Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2015, Pages 109–118
Liberata Gahongayire1
1 Researcher on Genocide studies and prevention, National Commission for the fight against Genocide (CNLG), Kigali, Rwanda
Original language: English
Copyright © 2015 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Despite past efforts to prevent genocide and systematic episodes of worldwide human rights violations, such atrocities have continued to persist. After the Holocaust, the United Nations put in place the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and vowed 'never again'. Thus preventing genocide became a collective, as well as an individual responsibility. In Rwandan culture, memories are associated to individuals or places based on social construct safeguarded both by oral tradition and writing. This paper specifically explores genocide prevention strategies involving memory and commemorations. This research uses a phenomenology paradigm because it highlights the group remembering, and assesses how genocide memory and commemoration are lived by people. Data was collected through document analysis and subsequently analyzed using content analysis. Research findings have highlighted the role of memory in post-genocide period as one of the approach used to prevent genocide in the future.
Author Keywords: genocide, memory, prevention, Rwanda, commemoration, culture.
Liberata Gahongayire1
1 Researcher on Genocide studies and prevention, National Commission for the fight against Genocide (CNLG), Kigali, Rwanda
Original language: English
Copyright © 2015 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Despite past efforts to prevent genocide and systematic episodes of worldwide human rights violations, such atrocities have continued to persist. After the Holocaust, the United Nations put in place the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and vowed 'never again'. Thus preventing genocide became a collective, as well as an individual responsibility. In Rwandan culture, memories are associated to individuals or places based on social construct safeguarded both by oral tradition and writing. This paper specifically explores genocide prevention strategies involving memory and commemorations. This research uses a phenomenology paradigm because it highlights the group remembering, and assesses how genocide memory and commemoration are lived by people. Data was collected through document analysis and subsequently analyzed using content analysis. Research findings have highlighted the role of memory in post-genocide period as one of the approach used to prevent genocide in the future.
Author Keywords: genocide, memory, prevention, Rwanda, commemoration, culture.
How to Cite this Article
Liberata Gahongayire, “The contribution of memory in healing and preventing genocide in Rwanda,” International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 109–118, January 2015.
