Rethinking War: The Burden of Conflict on a New Generation

 

My knowledge of war is primarily based on documentaries, movies, books and now news. The first book I read that walked me through the image of war in the book by Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone. The author tells his story as a forced child soldier in Sierra Leone.

Politicians initiate the war; the businessmen finance it and the young ones go to the battleground. In the news we mainly see politicians explaining why the war is happening and analysts in different fields get busy in explaining what really happening.  

We don’t need economists to explain to us that the economy is going bad while the prices are raising on a daily basis. People are fighting faraway from your country but the consequences are reaching you. I guess the world being a village isn’t entirely good.

Its now close to ten years since I read Africa's World War by Gérard Prunier. Anyone who doesn’t know the cause of what’s happening in the great lakes region, that’s the right book to start with in my humble opinion.

Jason Stearns in his book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, he retold the story of war in the DRCongo and its effects on Africa. These are few books among many that I read on war especially on Africa.

Late Capt Ndahiro Logan in his book “Inzira y’inzitane yo kwibohora kw’abanyarwanda, told the main story of the liberation war of Rwandans. Reading this book, made feel like I was there when the events happened, at the exact moment in the middle of the war. I can say the man was a good story teller. In this book as a soldier, he narrated the story in a way you can easily imagine what happened at that time. His honesty is narrating even the consequences of that war you can directly see that there is no need of war. I think the story would have been different if the peace agreement was agreed or the reasons of the war wouldn’t have been in place in first place. As good story teller he could have written about other stories on Rwanda, but the reality at the time didn’t allow him.

When you are reading the stories of war, being in class studying them it might end up staying as stories in class. Now as some of us are already grown up and we know exactly what is happening, war is the last this someone can think of as a way to find solutions.

 Growing up in the city of Gisenyi which is near Goma a city in DRCongo hearing bullets and sometimes bombs became a normal thing. Sometimes we could see bullets at night in time the security in the neighboring country was not enough.

Now in the news we see how the war affects us, bombs and bullets killing Rwandan citizens. At this time war is no longer just stories.

The saddest thing is to see how the western countries blinded by their interests in the DRCongo don’t care of the human lives lost and support the war in all possible ways be it financially, weapons and even human resources like the mercenaries we saw.

Speaking of documentaries and movies, that was how I initially new about the liberation war in Rwanda that stopped the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. Movies like SHOOTING DOGS, SOMETIMES IN APRIL and KINYARWANDA, showed me the image of what happened.

Now we are living in time where neighbors are wishing to start war on us, some of their top leaders even dared to declare war on us without actions. But this tells us that some people haven’t seen enough of war.  

Africa have seen enough wars; this is time to focus on development. But this seems to be as my personal wish. Young people like me on the other side of the border are brainwashed and believe false stories told by their leaders and drag them in wars some of them don’t know the root causes of them.

Some European governments and NGOs invest heavily in keeping some of us on the in conflicts and the make sure that we have means to fight each other.   

Lets leave the Europeans for a minute, as of now they have also their own problems to take care of, even though they don’t miss a chance to be in ours. But how comes we always have nearly useless institutions and organizations even regional blocs that seems to not take seriously conflict resolution and lasting harmony among us?

 Resolutions are written but they are not put in action, some are even sabotaged even in the process. Its very sad to see a country facing effects war they implicated themselves in being also the one not willing to find lasing solutions and choose scapegoating.

We waste much time in explaining the nature of the problem, I think we already have experts in that area, but finding lasting solutions became so difficult. But why?

‘’You are the future leaders’’ they say, but my question is how will we deal with existing problems and misguided mindsets of leaders who don’t want to end this mess.

The new generation of leaders is rising even the older generation who still grabbing power they won’t do it for longer.

My worries are mainly on the younger generation who are brain washed and being used as the muscles in the conflict while the masterminds are in their air-conditioned homes with their families.

By the way how would you accept to fight for ideas of a politician whose child you are in the same age range is still at his home. Why don’t he first mobilize him or her?

One of the things I learnt in law school is that, conflicts can be avoided. Many wars were ended by treaties, but I ask myself why don’t we think of preventing the war instead of dealing with its consequences?

War always brings destruction, on top of that it leads to an unstable society then after. It’s time to stop telling the stories of war rather tell the stories of prosperity. Rwanda can be a good example.