“They tell us little and we end up being confused”: Parent–child communication on familial experiences of genocide and its aftermath in Rwanda

Abstract

In the current study we explore how Rwandan youth negotiate, within the family setting, a myriad of social and interpersonal dilemmas around silence and disclosure of genocide-related experiences of their parents. The study draws primarily on individual interviews and focus group discussions with 20 children of genocide survivor and perpetrator parents in the western and eastern provinces of Rwanda. Using the conceptual framework of social navigation which theorizes agency in a fluid, often unpredictable, and constantly moving social environment, we focus specifically on the difficult and often contradictory complex of factors that drive the communication strategies and tactics of the children as they seek information to understand the past of their parents. This includes the children’s urge to get to know the specific stories of their family but fearing the emotional disruption it may cause in the parent–child relationship; the push–pull dynamics of the parents wanting to disclose some experiences but admonishing silence on others; and the often ambiguous divergences between the public and private discourses. Our findings show that the steadiest navigational point guiding communication choices, made by both parents and their offspring, was a desire to contribute to a peaceful social environment, and to reduce the risk of future violence. We present emerging evidence suggesting that community-based sociotherapy, a program that includes healing the social space and not only intrapsychic wounds, may contribute to a steadier navigation of the tricky communication issues, enhancing psychosocial wellbeing.

Keywords

community-based sociotherapy genocide experiences parent–child communication peaceful coexistence social navigation Rwanda

Introduction

The way in which Rwandans continue to struggle in communicating the experiences of victimization and perpetration during the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and its aftermath has received significant attention (Burnet, 2012; Ingelaere, 2016; Otaka, 2019). What has remained understudied is the tension between silencing and disclosure of the familial history of these experiences between parents and their children. The present study explores how Rwandan youth negotiate, within the family setting, a myriad of social and interpersonal dilemmas around silence and disclosure of genocide-related experiences of their parents and considers their experiences of the changes in the family environment after parental participation in community-based sociotherapy.

The Rwandan context: Competing social imperatives

The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi was the culmination of cycles of violence which marked the Rwandan socio-political shifting terrain since 1959. In 1994 over the course of 100 days, according to the official figure, over a million people, mainly Tutsi as well as moderate Hutu, were slaughtered (Ministère de l’Administration Locale [MINALOC], 2004). The violence was often shockingly personal, with killers targeting neighbors, family members, and friends (Fujii, 2009). Many of those who survived the hunting, as it is referred to in current vernacular, were raped and seriously injured. All this shredded the social fabric. A new eruption of violence occurred in 1996 when Hutu extremists from eastern former Zaire began an insurgency in northwest Rwanda and the new post-genocide government responded with counter-insurgency operations. This lasted until 1999 and is known as the abacengezi (infiltrator) war (Jackson, 2004). At the same time, the Rwandan government launched a range of social reconstruction initiatives aimed at fostering national unity and reconciliation and strengthening the resolve of “never again.” Three major mechanisms contributing to that change were: a public focus on one national identity to the exclusion of ethnic ones (Benda, 2020), a nationwide implementation of a locally organized community justice system known as gacaca (Ingelaere, 2016), and various forms of recurring public memorialization—the annual mourning week a most prominent one (Ibreck, 2010). Concurrently, individual Rwandans were struggling to meet the demands of ordinary life while coping with the intense emotional distress, grief, anger, desires of revenge, guilt and shame; and living in a community setting riven by fear and distrust of their kin and neighbors. All this resulted in an unprecedentedly unpredictable and turbulent socio-cultural, economic, and political environment (Staub, 2015). It is these competing and often conflicting social imperatives and how to navigate them that inform us in our exploration and understanding of how the genocide-related family legacies play out in the household setting, especially between generations.

Background of our study

The subject of our study emerged out of parents sharing with each other the problems in their family life, specifically their struggles with raising children, in the context of sociotherapy group meetings and research. A program of community-based sociotherapy was introduced in Rwanda in 2005 aimed at empowering Rwandans to constructively cope with the impact of the complexities of the genocide aftermath on daily life (Richters, 2010). The program brings together 10 to 15 community members for a journey of 15 weekly 3-hour meetings, using a context-driven group therapy approach with the aim of enhancing psychosocial wellbeing and social reconnection at the grassroots level. As more sociotherapy groups were composed of both survivors and perpetrators, it acquired the characteristics of a psychosocial peacebuilding program (Ingabire et al., 2017; Sarabwe et al., 2018). A major theme emerging from exploratory research among parents who had completed sociotherapy sessions—eight focus group discussions and 24 individual interviews conducted in five of the 30 districts of Rwanda—was difficulties in parent–child communication about familial experiences of the genocide and its aftermath. That led us to explore parent–child communication from the perspective of Rwandan youth, which is the main focus of this article.

