Jean Michel Habineza on growing up in the wake of genocide, the power of debate and strategies for humans to live in peace

Episode Description
Jean Michel Habineza grew up in the wake of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, one of the gravest atrocities in recent human history, where almost overnight friends and neighbours became deadly enemies. Jean Michel is part of the movement to bring Rwanda back to a state of genuine, lasting peace. In this episode Jean Michel details the steps that can lead normal people to become capable of genocide, and how to reconcile former enemies when resentment and trauma levels are sky high. He also describes how to achieve peace through empowering people to debate the most contentious issues, without conflict. He is full of wisdom as well as practical advice that the world needs to hear right now; at the international level, between ethnic groups, and regular people trying to communicate with beloved family members with opposing opinions. 

Get Involved!
Learn more about Jean Michel's work and how you can support him to promote critical thinking, and peaceful and healthy societies and families here: justpeoples.org/leaders/jean-michel

Why Give a Buck?
Because with $2,518 USD Jean Michel can educate a school of Rwandan high school students to debate tough topics without leading to conflict, and then implement projects to tackle local poverty-related issues.

Meet Jean Michel
Come along to an online fireside chat with Jean Michel on 18 April, 2024 where he will share learnings and wisdom along with personal stories about his life and work in Rwanda, with an intimate group of interested people. You'll be able to ask him directly any burning questions you have after listening to this episode! 

Transcript

Johanna de Burca: 0:00

Why Give a Buck? is proudly brought to you by Just Peoples, an international nonprofit that directly connects givers and doers to address global poverty. Hello, and welcome to Why Give a Buck?. I'm Johanna de Burca, and I'm Christey West. Each month on Why Give a Buck?, we highlight innovative individuals tackling poverty in their local communities across Africa and Asia, and explore why we should give a buck.

Christey West: 0:33

Today we're covering some heavy topics. Our guest, Jean Michel, grew up in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which was one of the gravest atrocities in recent human history. But there are important lessons to be learned from Rwanda that are so relevant for the world today. And we're really excited to chat with Jean Michel, about how countries, ethnic groups, and individual people can find peace and true reconciliation after a conflict has occurred.

Johanna de Burca: 1:03

Jean Michel founded and runs iDebate, a nonprofit that teaches Rwandan young people how to debate tough issues and how to disagree with each other without becoming enemies. He encourages people to see the human being and to reject the ideas that tell us we should be divided. He also draws on the sustainable development goals to encourage young people to think about how they can reduce poverty, and work to create a better world.

Christey West: 1:31

We're so excited to have you here, Jean Michel,

Jean Michel Habineza: 1:35

Oh, first of all, I'm so excited to be welcome.

Johanna de Burca: 1:42

Welcome Jean Michel. We have had so many wonderful conversations with you since we've met in Kigali last year. And we're delighted now to be able to record this here. Thank you for the invitation. And yeah, I can't conversation and just share it with our listeners. So the day before we met you in Rwanda, Christey and I visited the the Genocide Museum in Kigali. For us it was the first time really wait to see how the conversation goes. gaining a deeper understanding of the horrors that happened in Rwanda back in 1994. Being that the Rwandan genocide really shaped the wonderful work that you're doing in the world, it would be great if you could just give us a brief overview of what happened in Rwanda, and what you believe the main causes were.

Jean Michel Habineza: 2:29

We usually say that Rwanda is the heart of Africa. And Rwanda, just like many different countries in Africa, was colonized. It was first colonized by the Germans, and then later on by the Belgians. And when the colonialists came they found a sociey that was not perfect, but nonetheless, they found a society that was cohesive, that lived under the rulership of a king. And if you study the history of colonization, you know that there was this principle, that the best way to rule people is to divide them, the divide and rule principle. So when the colonialists came, they divided Rwandans. And when they came, we had clans and we had different social groups. There was the Hutus and Tutsis and the Twas, and your membership in any of those was decided on by the number of cows that you have, if you had more than 10 cows you're a Tutsi, if you had less than 10 cows you're a Hutu. And then the Twas were pygmies that lived in the forest. So in order to rule them better, the colonialists separated them into those social classes into ethnic groups. And the difference between social classes and ethnic group is that an ethnic group means that they looked at the height or the width of the nose, they said, if you're tall with a slender nose, you're a Tutsi and if you're short with a broad nose, you're a Hutu, and they took physical attributes and turned them into permanent identities. And that's of course, coupled with power, because he was always about who is in power, that led to the 1994 genocide. On the sixth of April 1994, the plane that was carrying the former president of Rwanda got shut down. And instantly one of the worst genocides in the history happened where in a space of 100 days, 1 million people were killed. And that is about 10,000 people every day for 100 days.

