The figure of the righteous individual in Rwanda

This article examines the scope and limits of the figure of the righteous individual in Rwanda. To what extent does reference to such a figure promote national reconstruction? My reflections on this question are divided into three parts. The first examines the role played by the international community (non-governmental organisations, journalists, overseas academics) in the emergence of this figure. The second section attempts to delineate the figure's social depth, in its contradictory representations. What is the relationship between the public representation and living memory of the phenomenon? How do survivors, in particular, perceive this “figure of reconciliation”? The third and final section identifies a number of political uses for this figure. How do Rwanda's official representatives refer to those who perhaps personified Rwanda at the moment of its conflagration? My analysis shows that, far from eliciting even the slightest consensus from the population, this type of commemoration reveals the enduring rifts. Twelve years after the genocide, references to the past, whatever their nature, continue to cause divisions