Silence and disclosure in parent–child communication about genocidal pasts

The way in which parents struggle between keeping silent and disclosing aspects of their experiences with collective violence to their children has been a key issue in studies about intergenerational legacies of genocide across the world (Braga et al., 2012; Eastmond & Selimovic, 2012; Eramian & Denov, 2018; Jordanova, 2012; Kagoyire & Richters, 2018; Kahn & Denov, 2019; Kidron, 2009; 2012; Melander et al., 2016; Münyas, 2008; Parens, 2009; Rosenthal, 2002). Many of these studies focus on the effects these choices have on the mental health and psychosocial wellbeing of the children. The record of these studies is equivocal on what the effects are of silence or disclosure. Earlier ones (Kogan, 1995) showed that parental silence of Holocaust survivors can leave a heavy imprint on the psyches of their children. But Kidron (2009, 2012) shows that silence on the personal history of parents does not by itself lead to pathology. Comparing micro familial memory work of Jewish-Israeli Holocaust descendants with children of survivors of the Cambodian genocidal violence living in Canada, Kidron (2012) concludes that culture-specific ways of responding to misfortune can make the experience of survivor silence one of respect rather than a burden. However, studies conducted among Khmer Rouge genocide survivors and their descendants in Cambodia come to findings different from those of Kidron (2012). Survivor parents in Cambodia do inform their offspring about their traumatic experiences with different results in terms of descendants’ wellbeing, ranging from gratitude for being born after the Khmer Rouge era and empowerment, to disbelief and feelings of anger, fear, and revenge (Melander et al., 2016; Münyas, 2008).

An overview of other literature on intergenerational legacies of genocidal pasts confirms that these legacies can be quite divergent, shaped as they are by differences in historical, political, cultural, socio-economic contexts; the post-genocide Rwandan context, as we will demonstrate, being a very specific one. There are fewer studies of intergenerational legacies of genocide among descendants of perpetrators than among those of survivors. A recurring finding is that perpetrator parents hide their criminal past from their offspring and that descendants come to hear about those activities sooner or later from sources outside the family. Studies show that perpetrator parents or grandparents have created for their descendants an unyielding sense of guilt, depression, everyday-pervasive shame and identity problems (Nou, 2013; Münyas, 2008; Parens, 2009; Schwab, 2010; Teege & Sellmair, 2015), which has also been recorded in Rwanda (Benda, 2020; Berckmoes et al., 2017; Hatzfeld, 2015; Rutayisire & Richters, 2014; 2018).

Pham et al. (2004, 2010) point out the need for comprehensive evaluations of the association between trauma exposure, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental disorders, and attitudes towards justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of mass violence. Just as important to us is an evaluation of the intergenerational effects of trauma in terms of hatred, anger, vengefulness, a disposition towards violence or towards reconciliation with former adversaries. The results of a study by Kosić and Livi (2012) on this topic in Croatia indicate that young people who perceive their parents as using constructive communication versus those who were perceived as verbally aggressive have a greater propensity towards reconciliation with the out-group even when the young people in question experienced a high sense of victimhood. As McEvoy-Levy (2006) observed, the way history is passed on to youth matters, for it may promote healing and reconciliation or may risk sowing the seeds of future conflict. In that context, it is important to understand the agency that the youth themselves demonstrate in navigating what is passed on to them from the different, possibly contradictory, sources of information they are exposed to.

Theoretical framing

The concept of social navigation, as developed by Vigh (2009), offers a valuable and innovative perspective to structure and analyze the choices and actions of people in fragmented and volatile social environments. He derives the concept from the Latin word “navigare” which means to sail-by-sea, defining a special form of movement, that is: in a moving environment, as opposed to moving on solid ground in a static landscape. As a result, Vigh notes that “it is motion within motion.” In a later article, he elaborated, “We may say that [such] navigation means discovering, imagining, and actualizing a smooth space through dangerous waters […] simultaneously navigating the next obstacle or wave and negotiating the many to follow one's way along an envisioned course” (Vigh, 2010, p. 156). Vigh's framework will prove to be helpful to capture the difficult choices our main respondents (see Characteristics of main respondents and Table 1) make as they navigate problems encountered in parent–child communication about the familial past, the incongruencies between stories of the genocide in public and private spaces, and the distancing from the other ethnic group or socializing with them.

