Music Review: Rwanda by Soulfire 9|7
Rwanda on
Soulfire
Duncan Breen and Dave Stark, 2006.
Rwanda is a deeply moving track that captures, in four tightly controlled minutes, the complexity of reconciliation after genocide. The song was released by Cape Town-based duo Soulfire on their debut album. Featuring sparse vocals, acoustic guitars, and djembe drum, Rwanda was penned by songwriter Duncan Breen after a visit to the Great Lakes region of central Africa.
Traveling through Rwanda with friends, Breen decided on Christmas day to visit the Catholic church at Yamata, a small town a few hours outside of the capital of Kigali. The church was the site of a massacre of hundreds of Tutsis by armed Interhamwe militia, and bits of skull and bones still litter the pews in memorial.
Look in your eyes, what have you done?
The secrets that lie behind your mask, too dreadful to reveal.
And I don’t know the truth, and I can see you do.
A mother’s tears that turn to blood, and soon they run no more.
At times sentimental, Rwanda is no preachy tune. This “immensely personal song”, as Breen calls it, seeks to understand the capacity of victims to forgive, while constantly exhorting for ‘redemption’.
They ask us to forgive, oh Lord / but how can we forget?
Forgiveness may be given by victims, but at what price? Especially if the memories will haunt them no less?
Yes, I accuse you, yes I blame you, yes you have done wrong.
Don’t turn your back and walk away and say you had no choice.
A starting place for forgiveness is the acknowledgement that something wrong happened. Even in the face of mass hysteria – or in the case of the Rwandan genocide, controlled and systematic slaughter – there was also choice. The heroes were often those that did not pick up the weapons. But what do heroes mean, as Breen sings with his breathy vocals, if the dead don’t speak? What value do such heroes offer if they are no longer around? These questions are all the more poignant in a country where victims and perpetrators of the genocide must confront each other on a daily basis.
Rwanda is in many ways an exception to an album debut by Soulfire that is at times upbeat and packed with simply written, sentimental love songs. Several tracks have climbed the musical charts around the world. The depth of the songwriting may be felt throughout the album, and the other songs are also worth a listen – in a hammock, preferably.
But the track that shines here is Rwanda, for in a world of boppy metaphors, Soulfire takes these human rights issues head-on. The sincerity of Breen’s lyrics are underscored by his own generosity. In addition to creating CDs of local musical artists for homeless to sell on the street – and keep the profits – he works as a human rights activist for the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA) in Johannesburg.
Download the track Rwanda at Soulfire’s MySpace page.
About Rwanda
Rwanda is a country of 11 million that seeks to emerge from being known as the ‘country of genocide’. But there will be no simple solution for a nation that suffered 800,000 deaths in 100 days from April to July of 1994. Because it proved impossible to prosecute the hundreds of thousands of alleged perpetrators, the country established a nationwide system of local courts known as gacaca to promote restorative justice. The results have been mixed.
As the song Rwanda demonstrates, it is difficult to apportion blame for the genocide. What is clear is that the genocide was not solely the result of lingering ethnic tensions between Hutus and Tutsis. Relevant factors include a legacy of Belgian colonialism, the death or murder of president Juvenal Habyarimana, the importation of weapons, the complete failure on the part of the international community and the United Nations to respond in the face of concrete evidence, the influence of other regional powers such as then Zaire and Burundi, and selfish elites.
There is some room for optimism: Rwanda recently joined a Central African trade group and has bolstered tourism. It is a land of lush rolling hills, volcanoes, catchy music, and has one of the world’s last populations of mountain gorillas.
Would you like to know more?
Rwanda Genocide Primer by Human Rights Watch.
A very simple summary of the genocide by National Geographic:
For a news source that portrays the contemporary issues confronting Rwanda, visit Allafrica.com’s Rwanda page, at: http://allafrica.com/rwanda/.
Hey ! Thanks for this passionating and enlightening review. Actually I loved that band and been listening to it for several days and would also recommend it to anybody else reading this review.
Hoping to read other such great music review!