2010-01-18 16:26:52

THE PURPLE INTERVIEW: One Burundian Tells His Story Of War, Survival and Reconciliation (Part II)

Filed under: Africa, Featured, Pascal Akimana, The Purple Interview
Posted by: John

In 1994, when Burundian Pascal Akimana was 13 years old, he became a refugee for the second time. That year, Hutus in Rwanda carried out a genocide against their Tutsi neighbors, murdering almost a million men, women and children in a matter of weeks. Violence erupted in neighboring Burundi, too, where the dominant ethnic groups were also Hutu and Tutsi.

In Burundi, the pattern of violence was reversed. Tutsi had massacred thousands of Hutus over the decades, creating a mass exodus of Hutus into Rwanda. In 1993, Akimana had had to flee the fighting with this sisters and ended up in a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He returned from that camp in time to flee again when the genocide began in Rwanda.

Now, at the age of 28, he lives in Springfield, Massachusetts, and I spoke to him about both past and future on a bright, cold morning in the downtown offices of Mens Resources International. He took time away from his work with local Burundians, addressing cases of violence against women, to speak with me. A lot of his countrymen his age have brought the violence of home with them into exile, he told me, and he tries to help them get past it.

In general, Burundi gets far less press than Rwanda, its neighbor to the north, though it has been rocked by wars and massacres since at least 1962, when the country gained independence. All this would be ancient history, except that Burundi has elections later this year for the presidency, and observers fear a renewed outbreak of violence.

The following is one man’s account of a childhood spent in a killing field and how he has attempted to overcome that legacy of violence. In an era of sectarian violence and partisan strife extending across the globe, from Africa to Afghanistan, from Nepal to the United States, his story offers a universal resonance. It is by turns terrifying and overwhelming. It’s also inspiring, and it’s long, so I decided to break it into two parts. Last week, we heard Akimana’s account of his childhood in the midst of civil war.

This week, he talks about his father’s long years of violence against his mother, a common experience among Hutu and Tutsi people both. Akimana’s mother was of mixed heritage. His father was a Hutu. As he tells it, these ethnic designations didn’t determine his father’s actions. In Burundi, he says, men are brought up to beat up and even kill their woman as a matter of course, and he has spent most of his adult years attempting to confront the practice.

The first half of his story can be found here. The second is below. Before or after you read, take a minute to check out the website a Mens Resources International, which is accepting donations on Pascal’s behalf. If you want to understand why this man could use a little help, read on.

Q:Tell me about your father.

A:That’s a tough one. My father was a very abusive guy. He met my mother when she was sixteen. She was pregnant. When my mom came along, my dad treated her in the way he was taught, the way he was socialized. According to traditions in Burundi, a man must have full control. A woman is under his feet. A woman who says no is an insult to a man, and he’s the one who has the final say. My father was typical. When my mother asked him where he was from, he told her to shut up. He told her she didn’t have  the right to ask him anything.

When she served him food and water, he would be ungrateful. He would ask her why there were no chilis on the table or why this or that wasn’t on the table. He would always find excuses. I never understood, from the age of six or seven. They were always fighting. I used to sleep in my father’s bedroom, and he would force my mom to have sex against her will.

Q: Did she try to do anything about it?

Then my mom came to realize that my father was cheating on her. Whenever she would confront my father, there would have problems. He’d tell her to go away. One day, my father beat my mom really severely.  He took her clothes and burned them, because he said he bought the clothes for her, and he chased her away for good. The same night, as soon as my mom left, the other woman showed up.

Q: Did your mom tell anyone?

A: My mother would wake up in the mornings with a swollen eye, but when the neighbor asked, she’d say she fell down in the dark. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk. It’s that the elder women weren’t very helpful. They would tell her that this was the way to build a home, that her husband would change.  Look at your children, they would say. Where can you go with these young children? My father’s family didn’t like my mother, and they somehow encouraged him in this behavior. They accused her of a lot of things. They told her she needed to please the whole family. I’m still bitter about that.

Q: You were raised in the Pentecostal church. Was the church helpful?

A: One night, my mother took me with her to church to see the pastor. That night, she had been beaten severely. My father had used shoes, belts, everything. Her body was so badly beaten. I was crying. I had tried to stop my dad, but I was powerless. There was nothing I could do. When she reached the pastor, she was crying, and I was crying, too. I loved my mom a lot.

The pastor didn’t listen very well to my mother. He said we should pray for my father. He said my father would change. God would touch him surely. I will never forget it.  The pastor said he’s a man, he’s the head of the family, and he must be respected. The Bible says that women must submit to their husbands. He said these things, but he hadn’t even heard the full story of my father. He hadn’t even investigated the root causes of the problem at home. So she left the pastor without hope. My father’s family didn’t help. The village elders didn’t help. My mother was alone. She didn’t have any family to help, and my father used that, because if you don’t have family who’s going to fight for you? She didn’t even have an education. She couldn’t even read or write.