Methodology

Qualitative data were collected between May and September 2016 in Rubavu district, Western province of Rwanda, and Gatsibo and Bugesera districts, Eastern province of Rwanda. Twenty young people were individually interviewed. Eighteen had a parent who had participated in sociotherapy, while the other two had lost both parents and had participated themselves in sociotherapy. Preceding the individual interviews, four focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with participation of 30 young people in total. All had one or both parents, mainly mothers, who had participated in sociotherapy. Sixteen of these 30 were also individually interviewed. The two orphaned young people raised by a foster parent who had not participated in sociotherapy and two additional young people who both have a parent who participated in sociotherapy, were added to these 16 for an individual interview. All youth respondents were born between 1989 and 1998. Towards the end of the research period, another FGD was conducted with five young people who had already participated in a FGD to check a few findings of the individual interviews as well as one FGD with seven parents of children who had been previously interviewed. The latter explored the parental perspectives on parent–child communication on the genocide-related familial past compared to that of the children. Respondents were identified by sociotherapists in close collaboration with the two field researchers, co-authors of this article. Even though all FGDs and interviews conducted were analyzed, we consider the 20 individually interviewed young people to be our main respondents and present their biographical details in the following section and in Table 1.

Table 1.

Children's state.

Alex	M	26	mother survivor
			father did not participate in genocide, while many of his family members did
			paternal uncles of Alex cut his mother with machetes
Aline	F	27	mother survivor (raped during genocide)
			father and 4 siblings killed during genocide
			Aline is single mother with two children
Alvin	M	20	mother survivor – husband and 4 siblings killed (remarried after genocide)
			father lived in exile since 1959 and returned after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi; died in 2000 due to natural death
Belise	F	24	mother survivor – 5 of her children killed
			father killed during genocide
			Belise is single mother with two children
Bruce	M	23	father imprisoned for genocide crimes, has to pay reparation
			parents fled to neighbouring country soon after genocide, returned later
			both parents alive
Deo	23	M	perpetrator family
			mother died in 1997–98
			Deo lives with his father and stepmother
Elyse	22	F	both parents perpetrators
			both died during the abacengezi war
			Elyse lives with her uncle
Felix	24	M	both parents survivors
Gael	24	M	father survivor
			mother and little brother killed during genocide
			lives with his father and stepmother
Hamida	18	F	perpetrator parents
			father died in 2014 due to sickness
			grandparents killed in 1998
Lambert	21	M	both parents survivors
Léoncie	22	F	both parents convicted by gacaca courts
			mother 3 years imprisoned
			paid reparations
Mireille	22	F	both parents survivors
			father died in 2000 due to natural death
Mohammed	19	M	both parents survivors
			both according to Mohammed very traumatized
Raissa	18	F	father perpetrator – finished TIG
			both parents alive, mother separated from husband because of his violent behaviour after his release from prison
Sharon	20	F	perpetrator father, also siblings of the mother committed genocide
			father disappeared in 2000 soon after announcement of instalment of gacaca
			Sharon was told by the mother that he died during genocide
			Sharon is single mother with one child
Solange	22	F	mother killed during genocide 1 month after birth of Solange
			father survivor, disappeared soon after genocide
			Solange was brought up by grandmother whom she believed was her mother
Serge	18	M	father ex-prisoner
			mother has many family members convicted for genocide crimes
			both parents alive
Victor	22	M	both parents survivors
			mother raped during genocide
			Victor was 3 months old during genocide
Vincent	23	M	mother survivor
			father disappeared in 1993

TIG, Travaux d'Intérêt Général, Community Service for Prisoners.

Characteristics of main respondents

At the time of interview all respondents were single. Eighteen lived with one or both biological parents. Three of them had children themselves. One lived with a caregiver whom she had long believed to be her mother and had only recently discovered to be her grandmother. Another one lived with an uncle. We consider the grandmother and uncle respectively to be foster parents. All 20 grew up in a family environment severely impacted by genocide and its legacies; 11 in an environment impacted by a family history of genocide victimization with many family members killed during the genocide; eight from families affected by a family history of genocide perpetration; and one who has a father who committed genocide crimes and a mother who was victimized during the genocide. Ten have both parents alive, eight have only one parent, and two lost both parents. Children have “missing parents” for a range of reasons: they were killed during the genocide, died or were killed in 1997–1998, were separated from their spouse during the flight from violence, had abandoned the family, were still imprisoned for genocide crimes, or died a natural death.

Research themes and research process

The main themes explored in both FGDs and individual interviews with youth included: family communication in general, parent–child communication regarding familial genocide-related experiences, the effects of family communication on youth wellbeing, youth perceptions of current and future peaceful cohabitation, and the contribution of the community-based sociotherapy program to improving communication within the family environment.