Christey West: 4:32

10,000 people a day for 100 days. Wow. All those lives just gone.

Johanna de Burca: 4:39

The sheer scale is just incomprehensible. What really struck Christey and I when we visited the Genocide Memorial Museum, was the number of people involved in carrying out the genocide, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans who were killing their neighbors and their workmates, people that they had previously been friends with. How do you make sense of something so horrific happening in Rwanda? And do you think that the reasons translate across borders and other places that we've seen genocide?

Jean Michel Habineza: 5:13

Well, Gregory Stanton, who wrote the 10 Steps to Genocide, looked at what are some of the concepts and what makes some people actually do harm to one another. One of the things that he says is that naturally, each one of us has an inner morality, where we feel that we cannot do certain things to other people, an inner disgust to anything that might be evil. But what happens is that there are really social and psychological attitudes that make us justify violence towards others. He talks about deteriorating life conditions, that one of the things that happens is that when life becomes hard, and that we no longer have the same things that we had before, then one of the things that is going to be is that we turn inward, and then we start creating an us versus them mentality, one where we view us as being the good people and then them as being the bad people. And this normally leads to scapegoating where we start saying that the problem with the world is the other. The problem with what's happening in Rwanda, that is the other it was the Tutsi, but that's the same thing in Germany, they would say the reason why Germany has lost all his former glories is because of the Jewish people. And once you start scapegoating, then the next thing is going to be discrimination. And then with discrimination, that's when we start to justify violence against others, Ervin Staub, who is a professor at UMass, talks about what leads to violence. Number one, he says that there are societies where there's high obedience to authority. Now, we have to understand that in order for societies to function, there needs to be obedience to authority. But then what happens in societies such as Rwanda and then also societies like Germany, or societies where violence tends to happen, is that we have high obedience to authority where the person the leadership tells us what we do, and we all follow. Now, you have to understand that it is not just at a political level, it is in homes, it is in higher education system, it is in every single institution, where people follow the leader. And whatever the leader says, then everyone is going to do that. And because of that higher obedience authority, there is discouragement of critical thinking, the ability to view issues from multiple perspectives before coming to a conclusion. And one of the things that critical thinking helps us with is that it is the antidote to propaganda, because propaganda is giving simplistic answers to complex issues. And one of the things that happens in societies like those is that we start removing you once we start having propaganda and monolithic view of life where we view things from just one perspective. And if the person in authority tells us to do whatever we have to do, we end up doing it. So one of the things that Ervin Staub also says is that a society that has gone through violence is prone for relapse, unless we're able to change the conditions that lead to that violence. I believe that if we learn how to disagree, then we are removing the power of propaganda, then we have a chance of making sure that what happened doesn't happen again.

Christey West: 8:54

Well, that was extremely informative, thank you for explaining so clearly how propaganda, us versus them mentality, and the absence of the ability to think critically, can lead to humans engaging in unimaginable behavior. So in the aftermath of the extremely violent events of 1994, how did you end up taking on the formidable role of preventing such atrocities from happening again?

Jean Michel Habineza: 9:23

You know, as I reflect on my journey, I noticed that many of the things that we do start really because you chose to do it. Well, we found ourselves in the middle of a puzzle. When the genocide happened. I was about six years old. And I don't know if I would say we were lucky, or just the circumstances meant that on the 31st of March, our family left Rwanda and the genocide started on the 7th of April. And as the first generation after an atrocity such as genocide, one of the things that happens is the question of why we ask ourselves, why can such a thing happen? But then secondly, we also have a responsibility. So when I was about 19 years old, with a few friends of mine, we started an organization where we wanted to bring change in our community. We started talking about subjects that many people do not talk about. We were talking about reconciliation, we were talking about forgiveness, and not always said that my life question or my life puzzle, is the question on how do we live together? How do people who have gone through such atrocities live together, I was involved with a lot of youth work, we used to organize conferences to talk about forgiveness, we used to organize one big project that was called Walk to Remember to commemorate the genocide that happened in 1994, against the Tutsi, but then also to use it as lessons for other generations and and also other people around the world. Our tagline used to be that we want to make never again, never again. And that means that we stop or prevent atrocities all over the world. And I thought that in a generation like ours, if we're able to build tolerance, if we're able to build a generation that can deal with conflict, then that is going to be one of the best ways that we can prevent atrocities. And generally, that's how I got involved in the work of genocide prevention, and especially focusing on youth.

