The Western Media's Crappy Reporting on Rwanda's Election

On Monday, August 9, Rwanda held their second democratic presidential elections since the genocide of 1994. Rwanda's sitting president, Paul Kagame, won with about 93% of the popular vote. This huge majority, along with a campaign season marred by some unfortunate events, has many people in western media pretty pissy - here, here, and here. If you have the time and the inclination, the short articles are worth reading, primarily because they illustrate just how wrong I think the western media has gotten the coverage of the election.

Now, you may be asking yourself why you should care about the details of a presidential election in Rwanda. Simply put, the country's stable government and economic growth has lead it to become a bit of a "development darling" and people are paying close attention to see if Rwanda can "make it". If it does, it will serve as a model for the development of other African countries. Much of the success Rwanda has seen over the past decade is due in large part to President Kagame's bold and unrelenting vision. In short, he has truly led the country to remarkable development, especially given the horrific reality on the ground in Rwanda on sixteen years ago.  Below, I discuss a few of the major criticisms of Kagame in these news stories, and why I think almost all of them are misguided.

Did Kagame borrow Obama's media people?

Criticism 1:  Kagame has downplayed the issue of ethnicity in Rwanda, even making it illegal to publicly discuss one's ethnic heritage.

My opinion: Given that 800,000 people were brutally hacked to death in 1994 based on whether their identify card said they were Hutu or Tutsi, I think this is the very weakest argument of these articles.  Perhaps discussion of ethnicity has it's place in quiet, private reconciliation groups, but after seeing row upon row of machete-punctured skulls at a genocide memorial, it seems that re-introducing the idea of ethnicity is an idea for further down the road.

Criticism 2:  Some opposition leaders were jailed and not allowed to run election campaigns.

My opinion: Opposition leaders who were jailed were done so on charges of perpetrating genocidal ideology.  Westerners should support Kagame's no-tolerance policy on anything even close to genocidal remarks as well as associating with groups outside Rwanda still hell bent on continuing the massacres of 1994.

Criticism 3: Anonymous government employees report being forced to vote for President Kagame.

Why this is dumb: I'm not sure exactly how many people work for the government in Rwanda, but I'm fairly certain it's a tiny fraction of the over five million people who calmly reported to their polling stations (many before dawn) to vote.  You may be able to coerce some people into voting, but you cannot force over 97% of those registered to show up and vote.  The vast, vast majority of people eligible to vote in the country DID so - of their own accord.

Criticism 4: General crankiness among the writers of these articles regarding the "freedom of the press" and civil rights in the lead up to the election.

Why this is dumb: This argument, that Kagame is suppressing the press and thus, general civil rights, comes from, in my eyes, an overly western-centric point of view.  To put it succinctly, Rwanda is not the United States.  Rwanda will never be the United States.  To demand that basic parts of the democratic process - freedom of speech, freedom of the press - measure up to the same standards as the United States, sixteen years after a horrific genocide is preposterous and insensitive.  Have these writers forgotten that newspapers and radio stations were the major mediums through which genocidal ideology was perpetrated in 1994?  For a REALLY interesting side note on the role of media propaganda in both igniting and sustaining the genocide, see the bottom of this post.

Of course, I've summarized a lot here (but would ramble if you let me).  Of course, the realities are more complicated, more nuanced, more complex.  If, in 20 years, Paul Kagame has not stepped down (according to the constitution, he's not eligible to run again), if opposition leaders and papers and radio are still silenced, certainly I will be troubled.  Certainly my opinions will be different.  But given how far Rwanda has come, I think the man has earned another 7 years to carry out his vision.

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Side note continued: A 2009 paper found that during the genocide, the presence of radio propaganda increased civilian violence by 65 percent and organized violence by 77 percent.  I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but I bet it's completely fascinating.