Body as Battlefield: Genocide, and the Family in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More

Abstract

In Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Secrets No More, the faces of the individual characters often come through vividly, and the events and situations can be precisely located in time and place in the Rwandan genocide as corroborated by the historical evidence. However, despite its accessibility and the relationship between the real and the fictive, there is little or no reference to Secrets No More in the major studies about the fictional narratives on the Rwandan genocide. In most of the narratives on the genocide, the historicity of the carnage is explored by means of the stark images of human bestiality and the debility of the victims. Kyomuhendo specifically deals with the same experience and issues, but through the different vignettes that make up the narrative. She makes eloquent the devastating blow that the genocide wreaked on the family as a unit and, by extension, the relationship between the woman’s body and the nation in moments of crisis. The narrative captures the gory images of total and unmitigated disaster, tinged with anger and disappointment over the violent destruction of lives and property, and the human folly in attempting to completely wipe out a group of people who were just as human as their murderers were. Although the subject of this article is one of violence, I examine the situational violence inflicted upon a specific group of people during moments of crisis (specifically the Rwandan genocide) in order to articulate how the battlefield has been extended beyond the physical space of engagement to the bodies and psyche of vulnerable groups. This in turn will demonstrate how the relationship between gender and national identity is reconstructed during ethnic clashes.

Opsomming
In Goretti Kyomuhendo se Secrets No More kom die gesigte van die individuele karakters dikwels skerp na vore, en gebeure en situasies kan presies in tyd en plek gelokaliseer word met betrekking tot die Rwandese menseslagting soos bevestig deur die historiese bewyse. Ten spyte van die toeganklikheid van die teks en die verband tussen die werklikheid en fiksie, is daar egter min of geen verwysing na Secrets No More in die vernaamste studies van die fiktiewe narratiewe oor die Rwandese menseslagting nie. In die meeste narratiewe oor die menseslagting word die historisiteit van die slagting verken aan die hand van die strak beelde van menslike verdierliking en die kragteloosheid van die slagoffers. Kyomuhendo behandel dieselfde ervaring en kwessies, maar aan die hand van die verskillende karaktersketse waaruit die narratief bestaan. Sy gee uitdrukking aan die ver-woestende gevolge wat die menseslagting vir die gesin as ʼn eenheid en, ter uitbreiding, die verwantskap tussen die vroulike liggaam en die nasie in krisis-oomblikke ingehou het. Die narratief bring die grusame beelde van totale en onversagte rampspoed na vore wat gekleur is met woede en teleurstelling oor die gewelddadige verwoesting van lewens en eiendom en oor die menslike gekheid van diegene wat poog om ʼn groep mense totaal uit te wis wat net so menslik was as hulle moordenaars. Alhoewel hierdie artikel oor geweld handel, ondersoek ek die situasionele geweld wat ʼn spesifieke groep mense tydens krisisoomblikke (spesifiek die Rwandese menseslagting) moes verduur. Ek doen dit ten einde te verduidelik hoe die slagveld verder as die fisiese gevegsruimte uitgebrei is na die liggame en psige van kwesbare groepe. Dit sal op sy beurt aantoon hoe die verband tussen gender en nasionale identiteit tydens etniese konflik gerekonstrueer word.