'Moving On': Reconstruction & Reconciliation in Post-Genocide Rwanda

In 1994, within a period of hundred days, over one million people were killed in a horrific genocide, officially referred to as ‘the genocide of the Tutsi’ in Rwanda. For the last twenty-five years, the Rwandan society has endeavoured to rebuild its social fabric, create social cohesion, as well as bring about economic development. To achieve these goals, it was deemed necessary to engender a ‘change of mindset’, to ‘create a new moral order, and a ‘new national narrative’ through a variety of institutions, policies and programs. In this lecture, I will reflect on these processes, on how the Rwandan society is ‘moving on’ twenty-five years after the genocide.