Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: God Sleeps in Rwanda

God Sleeps in Rwanda by Joseph Sebarenzi 2009

This is an awesome memoir about Joseph Sebarenzi whose parents and seven siblings were victims of the Rwanda genocide in 1994. In a period of ninety days over 800,000 Tutsi were brutally murdered. Sebarenzi was out of the country during the genocide but did return to Rwanda after the genocide...

Sebarenzi recounts the ethnic conflicts in Rwanda during that period and provides the reader with a context on the role that colonial influence played on promoting ethnic tensions in Rwanda. The appeal of this book is how the author is able to forgive the many people in government and his countrymen who killed his family and his faith in rule of law and true democracy as components of healing and moving on after genocide.

The last chapter entitled “Moving toward forgiveness and reconciliation” provides the steps using the following components: acknowledgment, apology, restorative justice, justice, empathy, reparation and forgiveness. Sebarenzi’s analysis and suggested components can be used for any type of conflict management from office disagreements, family conflict up the spectrum to the most violent and painful form of violence (genocide). Sebarenzi’s strong faith was another factor that helped him to raise beyond his pain and serve his country.

Sebarenzi was the speaker of the Rwandan parliament from 1997 to 2000. Today he serves on the faculty of CONTACT (Conflict Transformation Across Cultures) at the SIT Graduate Institute and he is also a conflict management consultant for nongovernmental organizations.