Q: After your mother was kicked out of the home, what did you do?

A:After my mother was chased away, I went to visit her. I would tell my stepmother that I was going to see my mom, and she would give that report to my father. He would beat me. I was a rebellious child. I said to my dad, when I grow up, I will beat you the way you are beating me.  There was a time when I was 13 during the conflict when I said to him  I don’t know why you are on earth, and he was afraid because my sister had told him he would probably be killed. Many children who had joined the rebels would come with guns to kill their parents. He was afraid. He knew I wasn’t kidding.

Q: This violence wasn’t just in your home, was it? It was everywhere.

A:There was violence in the entire community. Because you could hear women crying at night, yelling for help. I asked myself what’s going on here? There’s a time when  a child asks questions, when a child asks but cannot get answers. I was asking myself what’s going on, what has my mother done, why is she undergoing this, why are we beaten up? My father would beat me up, too. He would make me kneel and lift up a heavy stone, and then he would beat my back with an electrical cable. That’s how I was disciplined.

Q: You got your first hug from your father in 2007. How is your relationship with him now?

A: To this day, my father has never told me he loves me. Even if I call or give him money, he’ll say thank you but not the other. But I understand. As a young man growing up, socialized how to be a man, he can’t show love, he can’t show emotions.

Q:Your sister was raped in the refugee camp in front of your eyes, and it had a big effect on you. Tell me about that.

A:The first time, when we crossed the border into Congo, then Zaire under Mobutu, the military welcomed the refugees, but they didn’t treat them very well. My sister was only ten at the time, but she was raped in front of me. She was screaming, there was blood everywhere. I was tied up. I lost consciousness. I’ve lost some of the memories. I was crying, I remember.

There’s a time as a human being you pass through tough times, get into serious situations, and you feel like you’re not on earth. For instance, when I was beaten badly by my father until I didn’t feel pain. It’s like when you beat a rock or a tree. He would yell at me, but I just looked at him and said nothing, no matter what he asked me.

Afterwards, I would sleep outside, because I didn’t want to sleep in my father’s house. Mosquitoes were terrible, but two nights I slept outside, and I regretted being a human being. I felt ashamed. I felt angry. I felt there was no reason to be on earth. And I felt the desire for revenge. And when I took my revenge on others, and I did, I was repeating my father’s behavior.

I took part in gang rapes.

Q: You were involved in a gang rape?

A: We were six boys. I was the youngest, thirteen or fourteen. This girl was just walking along. I stood like this, holding my hand over my face, looking at what my friends were doing and remembering what my sister went through. I don’t know where I got the inspiration to stand up for myself. The girl was on the ground, screaming and naked, and one of the boys had a hand over her mouth.  I didn’t want any part of it. I just left, but my friends didn’t understand. When I was watching, the old memories of my father and what I went through in Congo came back. I said no. I left. The next day, I told the guys I was finished with them. I needed to find my own space. I couldn’t continue this. I started thinking, what should I do, what should I study that will help me to console or comfort, address my mother’s pain.

Later,  in the refugee camp, I would see how men were beating up wives, and how the women would put down the men. Big anger comes from the man who hears that. He’s confused. He’s supposed to be the breadwinner, but in the camp, he doesn’t have permission to go out of the camp. Men and women were equal. They’re the same, and that caused problems. In the camp, you could see what was happening. So that’s where I started volunteering and talking to guys about the violence.

Mostly we’d talk about conditions in the camps or in Burundi, but I would tell guys to pay more attention to their mothers or the girls who were going to fight in the war. When we were doing political dialogue in the camps, that’s where I would say to the guys, we need to address this situation with women. Our girls are raped. If we don’t address the injustice of our mothers, we’re not going anywhere.

Q:Let’s say a Burundian man comes to you now, and you know he is beating his wife, he is angry, he has suffered like you, he has lost his home. What’s the first thing you say to him?

A: I would say this. I don’t blame you. I understand you are a good person. You are a courageous man to come and talk to me. I don’t condemn him. You still can be a good man, a caring father, I say. Regardless of what these men are doing, you can still find the impulse to protect their loved ones inside them.  If I threatened to kill his children, he would want to kill me. That’s what I want to build up, that impulse to protect.  That’s love. I want to say, you’re a good person, you love your family, I know, but could we elaborate on why you get so frustrated that you end up turning to violence? You have endured violence as well, that’s why you’re passing it to those who are vulnerable, but we need to see how we can do that differently.

Q: These habits go back generations. How hopeful are you that you can change minds?

A: I have great hope. I have changed myself. I’m my own best example. It’s hard for a man to say he’s sorry.  But it’s possible.

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