Topic lists for FGDs and interviews were developed by all five authors drawing from what sociotherapy graduate parents had shared about problems in communication with their children in the preceding research. The preliminary findings of the four FGDs with youth guided the development of a topic list for the individual interviews with youth. Interviews and FGDs were conducted in a semi-structured, thematic format. Both FGDs and interviews were conducted in Kinyarwanda, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim into English, and shared among members of the research team for thematic analysis.

Analysis

Thematic analysis involves searching across a data set to find, analyze, and report repeated patterns of meanings. It organizes and describes one's data set in (rich) detail and is not always theory driven (Braun & Clarke, 2006). At the beginning of the analysis, the team developed a coding framework based on emerging themes and subthemes as per the research questions. Data coding was independently done by three co-authors and crosschecked by one of the other authors. Divergent themes were discussed among the team for harmonization.

Ethics

Approval was obtained from the Rwanda National Ethics Committee (No.552/RNEC/2016). All respondents signed an informed consent form prior to taking part in the study. They were assured that the discussion would be kept confidential, that only the research team would have access to their files, and that pseudonyms would be used in all reports and publications.

Findings

Findings are grouped into five main themes: children's experiences of the wavering and unsettled family environment they have to navigate in their quest for knowledge about this past; children's actively seeking to navigate this environment; the dilemmas that children struggle with along the way; parental reflections on parent–child communication about the family past; and participation by parents in sociotherapy leading to calmer and more emotionally stable family communication around difficult subjects. Throughout, the question percolates if and to what extent the parental communication contributes to a peaceful coexistence or to a risk of future violence.

A brief remark on the temporal sense used by respondents. Most statements were uttered and recorded in the present tense, even if the contextual understanding indicated that the avoiding stance of the parents regarding genocide stories was much more characteristic of the period before sociotherapy participation than afterwards. We have not directly investigated this tendency, but do note that temporal confusion—talking as if it is happening now—is a persistent phenomenon in trauma narratives (O’Kearny & Perrot, 2006).

Making sense of parents’ reluctance to speak about the genocide-related family past

A recurring theme across all categories of our main respondents described the active avoidance by parents of talking about their family history. Children noted that parents preferred to only talk about topics important for their children's current and future lives. Communication often focused on school performance, working hard for a better future, and adherence to culturally normative behavior. Typical is Alvin's reported experience that his mother strongly advised him to work hard, get married, and become a responsible man in life. Or Raissa's mother telling her to behave well and not get pregnant before marriage, in order to prevent shaming her as her mother.

When children attempt to move the conversation to more particular and personal family experiences, it becomes impossible to circumvent the genocide and children reported that most parents lapse into silence or fend off further questioning by providing only general or fragmented information. This leads children to actively attempt to make meaning out of the silence of their parents. Children across all categories believed that a main reason for non-disclosure was out of protectiveness towards the children, that is: to prevent them from becoming traumatized and having feelings of revenge. Victor said that his mother was able to disclose the rape she had experienced during the genocide, but refused to name the perpetrator: “She told us [children] that he is in prison. We told her that we want to know in which prison so that we visit and see him. She refused and rebuked us.” Victor thinks that his parents do not want their children to know the names of their perpetrators who are still alive, because children may develop rancor against them that could lead to acts of revenge, risking punishment and endangering their future.

The children showed a clearly articulated understanding that what could seem to be a refusal of their parents to share their stories could also be an inability. They said that there was an active withdrawal from the painful past and a longing to forget, as well as an inability to express the depth of horror of their experiences.

Several children said that their parents refused to narrate their past to them thinking that children would not be able to comprehend the magnitude and heaviness of genocide-related experiences. Mohammed's parents refused to give him information about their genocide experiences and instead tried to protect him with warnings: “I wish to ask them how the genocide was, but they tell me: You are still young, keep quiet, you cannot understand that.”

Children of perpetrator families reported that when parents do speak of the period around the genocide, they do so in a formulaic and impersonal manner. They said that discussions of the period mainly focus on the inflammatory public information campaign of the former government that prepared the community to commit mass killings. In that context, the children said that their parents emphasize their passive role during the genocide. In their attempts to account for this non-resisting narrative, children postulated that their families wish to preserve their positive image in front of their children and therefore keep silent about their (or family members’) genocidal activities, e.g., direct involvement of parents or family members in mass killing, looting, and destruction of others’ property. Alex reported how he struggled to discuss these issues with his father in order to try to understand what happened. He learned that some of his father's family had even betrayed his mother, a genocide survivor, and cut her with machetes. His father continues to evade his questions, and Alex construes that this is due to his father's feelings of shame regarding the genocide perpetration by his family members, whom Alex calls “uncles of many mistakes.”

