Do you want to know what happened in Rwanda?

"Do you want to know what happened in Rwanda?
I have been there. I am there now.
Come, put your hand here on my chest and I will tell you.
Close your eyes. Listen. Now push, push gently, gently.
Keep your eyes closed. Push past my skin. Through my ribs.
Let your hand move deep into my chest.
Touch my heart.
Hold it.
Feel it.
Push through its cavities to the centre of my heart.
Now, listen closely. Open your eyes, slowly, and look deep into mine.
There, can you see it? I have been lying here for some time.
I do not know what happened to my family - it depends on who I am, on
where I am.
I was a man, a woman, a child, a foetus. You know I was killed.
I was killed by the militia because I am a Tutsi.
I was killed by the army because I was Hutu and a member of an
opposition party.
I was killed by my neighbours because I would
not go with them to kill others.
I was killed by my priest because it was the price he
had to pay to keep others alive.
I was killed by my wife, my husband, my children, my parents because
they had to kill me or be killed.
They killed many like me, women, children, men who happened to be here.
I know why, but I don’t know why.

I was killed by their machetes.
I was killed by their Kalashnikovs.
I was killed by their grenades.
I was killed by their bare hands.
I was killed by the rebels’ soldiers when they arrived here.
They killed many like me, women, children, men who happened to be here.
I know why, but I don’t know why.

I was killed by illness because we are so many, because we
live so close, because there is so much sickness, because I am afraid to
return home.
I was killed when I tried to leave the camps to go back and
they did not want me to go.
I was killed when I returned home, by those I found on my land.
Was it once their land?
I was killed when another said I had participated in the massacres.
Did I? I was taken, arrested, and my family does not know where I am.
They asked, but no one will tell them.
There was no trial—just an accusation.
I was killed in the war four years ago.
I was killed in massacres in my village two years back.
I was killed earlier this year when someone
threw a grenade into my house.

I was buried here by my family.
I was buried here in this mass grave and no one knows whether I am dead.
I died here in my grave after they forced me to dig it and put me
and others inside it and shot us.
I have never been buried.
I am in my house.
I am in the woods.
I was thrown in a river.
I have been left here as a testament to what happened,
for you and for the world to see.

Now do you understand? No? Then look deeper.
Ask yourself if you would kill if you thought it could save your family.
If it would protect your neighbours. Your country.
If it would protect your way of life against
those you think would grab it away from you.
If you believed that it would save what is important to you.
Ask yourself if you have ever looked at others as being different
from who you are yourself.
You are Canadian.
Have you ever been angry at them for their differences?
Have you ever been angry at the French?
At the English? At Westerners? At Easterners?
At Americans? At Muslims?
At newcomers? At those born here? At people of colour? At whites?
When you hear about a murder here now,
do you wonder about the race of the killer?
When you are driving and someone cuts you off, do you look
and tell yourself, “They all drive like that?”
Do you wonder whether some people got jobs
because they belong to a particular group?
Do you know of people who didn’t get
a job because they are different?
If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you will at least
understand how this began in my country.
The inhumanity we have known is human.
It is in our human differences that we have
found reasons to dehumanize one another.
This is what I want to tell you.
We have died, we have killed because we are like you.
I am like you. Now, I am dead"

-Rob Shropshire