If a country - the world, frankly - is very, very lucky, the right person comes along, once every century or so, to do the right thing. People of this ilk that come immediately to mind? Winston Churchill, Kemal Atatürk, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Norman Borlaug, Nelson Mandela...
You will have your own list, of course, and none of them were perfect - you don't get to live down here if you are - but they were perfect for their time & I would add to that list the only one still alive, and still leading: Paul Kagame, born
#OTD in 1957.
The youngest of six children, he was related on the distaff to the rather amazing & strikingly beautiful Queen Consort Rosalie Gicanda... who was murdered in the terrible Genocide, one which went on before the world's eyes for a hundred awful days - and which he would be instrumental in ending.
That alone should entitle him to your regard, but there is more - much more.
In the three decades that have passed, he has led, in the most extraordinary fashion, a remarkable & near unthinkable transformation in this small landlocked country in the literal & geographical heart of Africa.
The only African country that never engaged in slavery in any form - it simply would not allow of it.
A country that had a well-established Kingdom in Shakespeare's day.
The last African country to be colonised - in 1894, a century before that genocide, when a German Count, Gustav Adolf Graf von Götzen, tipped up to announce that Rwanda was now, in fact, part of 'East African Germany', having been divvied up in The Berlin Conference of 1885.
There's a tragi-comedy to be had in that lost "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" African moment: one imagines the courtiers courteously - the clue is in the root - suggesting a cup of tea & a chat, perhaps, as it all must have seemed a little confusing. At first...
The Germans had found themselves, in the words of The Duke of Mecklenburg, visiting the country in 1907:
"a land flowing with milk and honey... full of beautiful scenery and possessing a climate incomparably fresh and healthy: a land of great fertility, with watercourses which might be termed perennial streams..." (h/t
@BradtGuides |
@philipbriggs)
The full horror of those three months in 1994 is, simply, unimaginable - like that of The Shoah.
There are near contemporary books like
@PGourevitch's 'We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families' &
@samanthajpower's later 'A Problem From Hell: America And The Age of Genocide', films like Hotel Rwanda, photographs, footage... but nothing can prepare you for hell, nor its aftermath.
A decade after that terrible blight on humanity, I visited Rwanda in the run-up to the 10th Anniversary, having just come off a long piece based on a week spent in a cold Mexican Research Station with the Nobel Peace Laureate & Greatest Farmer of All Time, Norman Borlaug (
@pennjillette of Penn & Teller make a convincing case in their 'Bullshit! 'series that Stormin' Norm, who worked in Africa well into his 90s, was simply *THE* GOAT - feeding the world for half a century being no mean feat).
I was there to try to help the
@Aegis_Trust as they struggled to find the last funds needed to complete the Genocide Memorial Museum in 10 days & in time for the events marking 10 years since that awful black hole in the heart of Africa's history.
It was an extremely difficult time. As I tried to work, my body & brain was slowly cooking up a severe allergic reaction to the Yellow Fever vaccine (which my grandparents had worked on, for the
@RockefellerFdn, in Nigeria for three decades before and after the Second World War). Essentially, this highly regarded jab was sending me mad - just like it did the marvellous former BBC Correspondent
@MalcolmBrabant who has written movingly about his own yellow fever vaccination 'fever.'
I had also visited three genocide sites in three days: and felt it - and smelt it: words and images don't prepare you for the oldest & deepest part of the brain's response; that of the olfactory bulb.
Nor for being shown around by a man who lost 84 members of his family, who then pointed gently to a field where French Turquoise Berets had played football on what they knew was a mass grave.
I was trying to help as much as I could in a world where everyone was still in a fugue state, inevitably reliving unimaginably awful memories wherever they looked, day after day, month after month. There were doubts about which countries would send representatives to the Commemorative Events. The taxis were motorbikes in Kigali (& bicycles outside). Just before my medevac, the country was excited to learn that General
@romeodallaire was finally returning. I later learned of the movingly warm reception this astonishing place & people gave him.
I had the honour of briefly meeting Paul Kagame before I left & was struck by his humility: his private office was about twice the size of an SUV & his office reception ditto; by his courtesy; and his grace - not least in indulging an immensely complicated street handshake I gave him which I had picked up from the 'moto' bike drivers, one which (of course!) he knew, and responded to lightning fast. He's a General, too, & they are rarely fools. I earned a small half-smile for my cheek.
Decades on & he now smiles somewhat more - grandchildren will do that (African children being one of God's less well kept secret weapons) - but then again he has more to smile about, too, as he looks at the ongoing product of his relentless work to develop this small but luculent jewel in the crown of Africa - and
@commonwealthsec's brightest new member.
'The Land of A Thousand Hills' - actually ancient extinct volcanoes, largely, perhaps accounting for some of the place's strange charm & power - is unusual in the way it has consistently curled itself around the heart & soul of visitors for over a century - as attested in almost all visitors' writing over that period.
21 years ago there were, as now, the armchair critics, not known for caring to walk in other people's moccasins for two days, or twp weeks, let alone htree months - including several world-renowned journalists & NGOs. They were already at it as I arrived, parking their opinions on the tarmac like luggage when they arrived for later collection & retail in carping columns & reports. Today it is much the same...
Yet Paul Kagame *should* be as globally renowned & held in as high regard worldwide as Mandela was... and a recipient of the
@NobelPrize for Peace: and yet he is not. Why?
Perhaps because in these last two decades alone under his leadership those he leads have helped halve the rate of poverty in Rwanda. Reduced malaria by 88% in a few years. Opened a world-class Conference Centre shortlisted for the World's Best in this year's World Travel Awards. Hosted the world's first personal drone taxi/car flights in Africa, and another African first, @Kigali2025 (both in the last month alone). Created a highly innovation-friendly environment where a business can be created faster than in the UK. Where women can safely walk alone at night, as remarked upon with wonder by a widely travelled female aid worker to me back then. Indeed, a country whose capital roads are cleaner & safer & in far better condition than those of London.
Why is this environment so impressive? In part it is because President Kagame himself joins in the country's monthly 'Umuganda' community service activities. Leading by example. "Do as I do", not merely "as I say". (Although he has much to say, too). That's leadership of the old school.
The list goes on and on and on. A vision, a leadership, a people trying to build heaven on earth having experienced hell. Few other countries have achieved as much in a generation in modern history. Israel, of course, comes to mind: another people who have known hell & have no intention of returning there.
This beacon of light, one of the least corrupt & most admirable of countries not only in Africa but globally, attracts envy & contumely because... of course it does. As the light brightens, the shadow deepens.
But as St Francis of Assisi wrote, "All the darkness in the world cannot put out the light of a single candle."
Paul Kagame is a candle, one of many, but shining remarkably brightly in a world it is so easy to see as merely darkening before our eyes.
If Africa followed suit, in 25 years - when a quarter of all the souls on Earth will inhabit African bodies - the world would be afar better place for it.
Many happy returns, sir!
Picture credit: Munyangabe Yvan (
@Behance)
cc
@visitrwanda_now @PaulKagame @yvan__kagame @QuoteofKagame