In a FGD with children, it was conjectured that parental hesitancy around talking about their genocide experiences might involve a fear that their children will unwittingly divulge shameful information outside the family. The shame could involve either action, such as looting, or inaction: examples include not protecting people (on the side of perpetrators) and a lack of self-defensive action when being hunted (on the side of survivors).

Children did report that in rare circumstances, parents actually initiate disclosures, almost as if by accident; for instance, in the process of a child being reprimanded or when parents were under the influence of alcohol. However, even these disclosures were often fragmented and incoherent, resulting in confusion among the children. This confusion is one of the incentives for children to search for clarifying information. As Jeanne (not individually interviewed; father imprisoned for genocide crimes, mother a survivor) said in a FGD: “It is a mystery (ni amayobera). Parents tell us one thing and they skip another one. You end up being confused.” The quote by Vincent further illustrates this:

When, for example, I share the difficulties I face in my daily work, then we just exchange; we talk back and forth as in a normal conversation. This is different from a conversation about history. At such times only my mother speaks, she tells about the past, but we do not exchange. It is often confusing. For instance, she always tells me that I was not breastfed, but she never explains why.

From this we deduce that at such times the children's navigational choice is limited to just being passive recipients of the shreds of information their parents allow themselves to let slip, for fear that questions may stop the flow of information.

Children's quest for knowing and their navigation of parental silencing and disclosure

Children spoke about a number of factors that motivated them to search for information about their family past. These factors include: preventing future genocide by not engaging in similar crimes as parents, learning about parental survival and how parents cope with the effects of the genocide in their lives, being able to narrate the story to their future descendants, and knowing how to socially engage with others. Serge clearly highlighted why he thinks knowing the past is important:

After we were born, we heard that the genocide happened in Rwanda. We did not see it. We do not know it. So, when you do not communicate with a parent, you, as a child you may [be at risk to] commit some crimes that are almost similar to the genocide because you do not know it. When I get the chance of talking to my father, I ask him about the genocide and the history of Rwanda.

Information children receive about the genocide from whatever source triggers their desire to know more about their family's history during that time. Sources include extended family members, neighbors, school, media, commemoration events, and gacaca courts. Deo stated that his attendance at gacaca court and commemoration sessions in his neighborhood enabled him to learn about his father's actions during the genocide:

One day during a gacaca session, which my father was also attending, he was sentenced to five years in prison. He did not come back home that day. It was in that period that I got to know that my parents’ history was not good. After my father’s release from prison, I started asking him what really happened. I asked him if truly a million people had died during the genocide, why he had participated in the genocide and what he had been expecting as benefits. How come he did that?

Children may check with their parents what they heard from other sources, which may change their parents’ mood. Gael narrated how his father reacted towards him when he asked for confirmation of the information received from his maternal aunt about his mother’s death:

When I visited my aunt, she told me how my mother was killed and thrown in a latrine. She showed me that latrine and how my father took refuge. When I came back home, I asked my father about what I had been told and whether it was true. He said yes, that is how it happened. He was startled and disturbed by the information I now had, and he was not happy. He was rather very sad … When I ask him questions about the genocide, he tells me a little and leaves other important points unsaid. He likes to say, “that is how it happened.” Nothing else.

Parents’ silencing of their genocide-related experiences to their children motivated their children to actively develop mechanisms of gaining information without compromising their current relationship with their parents. From experience they knew that inquiring about the family past often raised negative emotions in parents, ranging from sadness to anger, and that is what children mostly wanted to avoid. Whenever children need specific information from their parents about their past role in the genocide, they consider the timing of approaching them and the appropriate place to do so. Children sometimes seek this information during normal family conversations when their parents are in a good mood. Some children first offer support in household duties before asking for concrete information so as to create a conducive environment for communication. Sharon testified how she pays attention to conversations happening in family settings before she probes with more questions:

Most of the time, she [her mother] tell us very little. She refuses to tell us all how it went. I am sometimes able to pick up details when she sits with other old ladies and they are sharing genocide experiences. In those times, I quietly sit close and listen to what they are saying. That is how I got the information I have. I take the advantage of their discussions to ask some questions.

Children reported that whenever they deemed the situation harmful to their parents (i.e., during genocide commemoration periods), they stop a discussion or opt to not initiate a discussion at all.

