mchambawima1
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 16, 2014
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Instead, the hearing took place against the backdrop of widespread demonstrations in the US against police brutality meted out against African American males.
Why would the US Congress be bothered by human rights in Rwanda, a country thousands of kilometres away, when many of its own citizens are being killed by a run-amok police while others are being sent to jail in droves?
In the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s, the government of Rwanda used to be highhanded. It relied on the systematic use of force to consolidate power to a significant degree.
This was a period when RPF's political base was narrow and the government was also fighting a ferocious insurgency inside the country.
Since the end of insurgency in 2001 and the rapid growth in the organisational reach of the RPF, the government has progressively moved away from force to economic performance and delivery of public goods and services to citizens to consolidate power.
There are still cases of human-rights abuse. But they are isolated and occasional, not systemic. Human-rights groups have remained oblivious of this progress in large part because acknowledging it takes away their relevance.
Today, Rwanda has some of the best economic and social performance indicators of any country in the world.
Ironically, while Rwanda has progressed this far, the US has increasingly embraced repression and mass surveillance to govern its citizens.
This sounds unbelievable because America projects itself as a defender of democracy and respect for human rights. This leads people to imagine that it practises what it preaches. For example, police in America shoot and kill a black person every 28 hours.
Tens of thousands of black people are stopped and frisked by police daily for no reason except the colour of their skin - and then sent to jail. These police operations are unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court has upheld them in disregard to the 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In so doing, it has granted police a license to terrorise black communities.
America's human-rights record is appalling at home and abroad. Let us look at only one aspect of it - mass incarceration at home. In 2005, the US, with 5 per cent of the world's population, housed 25 per cent of the world's inmates.
This tragedy has only been possible because those bearing the brunt of prison come largely from racial minorities (blacks and Hispanics) who constitute 70 per cent of the prison population. A 2006 study found that one out of 200 young whites was incarcerated; the rate for blacks was one out of nine.
Thus, to black people, the state in America is a repressive machine whose main contact with them is through police and prisons. US courts, mass media and state and municipal legislatures all provide succour to this criminalisation of blackness.
There are more black people in jail in America today than there were as slaves in 1850. In nearly all states, a convicted felon is stripped of voting rights. As a result there are more blacks disenfranchised in America today than in 1875 when the 15th amendment prohibiting discrimination in voting rights based on race was passed.
This human tragedy has only been possible because the mass media and other channels of communication in America have stigmatised black people as criminals even in black minds.
This is the stigmatisation that America seeks to extend to African and other countries. Few governments employ the degree of repression at home as America does with its black citizens. Stigmatisation of others is not innocent.
It is used by the US to justify aggression and/or interventions in these countries. We have entered the era of humanitarian and human-rights imperialism.
Colonialism, the old form of imperialism, justified itself in similar ways. The colonialist painted the native as primitive, uncivilised and poor. Tall tales of human sacrifice, cannibalism, disease, famine, misery, etc were used to justify the takeover of territories for "protection."
One hundred and fifty years later, stories justifying intervention have not changed. The civilising mission now is dressed in the language of human rights, humanitarians and free markets. But if America genuinely cares about the human rights of Rwandans, let it demonstrate it by first caring for the rights of African Americans at home.
Andrew Mwenda is a Ugandan journalist
Why would the US Congress be bothered by human rights in Rwanda, a country thousands of kilometres away, when many of its own citizens are being killed by a run-amok police while others are being sent to jail in droves?
In the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s, the government of Rwanda used to be highhanded. It relied on the systematic use of force to consolidate power to a significant degree.
This was a period when RPF's political base was narrow and the government was also fighting a ferocious insurgency inside the country.
Since the end of insurgency in 2001 and the rapid growth in the organisational reach of the RPF, the government has progressively moved away from force to economic performance and delivery of public goods and services to citizens to consolidate power.
There are still cases of human-rights abuse. But they are isolated and occasional, not systemic. Human-rights groups have remained oblivious of this progress in large part because acknowledging it takes away their relevance.
Today, Rwanda has some of the best economic and social performance indicators of any country in the world.
Ironically, while Rwanda has progressed this far, the US has increasingly embraced repression and mass surveillance to govern its citizens.
This sounds unbelievable because America projects itself as a defender of democracy and respect for human rights. This leads people to imagine that it practises what it preaches. For example, police in America shoot and kill a black person every 28 hours.
Tens of thousands of black people are stopped and frisked by police daily for no reason except the colour of their skin - and then sent to jail. These police operations are unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court has upheld them in disregard to the 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. In so doing, it has granted police a license to terrorise black communities.
America's human-rights record is appalling at home and abroad. Let us look at only one aspect of it - mass incarceration at home. In 2005, the US, with 5 per cent of the world's population, housed 25 per cent of the world's inmates.
This tragedy has only been possible because those bearing the brunt of prison come largely from racial minorities (blacks and Hispanics) who constitute 70 per cent of the prison population. A 2006 study found that one out of 200 young whites was incarcerated; the rate for blacks was one out of nine.
Thus, to black people, the state in America is a repressive machine whose main contact with them is through police and prisons. US courts, mass media and state and municipal legislatures all provide succour to this criminalisation of blackness.
There are more black people in jail in America today than there were as slaves in 1850. In nearly all states, a convicted felon is stripped of voting rights. As a result there are more blacks disenfranchised in America today than in 1875 when the 15th amendment prohibiting discrimination in voting rights based on race was passed.
This human tragedy has only been possible because the mass media and other channels of communication in America have stigmatised black people as criminals even in black minds.
This is the stigmatisation that America seeks to extend to African and other countries. Few governments employ the degree of repression at home as America does with its black citizens. Stigmatisation of others is not innocent.
It is used by the US to justify aggression and/or interventions in these countries. We have entered the era of humanitarian and human-rights imperialism.
Colonialism, the old form of imperialism, justified itself in similar ways. The colonialist painted the native as primitive, uncivilised and poor. Tall tales of human sacrifice, cannibalism, disease, famine, misery, etc were used to justify the takeover of territories for "protection."
One hundred and fifty years later, stories justifying intervention have not changed. The civilising mission now is dressed in the language of human rights, humanitarians and free markets. But if America genuinely cares about the human rights of Rwandans, let it demonstrate it by first caring for the rights of African Americans at home.
Andrew Mwenda is a Ugandan journalist