Johanna de Burca: 11:33

How incredibly lucky that your family happened to leave one week before it all started. It's so wonderful that you came back and decided to be part of the reconciliation process. So how did you then go on to take your work promoting peace between diverse groups in the US and in other international contexts where people are still fighting,

Jean Michel Habineza: 11:57

I was also lucky in 2008, I got a debate scholarship to go and study in Maryland in the US. And as part of my scholarship, I had to work with the Baltimore Urban Debate League. And that is working with kids that are coming from urban centers, many of them their parents have never gone to college, they live in dire poverty. You can imagine, as an African kid who used to think that the US was heaven on earth, then all of a sudden, I get to experience a different side of the US. And as part of our work, we used to teach this kids how to express themselves, how to use the skills that they gain in debates, to speak the truth. And you can imagine debate at that time was an activity that was for privileged white kids who are preparing themselves to go to college or to go to law school, and many of them see it as a pathway for greater career advancement. And then we were bringing in these kids or didn't have suits because they could afford it. We're bringing in these kids who, instead of citing Nietzsche, they were citing Tupac and wearing do-rags. And that completely changed my life, because I was able to see the transformative power of debate, the transformative power of giving people their voices, and then allowing them to develop their voices and for them to articulate their own realities. And I thought, what if we could do the same thing in Rwanda?

Johanna de Burca: 13:28

Oh, I love that. That's so cool Jean Michel, it must have been such an interesting experience for you as a young person to experience life in Rwanda, and then also witness racial inequity in the states and actually be part of tackling that challenge. And so what happened when you came back to Rwanda, we know you founded your organization, iDebate, which is supporting youth all over Rwanda to address conflict without violence, and to think critically. It would be great to hear a little bit about how you got to that point.

Jean Michel Habineza: 14:03

So when I came back, I thought, I'm gonna teach some kids how to express themselves, how to be confident, and then how to also challenge whatever they see, whatever they are told. So one of the things that debate does is it forces you to engage with people with different perspective and engagement is this thing that we constantly have to never close the door to our enemies and people that we perceive to be enemies. So yeah, we started iDebate in 2012, when I finished university, and we just brought in a few friends and we were working at that time with 18 schools. So we'll teach students from the basics of public speaking to more complex things, research, logic and public policy. And then we will also have competitions on a monthly basis where students from different schools will come together and they will get to learn about different issues that are affecting their communities.

Johanna de Burca: 15:00

Thank you so much, Jean Michel, it's so important to hear how you're addressing that fact that there are still tensions within the community in Rwanda, and encouraging people to debate those issues. And I understand you focusing a lot of those debates around issues to do with the Sustainable Development Goals. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Jean Michel Habineza: 15:23

So every year, the students have the same theme. And it is one of the SDGs. So for example, three years ago, it was SDG 4, quality education. And then last year, SDG 13, climate action, and this year is going to be SDG 1, no poverty. They are learning the technical skills of debate on how to make arguments how to do research. But everything that is on the part of content is geared towards that. We found that since the country and the world was going towards that, and we also talking about building the next generation of leaders, and what if we started them young. And here you're talking about a 12, 13 year old who's debating about climate action, or you're getting a 13 year old now, looking at government policies, in terms of how do we eradicate poverty. So now we're very SDG focused. And then there's also now another focus where we work with one teacher in every school. As of now, we're working with about 130 schools, but it's getting to about 190, by the end of the year. So every year we bring in a new province. So more than 5000 students that we're working with.

Johanna de Burca: 16:36

It's fabulous that you've been able to reach so many young Rwandans with your intervention Jean Michel. The latest stats released by the World Bank show that over half of Rwandans are still living below the international poverty line. I know that you're really passionate about ensuring that your programs are reaching kids who are living in poverty, enabling them to build critical thinking skills and be part of developing a prosperous and peaceful future for Rwanda. I'm interested to know if there's a difference in terms of the kind of education that the kids are getting, and the quality of their education between the wealthier urban areas and the poor, rural areas.

Jean Michel Habineza: 17:18

It's night and day. Of course, we have a national curriculum, but it's the question of what do people have access to? And then the fact that they're studying secondary school, for many of them, they're going beyond what their parents have gone. And it's also the idea of what people are exposed to? Do you have people in your community that show you what success is? And do you have people in your community that have taken themselves out of poverty, I remember in one of the schools that we visited, it will take about two hours to get to the school. And then when we met the principal, he heard us speak. And then he told us, honestly, my kids are not made for these kind of activities, they are more prone to activities that require physical strength. So in sports, and all of that they can do it. And then he also said, instead of doing all of that, if you can take my kids to Kigali, which is the capital city, then you will have completely changed their life. Because for them going to Kigali is like going to New York, or the bigger cities that you can imagine, and what they expose to affect what they aspire to, right? And how do you get these kids to dream beyond what their surroundings are providing them?

