Contrast between Hate Language, a Major Causer of 1994 Rwandan Genocide, and Healing Language formed by Narratives

This paper focuses on the Rwandan genocide that occurred in 1994, which has attracted the world’s attention to ‘genocide.’ The purpose here is to examine how reconciliation, forgiveness, and new socialization can be accomplished through investigating the devastating impact of hate language that has resulted in the misery and individual narratives in public memory in the forms of documentaries and movies. In Chapter 2, I trace how hate language, one of the major triggers of the Rwandan genocide, could drive the circumstance to the extreme so rapidly. In Chapter 3, I look into how the genocide-related films and various individual narratives depicted in them could function as preventative education beyond helping both aggressors and victims in the process of healing and reconciliation. Re-narrating what one went through collectivizes personal narratives, making them collective memories; at the same time, it helps overcome feelings of hostility towards assailants. Testimony by narrating, which is an emotional appeal, immediately and directly invites the audience to embody the ethics of sharing. Furthermore, individual narratives not only socialize others, but also newly socialize the narrators themselves with the recognition that they should live a certain life.