Shrewsbury – Twenty years after the massacre that devastated Rwanda, on April 29, one of the survivors of the genocide that took nearly 1 million lives visited St. John's High School to address students, their families, and friends. Humanitarian and best-selling author Immaculée Ilibagiza became the 11th speaker of the annual Abdella Center for Ethics Lecture Series at St. John's.
Her talk, entitled, “A Story of Hope, Faith, and Forgiveness,” focused on how her experiences in the Rwandan genocide shaped her own faith and gave her a message of hope and forgiveness to share with the world. Ilibagiza was trapped for 91 days as members of the Hutu tribe slaughtered a million Tutsis, including her own family, in just three months.
She shared a 3- by 4-foot bathroom in the house of a priest who was a family friend, and who happened to be a Hutu (the government-sanctioned killings were carried out in the name of this ethnic group, though not all members espoused the same beliefs). Sharing the oppressively small space were eight other women, spanning the ages of 7 to 55 years old. While cramped in hiding, Ilibagiza could not help but retreat into her own hateful, vengeful thoughts.
“Anger was killing me,” she reflected.
Immaculée was raised Catholic, and she began to pray on the rosary left to her by her father every day to pass the time.
After 91 days of praying, Ilibagiza began to embrace the idea of forgiveness in the face of hate. Her strong faith stayed with her following the genocide, and eventually brought her out of Rwanda and to the United States. She became a U.S. citizen in 2013. Her first book, “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan
Holocaust” quickly became a New York Times bestseller in 2006. To date, it has been translated into 17 languages and has sold over a million copies. Ilibagiza's story has also been made into a documentary, “The Diary of Immaculée.”
She has been recognized and honored with numerous humanitarian awards, including the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Reconciliation and Peace and the American Legacy's Women of Strength & Courage Award.
Several students had the opportunity to meet Ilibagiza and ask her questions ranging from her opinions of United States military intervention in recent history and what her new U.S. citizenship means to her.
Sophomore Faraz Ilyas of Shrewsbury asked, “It seems as though many Hutus were poorly educated. You described the overall culture of Rwanda at the time of the genocide as being very obedient to government leaders [through] propaganda being put out by government-controlled media. In what way do you think good education can impact a person's moral and ethical development?”
In many ways, she responded, an education supplemented by a strong moral foundation, and vice-versa, is indispensable to the world.
“Schools like Saint John's are so important,” Ilibagiza remarked, “that combine learning with faith, because education without heart can only damage.”