Johanna de Burca: 18:29

Yes, that's such a great point, Jean Michel, it makes me think of that idea of you can't be what you can't see. And I think this is really a perfect example of that. You've shared with us before that you've actually taken some kids from public rural schools, on some of your debating camps with the kids from the city. What was that experience like for them and for you.

Jean Michel Habineza: 18:53

So last year, we were able to get a

Johanna de Burca: 18:54

Yeah, that's so interesting. And I imagine grant that allowed us to bring about 300 kids who would not otherwise have the ability to come. And I was teaching a class on poverty traps, basically talking about the sort of traps that a lot of poor people have to undergo, in order for them to move forward. I usually give an example of someone living in a village, I call him Senyange. And I said he doesn't have any education, he is drunk most of the time, he can't find work. So he works on the farm. So I explained all of these traps that he's undergoing. And then I asked the kids, look at all the that the kids that were from a more privileged background, must theories, look at all the evidence, what are some of the interventions that you think are necessary for him to get out of poverty? And I love the intellectual discussion. And at the end of it, one of the kids comes to me and he says, Can I talk to you? And then he says,"How do I get out?" And I say,"What do you mean?" He says, "I am Senyange, and all the things that you were say, describe my life". And he asked me, "How do we get out?" To be honest, that moment completely changed how I view the work that we're doing. Because for a long time, we had a lot of city kids who we thought our program to help them get into university, they could get a better job. But all of a sudden, the demographics that we're working with has changed. Half of the kids that we had, it was their first time to eat bread every day for a week, when you ask what was the best experience, you think they would say, one of the classes that you did, or this, and they all said it was because this was the first time they ate bread every day, for a week. have learnt so so much themselves from debating poverty, but actually having people in the room who were really experiencing that, and that was their life, I think that's a phenomenon all over the world, that you have a load of people, us included, that want to be part of the journey to tackling poverty, but because we haven't experienced that ourselves, that we've found ourselves in this position where we can play a role, but we don't have a lived understanding of the problems that we're trying to solve. So if people who are living in poverty, don't have the confidence to think critically and share their voices, then will never be able to collectively come up with solutions to poverty related problems that are relevant and that are effective. So what you're doing is just wonderful.

Jean Michel Habineza: 21:32

And can I add one thing that happened after the camp, we started having these conversations in our offices, and we invited a person to come and speak to us. And we were talking about, what does it mean for inclusion, like when we say, our program says is for every kid, what does that mean? And one of the things puzzled me, he said that, why is it that when we talk of inclusion, we are talking of the kid from the village, being included into the life of the kids from the city. So it means it is bringing them to the city and giving them chances. And that is how we think of inclusion. And he asked us "Are you basically say that the kid from the village has nothing to teach the kids from the town"? It humbled me because I've been lucky to travel and my world is so big, in a sense that I have, on one side, I usually say I know a lot of people who are very brilliant and very talented, but don't have opportunities. And on the other side, I have people who were just lucky to be born in good families and being born in the right place, and not undermining and saying that is bad. But my philosophy has always been that I will take the kids, the people who are talented, and I want to show them that world just to build their confidence just to show them they as human as you are. But then he challenged us and said, But why is it a one way street? Why can't it be the other ways where we are taking people from the town, and they're able to also see people who live in public, rural schools and seeing they can learn from them as much as we can. They asked us can you change the topics of the debates that we're doing so that it privileges the kids from rural schools, I'll give you a simple example. We will debate before about the circular economy, or we will debate about blockchain technology. The kids from the city still have to do some work, but they can figure out some ways around that. But a lot of the kids from the public rural schools, you are introducing them to another world. And by default, they are at a disadvantage. So why don't you put topics that also puts the kids from town at a disadvantage. So they have to do the work to learn from kids from public rural schools. And that's a challenge that we have taken on and I don't know how it's gonna look like. And I think just like we've said many times, we're all just learning and figuring out what to do. But I think that's a better world that I want to live in. I want to see how do you make sure that truly that inclusion is not one sided?

Christey West: 24:17

Absolutely. I love that approach, that is really horizontal, you know, because if you think about it, it was saying that city life is what to aim for, to move from the rural areas into the city, that's upward mobility, but actually, that's kind of dated thinking because we don't want everyone concentrated in the city and away from the farms anyway, that causes a whole host of other issues. And I love that you're now considering that city kids can learn all people who have access to modern life and modern technology can still learn from people who work with their bodies and who work with the land. because actually humanity needs more and more to reconnect with that side of ourselves. Part of the problems that we have is because we've all gone to the city, we've gone too much into technology. And we've lost our respect for nature.

