To find peace, we have

to look beyond blame

and learn to forgive

 

Bill Mitchell

 

My life interferes with my rugby. I played it, coached it and now, as the body begins to give out, I referee. I've had a great time, multifarious injuries apart, but they are part of what was described by the great New Zealand player Wayne Shelford as 'Not a contact sport, it's a collision sport' and I blame no one but myself for each and every break and tear.
     But the purpose of this story is not to talk about my limited exploits on the rugby pitch, rather it is to tell you about a man who I had the great privilege to meet recently as a result of my involvement in the sport.
     A year ago Colin Brett, the SRU referee development manager for the Edinburgh Rugby Referee Society, visited Rwanda along with Frank Hadden, the former Scotland rugby head coach. Both were humbled by what they saw there, and the immense friendliness of the people. Out of that visit, Colin arranged for two referees from that country to visit Scotland on an exchange with the intention of helping them develop the fledgling sport in their home country.
     Unfortunately because of red tape, only one finally arrived, and Gerald Nsengyumva was with us over the last 10 days in October. Rugby being the social sport it is, he spent his time refereeing, sightseeing, and meeting people, this being his first trip out of Africa. However as part of his trip he kindly agreed to speak to the 4th year pupils at North Berwick High School, where my wife teaches, and asked if we could record his talk so that he could give a copy to the Rwandan Government's reconciliation committee.
     He hadn't prepared a script, so I had no idea what he would say. He isn't a teacher, he runs a small transport company in Kigali, but this man for whom English is a third language, held over 100 young people, their teachers and others in the audience enthralled for nearly an hour. He talked quietly and gently and with great presence.
     He said he was glad to talk about what had happened in his country during the genocide of 1994 (when he was 20 years old), because he said that unless Rwandans talked about it then they would be in danger of forgetting, and if they ever forget, then they might be in danger of repeating the same mistakes.

 

     But he also talked about there being a time to forget. He said that while Rwandans must never forget that one million of their countrymen were massacred over a 100-day period, they must learn to forget what individuals did, not to personalise the tragedy, but to see it as being a consequence of the selfish ambitions of a very few people, not that of all Rwandans as a whole.
     He laid blame firmly at the doorstep of the United Nations, whose Canadian military commander in the region was prohibited from preventing literally hundreds of thousands of men, women and children from being cut down in the street, because the UN had 'no mandate to intervene'.
     Yet he wanted most of all to talk about forgiveness, because he said, unless you forgive, you will never be healed. He talked simply about forgiving his neighbours, about rebuilding his country as a place to bring up his beautiful little 10-month-old daughter. He explained how he was no longer a member of either the Hutu or the Tutsi tribes, he was a Rwandan.
     The young people opened up to him in a way their teachers told me afterwards was astonishing; they asked honest and open questions about the genocide, and how Gerald had been affected personally by it. He answered equally honestly and his answers made horrendous listening, but for the youngsters, this was history made real. One girl later described the experience as 'brutal but brilliant'.
     But throughout his talk what impressed most was his dignity, his calmness and, through his quiet eloquence, his desire to help the audience understand and learn from the experiences of himself and his fellow Rwandans; to allow us to use his history as a means of learning and avoiding the same mistakes. Only once did he show any visible anger when, in response to a question, he said that 'No, justice has not been done as many of the people responsible for the genocide are still free living under the protection of governments throughout the world'.
     In this deeply impressive man there is a message for all of us in our materialistic desire to seek revenge for all slights no matter how trivial, that sometimes in order to find real peace, we have to look beyond blame and, like Gerald, somehow learn to forgive.

 

Bill Mitchell is a member of the SRU senior panel of officials. In his professional life he is a partner in The Ghost Partnership which works with organisations to improve their performance through their people