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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:(Im)possible Belgian Mourning for Rwanda
Author:De Lame, DanielleISNI
Year:2005
Periodical:African Studies Review
Volume:48
Issue:2
Period:September
Pages:33-43
Language:English
Geographic terms:Rwanda
Belgium
Subjects:mourning
genocide
colonialism
international relations
History and Exploration
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Ethnic and Race Relations
Religion and Witchcraft
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/african_studies_review/v048/48.2lame.pdf
Abstract:The Rwandan genocide has been a shock beyond any consideration of nationality or affiliation. However, as the media were eager to provide their audience with some simple explanation for the massacres, Belgium and its colonial past came quickly to the fore as the tentative explanations. The reports of the events touched individuals, communities and countries. The present author examines these three levels of the relationship between Belgium and Rwanda, and shows how Belgian society responded at each of these levels to the collective challenge of a mourning process. She argues that the process of mourning seems unfinished at both the collective and the personal levels, and that until this process is confronted by that which prevents Belgians from seeing themselves as potential murderers, it may remain impossible to accomplish. Furthermore, institutions like the Church can only partake of this mourning process if they acknowledge their political involvement in Belgium's colonial past. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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