Johanna de Burca: 25:15

Yes, good point, Christey, didn't you try your hand at farming one time?

Christey West: 25:23

Yes, I did spend some time in rural Tuscany, and helped out some farmers, quote unquote. And true, I couldn't understand Italian, so I didn't know what I was doing. But I basically ruined the harvest, because I chopped out the eyes of all the potatoes, which were actually the seeds, because I thought, oh, no, noone wants eyes in the potatoes, so I threw them all away, but these potatoes to be planted. So when harvest time came, there were huge patches of land with no potatoes, because this city girl didn't know anything about how to grow food, you know. So I love that you're making it go both ways we can all learn from each other's experiences.

Johanna de Burca: 26:06

Actually, one thing that I'm bursting to know more about from you, Jean Michel, is one of the key things that Christey and I both remember from when we first met you in Rwanda, when you told us about taking some of the kids that you work with, on a tour of the states, a speaking tour. And I just had visions of that coming into my head when you're talking about different people learning from each other. And that being two way. I love the thought of some of these rural Rwandan kids being on stage and speaking to the Americans about peace and about reconciliation, and looking at different perspectives. And it's amazing, it's so powerful. Will you just tell us a bit about that?

Jean Michel Habineza: 26:48

One of the things that I was noticing is that there was so many patterns between what happened in Rwanda and what was happening in the US, you could all learn a lot from Rwanda. And so we started a project where we will take some kids for a period of three months, they will be on a speaking tour around debating different universities, talking to them about lessons that we can learn from Rwanda. And I think it was for every student who's participated it's a life changing experience, because all of a sudden, their first time out of the country for many of them, and then they're getting into the US, and they're on stages debating with American students. It was amazing. You're getting this 14 or 15 year olds on stages, and they're debating against American university students. And they're having really profound intellectual battles. I always ask the students afterwards, "what did you learn from all these experience", and of course, for them it was a cross cultural experience like no other, they've seen things on TV. So now they want to test it all the food that they would eat. But all of them, the one thing that they said is, I've seen that there are as good as I am. And that if I put in the work, and if I am willing to do research, and do all of this, I can be as articulate as anyone else. And I deserve to be in the room just like everyone else. You know, imagine the experience of speaking in front of 100, 200 people, and they're all listening to you. They're listening to you because you have something to say, and you have something to teach. We can all learn from one another. Our experiences are very important in helping you understand how to prevent something like the Rwanda genocide from happening.

Christey West: 28:31

That's so powerful. I love that that rural kid who thought that he didn't have what it takes and then to go there and go "no, I belong in this room, I have something to say, I have something to offer". That is a huge life changing boost in self esteem, to have that sort of confidence to know that your voice matters. And even if you have less resources, lower education, whatever it is, that your experience is valuable. Your voice matters, and you have something to contribute. And you can absolutely debate with the richest, most intellectual people and they can still learn from you.

Johanna de Burca: 29:06

Yeah absolutely. I'm curious to hear what feedback you got from the American schools and universities about the experience from from their side.

Jean Michel Habineza: 29:16

It was interesting, because one of the comments that I would get, especially when we were talking about the history of Rwanda, with the genocide and post genocide, I think there's something about using an outside example, to put a mirror to yourself, and many of them would say, this is dangerous because when you are saying all of these things, I started seeing my community and what we are undergoing. I'll give you an example. In one of the years I remember he was a staff who shared about losing about 80% of his family due to genocide. And then on the same team would have someone who had grown up without knowing what happened to his father, later on to figure out that the father was actually alive and that he was in Congo. But the reason why he was in Congo is that his father ran away because he was scared of facing justice for some of the things that he had done in 94.

Christey West: 30:16

While there are some serious team dynamics you have there, on the one hand, you've got someone who 80% of their family has been killed by genocide. And then a teammate whose father is absent because he committed genocide. And not only are these two people, not enemies, they are collaborating and working together. That fact in and of itself is such a powerful example of how healing your work really is.

Jean Michel Habineza: 30:46

I remember one time we were in Connecticut, and we were speaking to a predominantly African American

Christey West: 30:51

Yeah. Oh, wow, that is so beautiful, how the audience. And when my colleague who had lost majority of his family spoke, the room, everyone started tearing up. And one of the first questions that came is, "how do you live after that?" And they started talking about how they experienced so much racism, and they've experienced so much injustice, Rwandan kids gave hope to the African American children who that life has been unfair to them. Can you live after something like that? That was one of the most remarkable moments in my life, because all of a sudden, you could see two people from different contexts is learning from one another. Having that hope that even if you went through it, there's ways that you could still live. are still experiencing such pain from their own situations. And I wonder, did that child ever get to meet up with his father again, in Congo?