Dilemma between positive and negative consequences of knowing

In the process of internalizing the said and unsaid regarding the family's past, all children made their own representations of their parents’ genocide involvement either as witnesses, victims or perpetrators. For some children, being psychologically aware of their parents’ painful histories, what they heard was often associated with an incomprehension of how events occurred and their parents’ exact actions. They wanted to know what happened, but at the same time were afraid to hear the full course of events since they realized the negative effects that truth could have on them. Bruce put it this way:

I want to know how my parents lived through the genocide, the specific life that characterized them during that period. I want to know that in a clear and detailed way. But, as I do not give time to my parents and let them talk to me, it is difficult to know that. Because sometimes when I hear about it, which happens especially during the mourning week, I start to think of the suffering of people who witnessed what happened, and then I feel [I am] having problems in my head. I feel like it can cause trauma to me. That is why I avoid asking, even though I want to know.

Solange expressed the need to know more about her mother's story, but also acknowledged that there are limits to how much additional information she can absorb, as what she knows so far already leaves her feeling overwhelmed and emotionally vulnerable. She settles on wanting to know not what happened, but why it happened:

I grew up with no parents, and my grandmother did not reveal the truth to me. I used to hear from different people in the village when they were talking about me, how I survived and how God performed a miracle to make me survive. That is how I decided to ask my grandmother in detail. Since then, my life changed; I felt disheartened with life, I was somehow depressed, started living in isolation and I became full of anxiety. I need to know nothing else about my parents’ experiences. Imagine how I felt when they told me about them. If they would tell me more, I would destroy my life. There is no need to know more. But at least I would wish to know more about why my mother was killed.

Léoncie also expressed hesitancy and indecision as part of her struggle with wanting and not wanting to know more about her family's property:

What I would like to know is the truth of what my parents had as properties (land, houses, etc.). I hear from many people that my parents paid many things for what they were accused of having looted during the genocide. My parents never revealed this to us. On the other hand, I do not want to dig much into those things, because I think it can create in me another personality. I am curious, but I am afraid to know.

Regarding the positive effects of disclosure and knowing, the children were convinced that an increased level of awareness about the genocide and its aftermath was a precondition for preventing future violence. In addition, they considered that having an understanding about their parents’ past gave them a choice of where they could follow and where they might do things differently from their parents. Such a sense of agency led to a feeling of resilience among some children. Mireille said,

When I look at my parents’ life, their patience and the way they understand things after all they have gone through, I also feel strong in my ability to face life. Knowing my parents’ perpetrators is also very important. It helps to discern how to behave, how to be prudent, and how to live with people whom you know well.

The main negative effects of disclosure and knowing, reported by children of parents on both sides of the violence, were fear, sadness, grief, anger, hatred, and a feeling of revenge. For the children of perpetrators these feelings were accompanied by shame and guilt. Elyse said that listening to the stories of the family, of genocide and war, made her feel afraid, “thinking that people who killed others, can still do it to us, to me. I cannot grasp or comprehend how this can be possible, for people to kill others.” Aline lost consciousness when her mother spoke about one of her siblings being crushed to death against a wall. Hamida reflected, “I know myself; I can easily get angry and perhaps consider doing something bad as well, as revenge. That is why I think it is better for me not to deepen my understanding of those things.”

A number of children realize that knowledge of their family's past also affects their lives within their community, including developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships. Their relationships are sometimes characterized by silence and/or conflicts and a high level of mistrust, isolation, and withdrawal from their peers. In addition, some children (mainly from perpetrator families) described changes in their self-identification as a mechanism to cope with the negative side of their parents’ past, which they experience as a heavy burden transmitted to them and now deeply embedded in their everyday lives. Alex reported that “today I cannot talk about my family, my origin, when I am in public. I never mentioned my father's name.”

A few children narrated how disclosure of their parents’ past led them to construe the reasons behind their family's current economic stagnancy. They realized that what was leading families down a path of poverty was the result of being raised by a single parent or caretakers other than biological parents, survivors’ loss of property, or perpetrators having to repair the damage they had inflicted during and after the genocide. Léoncie explained the painful consequences in her own life as a result of her parents’ deeds:

After learning about the experience of my parents, I felt like I hated them. And also, that they did not love me. If they had loved me, they would not have been involved in genocide and leave me and us with a legacy of poverty. The fact that they were involved in genocide has put me in a particular position that affects my life, my relations, and even my future. I live in poverty. Thinking all the time what my life will be like and what it would have been like if things had been different, I can spend a whole night without sleeping. I feel very uncomfortable among my peers. I feel like I want to be alone.

