I told her: Swear by God in front of us ten.’32

The rest of Jean-Paul’s narrative is about his gradual decision to leave Belgium and live permanently in Rwanda. Due to his ethnic background and a certain prominence in the diaspora milieu, he is now involved in encouraging other Rwandans to visit the country. He is also a member of the task force that visited France ahead of President Kagame’s visit in September 2011, to make sure that even the sceptics would turn up and engage in dialogue. The task force is not in one office or ministry. Rather, it appears to be an


ad hoc closed circle of influential people – like himself and Senator Inyumba. He calls it a communication team and he talks about a ‘battle of communication’.33


Jean-Paul and the general are at first glance exemplary evidence of the state’s campaigns to include all Rwandans – whatever their background – in the new Rwanda of national unity. They prove how a negative diaspora can be transformed into citizens. However, they are also staged – by the state, by other Rwandans and indeed by themselves – as success stories, reconfirming the state’s performance. The state performs as the magnanimous state that is able to include and govern not only its citizens at home but also allegedly hostile members of the diaspora. The Rwandan state not only stages all Rwandans abroad who are not supportive of the government as a ‘problem’; it also problematizes them in a Foucauldian sense – creating them as a category that needs to be dealt with and further categorising them into sub-categories in order to point to means of action to be taken in the shape of various policies, depending on category. The main approach is to govern them through incorporating individuals into the ‘positive diaspora’ through benevolent information campaigns. Meanwhile, the state has the recourse to the threat of violence and exclusion for those who will not be convinced by these campaigns. Apart from managing to govern the diaspora and create citizens out of them, the various campaigns are also massive state spectacles that are followed by a much larger audience. Although Jean-Paul and the general represent a minority of the Hutu who have returned, their narratives are important in state spectacles. A far more common experience – but one that is less visible – is that of the hundreds of thousands of Hutu who returned from camps across the borders in Tanzania and DRC. They have experienced being held in prison for over a decade on false accusations of genocide so that their Tutsi neighbours could occupy their land in the meantime, and prefer not to be associated with their time in exile because it is socially stigmatising. For them, diaspora is not a term to relate to, and their stories do not become part of the national narrative to the same degree as the general and Bernadin’s.

A Diaspora Beyond Reach The perception of Rwandans abroad not knowing the reality of Rwanda is ambiguous. On the one hand, it is an explanation that simply states that they know no better and hence do not dare return out of ignorance. There is, however, also an implicit insinuation in many of these narratives that they do not wish to know. At the opening of the first National Summit on Unity and Reconciliation on 18 October 2000, President Kagame addressed the Rwandan participants that came from the other countries, thanking them for their participation, but also warning against: Those Rwandans who chose to run away to foreign countries and deceive the international community do a disservice to their motherland and their fellow countrymen and women. Some of them may have committed crimes, while others are driven by



their selfish interests; yet others are guided by outmoded and backward ideas based on divisionism and ethnicity. But as we have often stated, every Munyarwanda who would like to come back to their homeland is most welcome.34

The speech is significant in several ways. Firstly, there is the question of deception, where he claims that the danger of this negative diaspora is that it misleads other Rwandans, but it also misleads the international community. In both cases they are giving a wrong image of Rwanda and betraying their homeland. Secondly, there is the question of who they are and why they are doing it. Here, Kagame gives several possible explanations. They might have committed crimes – in other words, they probably have committed genocide and therefore host ‘genocidal mentalities’ and/or are keen to cover up their crimes through deception. Along a slightly different tack, he claims that they might simply be following selfish interests. These are the ones who ‘chose to run away to foreign countries’. In other words, they were not forced either by war or by Hutu extremists. This leads us to the final Diaspora group; those who have left since the late 1990s. Growing numbers of opposition politicians, human rights activists and other public figures, Hutu and Tutsi, many of whom have previously been RPF members, have fled the country since the late 1990s because they sense there is little room for critique inside the country. This category is obviously difficult for the government to categorise in the dichotomous picture of villains and heroes in the diaspora, seeing as they cannot easily be dismissed as ‘geńocidaires’. Therefore, they are portrayed as following ‘selfish interests’ rather than political objectives. Elsewhere they are portrayed as ‘self-exiled’, insinuating that they had nothing to fear in Rwanda but chose exile as a means to discredit the home country. In his keynote address to Third North American Rwanda Convention in New Jersey, 2006, President Kagame ‘criticized self-exiled politicians, saying Rwanda has built a political system that is even backed by the Constitution’. He also said that there was ‘no reason that would stop someone from forming a political party and that the government fully believes in power sharing’ (emphasis added).35 The essence of this statement is that these so-called political exiles are not political at all, and simply use politics as a cover for more mundane, selfish interests – economic or power related. The government has been accused of using subversive tactics against this group. Scotland Yard has warned Rwandans living in the United Kingdom that they are not safe from assassination attempts. A high-ranking officer who left Rwanda was involved in a mysterious road accident and while I was in Rwanda a journalist, who had been publishing critical articles on the Internet, was killed in Uganda. While none of these claims can be verified and are systematically denied by the Rwandan government, the state is engaged in monitoring its diaspora abroad. The previous ambassador to Sweden has told me that her task was to keep an eye on potential geńocidaires in the Nordic countries, and a Rwandan living in Denmark told me that he had been asked by the authorities to spy on his countrymen in Denmark.36 Finally, Rwanda has been engaged in a bloody war against Rwandan rebels in DRC.