Jean Michel Habineza: 31:50

They found out that the dad is still alive. And at 18 years old, he goes to Congo to meet him. And that's what he learns. the reason why the father hasn't come back, was because the father was scared of what might happen to him once he comes back to Rwanda.

Christey West: 32:06

Given the situation in Rwanda now 30 years on, in your opinion, what anything happened to him? Are there still ethnic tensions between the Tutsis and the Hutus? Or do you think he could come back and be forgiven because so much happened, that there's no way to deal with every single crime.

Jean Michel Habineza: 32:27

In Rwanda there was a process that was put in place because it was almost impossible for all the 2 million people who had a role in the genocide to be tried, who would have taken too much resources in robbing impossible for the government puts in place a unity and reconciliation process where number one if people admitted to their crime, and they asked for forgiveness, their sentence could be reduced to half and the other half to spend it doing community service. And then number two, there's been a lot of work done by churches and religious institution to promote forgiveness and reconciliation. So imagine people who have undergone such atrocities and then saying, we're not going to take revenge, rather, we're going to figure out the long and painful process of forgiveness and reconciliation. So when people ask, Do I think that there still is animosity, I would say, of course, there is because 30 years is a long and short period at the same time, any one of us can remember a person who did us harm when we were in nursery school, or when we're still kids. Now imagine if you not so much, right. But people have gone through the painful process of rebuilding again, and forgiveness and reconciliation, and it will take generations, it will take generations. And what I always think is that every generation comes in, and they make the work a bit easier, and the crack becomes smaller and smaller and smaller with time.

Christey West: 33:58

What an incredible thing to do at the national level to decide collectively to approach the aftermath with forgiveness and reconciliation, instead of acting on that very strong urge that everyone must have felt to get revenge or to process the pain with more violence. It must take incredible strength of the people to restrain that, and to access that higher part of themselves that is able to respond peacefully and with forgiveness. I just have so much respect for the Rwandan people. Yes. And just coming back to your point, when those people from Rwanda, were speaking to the African Americans in Connecticut, and they said, how do you forgive that? What was the message to the African Americans because, you know, obviously, they've had 400 years of institutionalized racism and incredible atrocities over generations and what was your message for those people? Like, should they forgive white people? Or what's the balance in your opinion between advocacy and acceptance? When do you fight your rights? When do you accept that you've been victimized and you need to forgive?

Jean Michel Habineza: 35:19

One of the things that people have to know is that forgiveness is not condoning of any act. So when you forgive, you're not saying that what was done was right. Number two is also understanding that forgiveness is getting rid of bitterness that ruins our lives. I think it says more to to who said that unforgiveness is like drinking poison, and hoping your enemy dies. The other thing that we have to understand is forgiveness does not automatically lead to reconciliation, because reconciliation requires an acknowledgement of the wrongs done. And B, it requires a rebuilding of trust, that's a longer process. So in places like the US where there's been so much harm done, I think it's the question of, are we doing advocacy out of a place of want? Or are we doing it a place of principle, because the problem sometimes is that when we're doing it from a place of want, there is that inner desire for revenge, where we say, we want to be able to get back at people. But the problem with that is it ends up harming you instead of harming the other person because of bitterness. But then on the other side is, do we do it because we understand that the problem is not white versus black or Hutu versus Tutsi. It is a problem of how human beings treat one another. And then because of that, my enemy is not the white person, my enemy is the idea that this color of the skin of one person should make them better than others, or that you should get privileges or anything because of the color of your skin. And once I started understanding it in that manner, then I don't view any white person as my enemy. Rather, what I view is that there are some people from the other, that might actually be on my team, in order for things like that to actually change. By the way, all of these things are easy in terms of understanding them, intellectually, but they're hard because they involve human beings and human beings are messy. Human beings are messy. Right? So you can never have a formula that works.

Christey West: 37:31

Wow. Oh, my goodness, I love absolutely what you said, My enemy is not the other not the human being my enemy is the ideas of hatred, or the ideas that make us believe that each other is the enemy. What a fantastic approach. Because you're right, it is very hard, because you're dealing with human beings. And, you know, in order to have true peace, forgiveness, reconciliation, you need to access the courage and the strength and the humility, all of these things you've talked about, which means overcoming the ego and overcoming the base human instinct, to get revenge and to act on the anger in your heart, when you've been victimized. You know, everyone feels that to different degrees. I mean, resentment, it's a big thing that a lot of people suffer from, and to actually have the strength collectively to overcome that, and to create good in the world, out of an atrocity. To rise from the depths of the worst of humanity, and to come up with peace and reconciliation and unity, and see the human and each other, and just disposal to the ideas of hatred. That is an extremely powerful approach to life and nation building. Thank you so much for your wisdom, I really feel like every single person needs to hear this because it's relevant for every human being at the family level. The national level, internationally, conflict and anger and interactions with other people is something that we all have to deal with, and we all struggle with. And you're teaching people how to deal with other people. We all need this information. We all need to learn these lessons.