While the emotional and inter-relational consequences of genocide violence and its aftermath was the dominant theme, most children saw the resultant family poverty as also a major constraint in their ability to conceive of a promising future.

Parents’ navigation of silencing and disclosure

Comments and reflections by parents participating in our study and in the previous exploratory research about their navigation of the silence and disclosure of the family past largely validated the children's stories. Both survivor and perpetrator parents attributed the country's painful past to the bad governance and politics that fueled ethnic division among Rwandans which led to the genocide in 1994. They highlighted that in reference to that history they focus their current communication on teaching children the importance of Rwandan unity, living in harmony with people of the other ethnic group, and especially being good to their peers who belong to that other group.

For some parents, the atrocities they experienced as victims are beyond representation, signifying how difficult it is to narrate them to children. On the other hand, certain topics create fear among children, which results in them not wanting to know more. This all makes it difficult for parents, such as Blandine, to know exactly what to say and what not to say:

My children ask me much, but there are stories I do not want us to talk about. When I see their reactions when I begin to tell them how their father’s relatives died, I decide to stop talking any further.

In all accounts, parents felt sharing the heavy past experiences with their children would not only not help them but might actually hurt them by disturbing their minds and inciting feelings of hatred and revenge as a result. Parents compromise by providing bare-boned or fragmented stories, adjusting the information to the age of a child. In this way, parents try to prevent negative consequences that might result from disclosure. For instance, some parents think that it is preferable to keep silent about a rape experience during the genocide since disclosure might cause long-term negative effects for their children. They fear the children's minds may remain deeply troubled and that it may result in hatred. Based on her son's violent reaction to hearing in gacaca what his uncles had done to his mother, Agnes, who had been mutilated by her husband's family during the genocide, recommended to other parents, to “not reveal everything in one go; we should tell them simple and general things first. As they grow up, we can keep telling them more until they are able to understand everything.”

Other parents disagreed; for instance, one argued that “it is better to tell the whole truth, so that children don’t hear it from others. The latter would affect them more. However not all parents have the courage to do so, that is our challenge.” Most parents agreed that younger children should only be selectively informed.

The main drive of parents appears to be a deep desire to inculcate in their children those lessons from the past that may prevent a recurrence of the violence in the future. Jean-Baptiste, a parent who is a former génocidaire prisoner, said,

I cannot explain to my children what the genocide was like because I’m afraid that it will lead them to explore in more detail what happened and, in the future, put what they learned into practice. I only try to explain to them how bad it is to be in prison and ask them to prevent anything that can lead them into prison.

Immaculata explains that often her attempts to educate her children are met with resistance:

Though I try to talk to them [her children] when we are sitting together, they do not want to follow any talk about genocide. They say that we are wasting their time. But I try to tell them that if they do not join in the conversation, genocide can happen again.

Healing of disturbed social relations through participation in sociotherapy

Most children had noticed a positive change in their parent's emotional life as well as improved family relationships and social interaction at a community level after their parents’ participation in sociotherapy. They gave examples of constructive and engaging conversations and collaborative planning, something that was new to them. The parents’ aggressive, quarrelsome, and distant forms of communication had changed to a more open communication.

Raissa, who observed changes in her mother following sociotherapy attendance (that helped her processing pain, healing, and socializing with others), put it this way:

Before my mother joined sociotherapy, she was a person who was silent and closed-off. She did her household work without speaking to us. She was unable to approach us and discuss things together. After she joined, she became open. She now talks to us freely and we do the same towards her. Before, I felt as if I were imprisoned by her moods and silences. … Before sociotherapy, when she was angry, she accused us of being like our father. She constantly reminded us what our father had done. After joining, she uses other ways to admonish us. She no longer reminds us of our father’s wrongdoings.

Parents confirmed the changes observed by children. Madeleine shared that before participating in sociotherapy she was “very depressed, to the extent of almost becoming mad.” Sociotherapy gave her the courage to talk with her children about her past history. She started to connect with people who had persecuted her family and organized meetings with children of both survivors and perpetrators. She said, “They now have peace of mind and play together.” She added that the director of the school her son attends testified that her son “no longer is lonely and solitary, no longer cries when asked about his father, and is an exemplary boy in school.”

A thorough theorizing of the effects of sociotherapy participation on family dynamics is beyond the scope of this article but is being planned. However, in these necessarily brief comments regarding parental participation, both parents and children noted that upon concluding sociotherapy the navigation of difficult issues in parent–child communication seemed to be much less turbulent. There was a greater ability to share truth, both in the telling and in the receiving of it, and much less emotional volatility between parents and children. Parents are reflectively aware of these positive changes, and yearn for their children to have a comparable experience through participating in sociotherapy groups with peers.