In other words, the soft politics of convincing hostile diasporas to convert to positive diasporas and citizens of the united Rwanda goes hand in hand with more hard politics of security, surveillance and punishment. The Foucauldian division between the bio-political ‘power over life’ and the sovereign ‘power over death’ (Foucault 1978) may not be so neatly divided as he seems to claim. Rather, they rely on one another.

Conclusion Like other states in Africa, Rwanda is appealing to members of its diaspora to engage in their ‘homeland’ through investment, development and brain circulation. In the Rwandan case, however, the state is keenly aware of the hostile sections of the present diaspora, and is actively engaging with them. Hence, in Rwanda, engaging the diaspora is a central part of post-genocide state building. Although the effects of the diaspora policies may be negligible in terms of foreign direct investment, development projects or return migration, they are important in terms of staging the state as creating national unity. In this article I have demonstrated that the Rwandan state’s policies towards its diaspora play several roles. On the one hand, they are means by which to govern an unruly and hostile population living outside the country’s borders. On the other hand, the state’s very visible policies of including the diaspora in the name of national unity become state spectacles that reinforce state sovereignty. The Rwandan state has a number of initiatives to tackle the ‘problem’ of the negative diaspora. Through dialogue meetings, summer camps and ‘come and see’ programmes, the Rwandan state is attempting to convert parts of the negatives diaspora into a positive diaspora. In the process, the state problematizes sections of the diaspora, categorises it into sub-groups of those who are approachable and those who are believed to be beyond reach, and in so doing governs the diaspora through bio-power; the management of populations. Finally, the ‘come and see’ programmes and the dialogue meetings are not only concerned with governing the diaspora; they are state spectacles that have been staged for a greater audience. The state performs its role as state and enhances its sovereignty for Rwandans abroad and at home. This audience – whether inside or outside Rwanda – consumes the spectacle and comments on it, further increasing the sovereignty and the ‘stateness’ of the state. In its handling of the diaspora, the Rwandan state performs its policy of inclusion; an inclusion that also creates exclusion of some groups. While the majority of the Rwandans in the diaspora are construed as belonging to the state – albeit with some assistance – a minority falls beyond the reach of such benevolent bio-politics and experiences the hard power of the sovereign state. The spectacle of the state, demonstrating its will to include all Rwandans, reaches its limits in the case of those who are deemed unwilling to become part of the unified Rwanda, which in turn justifies the state’s draconian measures against anyone who ventures to critique the state. We may argue that,



as in other realms of governing, the Rwandan state’s benevolent bio-politics of inclusion through education and persuasion relies on an ultimate recourse to brute sovereign power, which is legitimised by reference to the security threat that such a hostile diaspora poses to unity and reconciliation. The fact that the Rwandan state stages itself as inclusive – as opposed to the previous regime’s narrow racial vision of citizenship – allows it to strike down all the more severely on those who resist being part of the new united Rwanda; those who refuse the hand that Kagame has offered them in the name of unity and reconciliation. In other words, the state performance of including and staging the diaspora as a resource paradoxically also produces the right to exclude and banish those who do not wish to act their part in the play. As I have argued elsewhere (Turner 2007), sovereignty rests not only on spectacle but also on the threat of less visible power. In the case of the Rwandan state’s relation to its diaspora, such hidden – off stage – enactments of power takes place vis-a`-vis the diaspora that is positioned as beyond reach. This is the diaspora that may be spied upon, imprisoned and ultimately killed without process. Studying state-diaspora relations beyond the practical level of whether diasporas contribute to development and peacebuilding or not, allows us to explore how the state may be trying to govern the diaspora. Aware of the potentials of the diaspora and the power that the diaspora may wield, African states are increasingly trying to ‘reign in’ their diasporas through various initiatives to collaborate with and assist the diaspora. Such initiatives are, in other words, not simply about facilitating development, but also a means to govern a population that is outside the physical borders of the nation-state. However, as this study of the Rwandan case has shown, these diaspora policies may furthermore be understood as means by which African states perform as states and reassert their sovereignty in performances that are directed as much at members of the diaspora as at the rest of the population and the international community.