Johanna de Burca: 39:19

Love that. I'm wondering with everything you know about what leads to conflict and how peace is achieved? Do you have any overarching advice for the general public?

Jean Michel Habineza: 39:31

Well, the one thing that I would say is that all of us are particular beings that we experience the world from particular places, they call it social positioning. So it means that all of us experience the world from a different standpoint. And because of that, it means that all of us, whether we want it or not, there are certain realities that we are blinded to, right and we can only be passionate or we can only have opinions on things that we have experience, they use that as a way of telling you, you will never understand other people on the other side, you will never understand it because you don't live their reality. But actually what I think is if we are willing to reimagine what the world could be, it creates an opportunity where we could understand that, because we experience the world from a particular place, are we humble enough that we're willing to accept our limitation? And then are we also courageous enough that we're willing to step into someone else's world? In Rwanda, for example, it's not that we have a choice. In Rwanda, people had to go back to the communities and people had go back to the same schools and people are living next to people who are seen or have been portrayed as the enemy. And part of what is required is that people had to reimagine and say,"Is this person really my enemy?" Or is my enemy, the things that separates us? And I think, to be honest, the problem with too many people around the world is that, first of all, we're not willing to be humble enough to understand that maybe I might be wrong. And maybe because of my social location, I am blinded to certain things. And then secondly, we are not courageous enough. We want the other side to understand us, but we're not willing to do it, right. Think of it as when you are in any close relationship, whether with your husband, your wife, your partner, every bad relationship is created by when you think you're always right. And your partner is always wrong. Right?

Johanna de Burca: 41:30

Even if that's the truth yeah?

Jean Michel Habineza: 41:33

You don't you think about it as if he or she could look at the world, just the way I look at it, the world would be a better place. But that's the struggle, right? That's the struggle of two human beings trying to live together.

Christey West: 41:47

Hmm, well, it just made me think about during the pandemic, there were so many families who had opposing ideas around vaccinations, for instance, and there were many families where some members were getting vaccinated and absolutely believed that this was the right thing to do. And then other family members who refuse to get vaccinated and absolutely believed that this was the right thing to do. And I understand that there are still lots of families that are split, and are not able to talk, because their different opinions were so strong, that there was no way for the middle ground, to reunite them, or to bring them together. So the shared history, the love, the grandchildren, you know, everything that they have grown up with together, none of it was strong enough to overcome this idea of, I'm right, because I'm vaccinated. I'm right, because I'm unvaccinated. And there's also a lot of temptation to indulge in self righteousness. I'm right, completely, and they are wrong. And that's it. And if they just listened to me, everything would be okay. But I know that there's no way forward. If someone doesn't grow some humility, and the courage to come to the other side and be like, "hey, I'm blinkered, let me hear from you".

Jean Michel Habineza: 43:15

Yeah and by the way, going to the other side does not mean that you agree with them, it doesn't mean that you actually think that they are right, it is understanding that what holds you together is stronger than whatever issues that you disagree with. But what if we also viewed it as in terms of opinions and how people view the world? Because the problem with that diversity is that we end up having this idea that I will only engage with you if I actually agree with you. And I always find it ironic, because then on the other side, we're going to say, Oh, we think there should be more women included in different spaces. There should be more minorities from different places, in all the spaces. But the question is, do we want the bodies or do we also want the experiences that comes with that? Do we want people to come fully with all the experiences and the way that the world has shaped their worldviews and all of that part of it is if we truly are about the business of diversity of inclusion, then he means we have to accept to live with differences. But understanding that what holds us together is probably more profound than different opinions. It's understanding that human beings are far more complex than even the strongest opinions that they have. You will always judge the person that you disagree with, on their worst opinion, you'll always think, oh my god, you know, how can you believe this? It shows this much about you. But then you will never accept the same standard to be used on you. Because for you, you think that you're far more nuanced than whatever opinion you hold, that you are more complex than whatever opinion that you hold. So part of it is being aware of that sort of contradiction that we live with, and being okay with living with differences it's actually a good thing.

