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167 One of the most sig­ nif­i­ cant con­ se­ quences of the 1994 gen­ o­ cide was the rup­ ture of the so­ cial fab­ ric. As Do­ na­ tia de­ scribed in the intro­ duc­ tion, “I was con­ sumed with hate. . . . I ­ didn’t trust any­ one, not even those who­ helped save me.” None­ the­ less, lit­ tle by lit­ tle Rwan­ dans began to re­ pair the so­ cial fab­ ric, many times un­ wit­ tingly, as they mud­ dled ­ through the dire ma­ te­ rial circum­ stances in which they found them­ selves. Women, in par­ tic­ u­ lar, ­ reached out to for­ mer ­ friends, neigh­ bors, and col­ leagues. While many might por­ tray ­ women’s cen­ tral role in re­ build­ ing Rwan­ dan so­ ci­ ety as the nat­ u­ ral con­ se­ quence of ­ women’s biol­ ogy, this out­ come was not a fore­ gone con­ clu­ sion. ­ Women’s cen­ tral role in re­ build­ ing Rwan­ dan so­ ci­ ety was the re­ sult of their so­ cial po­ si­ tion in the kin group and in the com­ mu­ nity as well as Rwan­ dan ­ women’s em­ brac­ ing of fem­ i­ nist ­ ideals drawn from both inter­ na­ tional and Rwan­ dan ­ sources. Dur­ ing the gen­ o­ cide, many ­ long-term re­ la­ tion­ ships (friend­ ships, mar­ riages, busi­ ness part­ ner­ ships, etc.) that tran­ sected eth­ nic­ ity were 6 Paths to Rec­ on­ cil­ i­ a­ tion 168 Paths to Reconciliation de­ stroyed or se­ ri­ ously ­ eroded by dis­ trust. None­ the­ less, the pos­ sibil­ ities for rec­ on­ cil­ i­ a­ tion at the in­ di­ vid­ ual level were ­ greater than at col­ lec­ tive lev­ els be­ cause of the ­ shared his­ tory and mem­ o­ ries pre­ dat­ ing the gen­ o­ cide. Be­ cause­ government-sponsored ­ memory-making and rec­ on­ cil­ i­ a­ tion ac­ tiv­ i­ ties pro­ hib­ ited the kind of hon­ est ex­ change of ex­ pe­ ri­ ences that or­ di­ nary Rwan­ dans ­ needed, women were left to forge their own paths. As I dis­ cuss in this chap­ ter, this jour­ ney began with find­ ing a way to live to­ gether (ku­ bana) again. From this co­ hab­ i­ ta­ tion out of ne­ ces­ sity, some in­ di­ vid­ ual women as well as some ­ women’s as­ so­ ci­ a­ tions in­ vented their own ways to­ ward rec­ on­ cil­ i­ a­ tion. I de­ scribe five ex­ am­ ples of rec­ on­ cil­ i­ a­ tion in this chap­ ter: three of in­ di­ vid­ u­ als and two of ­ women’s as­ so­ ci­ a­ tions. Under­ stand­ ing these idio­ syn­ cratic paths to rec­ on­ cil­ i­ a­ tion can con­ trib­ ute to de­ vel­ op­ ing rec­ on­ cil­ i­ a­ tion pro­ grams bet­ ter ­ adapted to the needs of or­ di­ nary peo­ ple in con­ flict zones ­ around the world. Co­ hab­ i­ ta­ tion: A Mat­ ter of Ne­ ces­ sity Every­ day life in rural ­ Rwanda re­ quires the ac­ com­ mo­ da­ tion of dif­fer­ ence and nego­ ti­ a­ tion of con­ flict even when peo­ ple are not liv­ ing in a post­ war con­ text. In the after­ math of the gen­ o­ cide and war in ­ Rwanda, the tran­ si­ tion from a state of war­ fare to a state of co­ ex­ is­ tence was a slow and un­ even pro­ cess. Be­ cause Rwan­ dans had ex­ pe­ ri­ enced ear­ lier pe­ ri­ ods of com­ mu­ nal con­ flict ­ within liv­ ing mem­ ory, some of them al­ ready had ex­ pe­ ri­ ence with re­ build­ ing com­ mu­ nal life with lit­ tle out­ side inter­ ven­ tion.1 None­ the­ less, the level of phys­ i­ cal, so­ cial, and emo­ tional de­ struc­ tion of the gen­ o­ cide far sur­ passed any­ thing that any com­ mu­ nity had pre­ vi­ ously ex­ pe­ ri­ enced. In the weeks and ­ months fol­ low­ ing the gen­ o­ cide, acts of re­ venge were­ fairly com­ mon in many Rwan­ dan com­ mu­ nities. Some gen­ o­ cide sur­ vi­ vors took the op­ por­ tu­ nity to exact re­ venge ­ against their neigh...

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