Note on Contributor Simon Turner is Associate Professor in Global Refugee Studies at Aalborg University. His work focuses on ethnic conflict, diaspora and conflict, refugee camps, ethnographies of the state, nation building, youth, masculinity and conspiracy theories. He has done fieldwork with Burundians and Rwandans in Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya, Belgium, Rwanda and Denmark. Notes 1. Interview, 13 January 2009. 2. The country had significant growth rates in the decade after the genocide, and in 2005 it reached the same position in UNDP’s Human Development Index as in 1985. Presently its growth rates are not bigger than neighbouring countries like Tanzania and Uganda. 3. Kigali, 11 August 2011.


4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.


11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Kigali, 5 October 2011. Interview with diaspora representative of RPF, Kigali, 2011. Republic of Rwanda (2000) Vision 2020:12. Ibid Annex Two:28. As we shall see later, the Rwandan government is also accused of a number of covert state initiatives, apparently designed to silence or intimidate certain elements of the diaspora. Diplomatic Magazine 2008:8. He did, however, want to include what he termed ‘victims of border demarcation’ in other words the Banyamulenge who have lived in eastern Congo. This could not, he realised, be official policy, as it would create diplomatic problems with neighbouring states. Interview, 13 January 2009. See ,http://www.minaffet.gov.rw. (accessed 12 January 2009). Banque de `lHabitat du Rwanda, where the government holds the majority of shares, offers special diaspora saving accounts and saving plans and loans for Rwandans living abroad (IOM 2006:62) ,http://www.chr.co.rw/index_eng.htm.. The Diaspora Banking Service at the Commercial Bank of Rwanda offers a range of services for the diaspora. The bank was privatised in 2004, today the state holds 20 per cent of the shares ,http://www.bcr.co.rw/per/diaspora.htm.. See also ,http://www.rwandagateway.org/gateway_new/spip.php?article152.. The Bank of Kigali has apparently waived its charges on remittances. The government holds 52 per cent of the shares ,http://www.bk.rw/english/home.html. See ,http://cmac.org.rw/.. From the campaign website. Commemorating the genocide has developed over the years into a top-down and state-driven affair, where common Rwandans are forced to follow the only official narrative on the genocide. New memorial sites are being established all the time, and the intensity of commemoration appears to increase each year (Buckley-Zistel 2006). When I interviewed rural Rwandans about their past, they rarely – if ever – used the term genocide (jenosid in Kinyarwanda) but talked about ‘the violence’, ‘the troubles’ or ‘the war’. Jenosid, they explained, is for the politicians in Kigali. Whereas Hutu and Tutsi are no longer accepted categorisations in Rwanda, there are four new official categories of people; survivors (which only Tutsi can claim to be. Moderate Hutu whose families were killed in the genocide, cannot claim to be survivors), old caseload returnees (Tutsi who fled after 1959), new caseload returnees (Hutu who fled during and immediately after the genocide in 1994) and suspected geńocidaires. AERG representatives, Kigali 14 September 2011. Field notes, 9 September 2011. See ,http://www.minaffet.gov.rw/content/view/162/178/lang,english/.. Interview with student representatives, Butare, January 2009. Socie´te´ d’Etudes et d’Evaluation ‘Independent Evaluation of the MIDA Great Lakes Programme – Phase III, Final Report’ (August 2008) ,http://mida.belgium.iom.int/index.php? option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=89&Itemid=173 . , ,http://www.undp.org.rw/ Prodoc_SPMU_TOKTEN.pdf.. Rwanda: Land Major Incentive for the Diaspora (14 December 2009) ,http://allafrica.com/ stories/printable/200912140093.html.. Diaspora Briefed on Country’s Security (15 December) ,http://allafrica.com/stories/ 200912150060.html.. Interview, 13 January 2009. Irrespective of the fact that Rwanda was also a clean, safe and highly organised society before the genocide (Uvin 1998; Newbury 1992). Patrick, Kigali, 18 August 2011.



28. President Habyarimana ruled the country until April 1994 when his plane was shot down, triggering the genocide. 29. Field notes, 21 December 2011. 30. Finding Hutu who had returned from the diaspora, turned out to be a difficult task for me in Kigali. The chairman of the RDGN went to great lengths to think of someone whom I could get in touch with, and finally suggested Jean-Paul. 31. Interview, 27 September 2011. 32. Ibid. 33. Interview, 11 November 2011. 34. Kagames speech at the NURC in 2000 ,http://www.gov.rw/government/president/speeches/ 2000/10_18_00_speech_URC_summit_PRINT.html.. 35. See ,http://africanaxis.org/diasporanews12_en.htm. (accessed 7 February 2010). 36. Interview, Kigali, September 2011.

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