Christey West: 45:03

Yes! I would love that message to go through to

Johanna de Burca: 45:04

If I may ask this, Jean Michel, I'd be really everyone, including myself, that differences are a good thing. You're right. It's really easy to be like, Yes, I accept people from all countries, all skin tones, genders, sexuality, abilities, whatever it is, I can accept that but yes, a different opinion or that's difficult. Is the next stage in diversity and inclusion. Wow, very interesting point. Yes. interested to hear your thoughts. As someone coming from Rwanda and working in this field, what your take is on the Israeli conflict with Hamas, and whether you think there is actually a way for them to resolve what's going on?

Jean Michel Habineza: 45:55

Well it's quite tough. My dad used to always say, when I was at university, there was a lot of things about Israel and Palestine. And it was always about which side you take. And my dad used to always say, you can't have a strong opinion on something that has been there for so long. Every social psychologist actually talks about, one of the dangers for any society is the unhealed wounds from past victimizations. So conflict happens, because conflict has happened, where violence was used to solve in the conflict is always prone for a relapse. I remember, I met a man, I think he was from Somalia, in 2007, or 2008. And one of the things that he said is that the moment killing starts, or violence happens, then it's an unending cycle of violence, and it's gonna keep on going, one group would do violence over the other, and then it will continue again. And it saddens me to see that. And I think sometimes people are just drawn to ideological groups. Okay, do you support Hamas? Or do you support the Israelis? And the debate ends up being there. Well, we're wasting time because at the end of the day, no conflict benefits anyone, because people are dying. There's nothing that is not human. Everything that is happening is very human. And it's because humans do harm to others, because they were done harm to and it's just an unending circle. So, I don't know, I try to not to listen to a lot, because it just makes me feel so hopeless.

Christey West: 47:26

Yes. Thank you so much for that thoughtful answer.

Jean Michel Habineza: 47:27

It's tough. For me, I always find I agree so much. It's not about who's right and who's wrong. It's just that no one benefits from the conflict when people are dying. And that's a good point about hopelessness. It's solace in faith, in my belief that at the end of it, a God something that I wonder about when you are talking about war and violence and conflict and this sort of thing. And when you do have these moments of hopelessness or you know, the problems seem too big. And as you say, this is very human. And will make it right. And that I only have to be faithful to what how does humanity ever going to stop fighting? How do you get through those moments of hopelessness? How do you keep fighting for peace, when it really does seem like humans don't have the capacity to get there? I've been called to do here. And I think just doing what we can, in the place where I am, I'll just do what I can, and hope that it'll be enough. But I never getting into despair. And I think that is also being stubborn, being stubborn, thinking that and knowing that what you're doing is right. But it's tough. I have in my room. My favorite quote from Obama, it says "Hope is that thing inside us that exists despite all evidence to the contrary, there's something better awaits us if you have the courage to work for it and fight for it. Hope is the belief that our destiny will not be written for us but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to rework the world as it should be".

Johanna de Burca: 49:20

For anyone listening in who is interested in learning more or supporting Jean Michel's vision, you can visit justpeoples.org/leaders/jean-michel. You can find these details in the show notes. To give you some context of how much your support can help Jean Michel achieve, around 2,500 US Dollars can enable Jean Michel to run a year long program in a rural Rwandan high school to teach students to debate contentious global issues without conflict and to implement social projects that tackle the root causes of poverty.

Christey West: 50:00

And a final question, is there anyone who you feel that you couldn't disagree with? Like, where you would have to just appease them? Like, is there any person in the world where you would be like"Oh, I agree".

Jean Michel Habineza: 50:14

Yeah, my fiancee, I always I'm like, "You know what, whatever. Yeah, I agree." And then she always says"for someone who teaches people how to disagree don't seem to disagree". I'm like, "nope". So yeah, definitely her.

Johanna de Burca: 50:28

Glad you're heading towards a peaceful marriage.

Jean Michel Habineza: 50:31

Yeah, definitely.

Johanna de Burca: 50:33

You've got the formula you got for me. I feel like I've done some work on my marriage throughout this podcast recording. So hopefully, I'm gonna be a better wife as well.

Christey West: 50:42

We'll have the next episode with you, you know, six months into the marriage and see if you've got advice then.

Jean Michel Habineza: 50:49

Yes. Yes, that would actually be a good follow up. That'd be a very good follow up. Brilliant.

Johanna de Burca: 50:58

Why give back is proudly brought to you by Just Peoples, an international nonprofit that connects givers directly with local leaders at the forefront of tackling poverty in their local communities across Africa and Asia. You can learn more and directly support the work of Jean Michel and other inspiring leaders by visiting justpeoples.org