The Narrative Construction of Identity in Contemporary Rwanda: A Study of An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina (with Tom Zoellner)

Abstract

In this article, I examine the autobiography of Paul Rusesabagina, An Ordinary Man, to interrogate the narrative construction of identity in contemporary Rwanda. My primary focus is the discursive and narrative dynamics involved in the problematical configuration of ethnic, class, and national identities prior to, and after the country's 1994 genocide. Regarding the contradictions in the way Rusesabagina attempts to articulate modern Rwandan identity (especially with respect to the perceived sameness and/or difference between Hutu and Tutsi), I argue that the dominant narratives of pre-colonial harmony he echoes are over-simplistic, homogenising and misleading in certain respects. This article thus seeks to problematise the prevailing idea – forcefully reinforced by Rusesabagina – that colonial interventions constitute the all-encompassing roots, rather than catalysers, of the endemic and seemingly irreconcilable differences that culminated in the genocide. My purpose in this regard is not to downplay colonialism's negative impact on social relations in Rwanda, but to foreground some of the often overlooked historical complexities that are revealed by Rusesabagina's valuable but as yet underexplored narrative.