Discussion

The brief overview of literature on the silence and disclosure in parent–child communication on genocidal pasts presented in the introduction highlighted differences between studies in the complex of contextual factors shaping this communication as well as the pros and cons of parental sharing when considering the psychosocial wellbeing of descendants. Our study is distinct from studies on parent–child communication referred to in the introduction for its focus on the social navigation by children of survivors as well as perpetrators, as presented from the children's perspectives, in a very specific “tumultuous terrain” (Vigh, 2009, p. 424); a terrain that is marked by a memory of an often intimate violence; an intimacy of justice, with neighbors sentencing neighbors, resulting in a large conviction rate; a social intimacy in terms of perpetrators returning from prison to live next door to survivors; a socio-ecological environment designed to keep genocide memories alive; and a public discourse promoting unity and reconciliation in which reference to ethnicity in current life is banned and in which youth in particular are positioned to be the bearers of a “never again” attitude. It is in this context that we should understand genocide-related legacies in Rwanda, how they play out in a family setting, and the impact of their transmission to the next generation (Berckmoes et al., 2017). In our study we narrowed our focus to the playing out of these legacies in a family setting to parent–child communication.

Our findings show that children experience the little or fragmented communication by parents about the genocide-related familial past as often confusing and bypassing their need to know more about this past. Reasons they construed for parental non-disclosure from the side of parents include trauma, feelings of guilt and shame, concern for their children's current and future wellbeing, and prevention of feelings of revenge among their children. The complex of factors that drove children in their wanting to know includes exposure to parents’ suffering; missing family members; poverty at home; information about the genocide they gather from memorialization initiatives, gacaca, school, media, neighbors, extended family members; and being able to share the family past with their own children once they have them. Youth respondents considered their parents to be the best source of reliable information about the past, but also the only ones holding the key to particular and personal stories within the more generally constructed social narrative. They want to hear the truth from them and not from others. At the same time, they also report a deep ambivalence, that is: reasons for not wanting to know the truth. These reasons include concern for the wellbeing of their parents; fear of being too much emotionally affected; and wanting to go on with their lives without being burdened by knowledge of a past that could stir feelings of revenge in them.

The social navigation framework specifically captures the myriad of difficult choices our respondents face as they navigate the inner urge to know and to ask, and yet the many parental rebuffs, uttered and unuttered, admonishing them to remain silent. The “double movement”—the act of moving in an environment that engages and moves the actors as they move along (Vigh, 2009, p. 420)—as a key dimension of the concept of social navigation strikingly illustrates children's testimony of the precarious inner emotions and the painful family dynamics as they seek additional information or confirmation of half-heard stories that is needed for identity formation and yet may cause deep distress to themselves and their parents. The social environment is also riven with felt but unseen movement as they engage in friendships and other relationships with people whose public personas may be at odds with private knowledge. But above all the framework reveals the agency that our respondents and their parents utilize in order to negotiate all these competing forces guided by an overarching desire of “never again.”

In social navigation, as in navigation in general, strategy and tactics are techniques put to use in the service of reaching a goal. For the children and parents who form the basis of our study, that goal is communication with each other about things in the past that matter in the present, the socially immediate; but also the socially imagined, directing one's movement towards possible futures (Vigh, 2009, p. 425), a future of peaceful coexistence in which future generations will be able to thrive. Children strategize in the sense of carefully selecting a place and time to question their parents and use the tactics of moderated questioning, limiting their queries to what they think their parents can handle. Sociotherapy graduate parents in discussion with each other speak about their preference for a style of communication with their children that resembles “modulated disclosure” as presented in literature on parent–child communication about a violent past. Dalgaard and Montgomery (2015) define this disclosure as “a style of intrafamily communication in which the timing and manner of disclosure are emphasized and in which parental sensitivity to the child's cognitive and emotional needs is seen as more important than the content of what is disclosed” (p. 581).

We did not specifically investigate if parents’ participation in sociotherapy impacted their navigation of silencing and disclosure in communication to their children. Our study indicated, however, that that participation resulted in a change from an aggressively defensive and avoidant style of communication to an open and constructive one in a more stable family environment resulting in an increase in children's psychosocial wellbeing. Previous publications addressing the impact of sociotherapy on the psychosocial wellbeing of its participants point out that sociotherapy helps participants to find words to speak about their suffering, including shame and guilt about crimes committed, and constructively deal with their traumatic avoidance of memory (Ingabire et al., 2017; Kagoyire et al., 2020). Due to this change parents may still choose to hide some of their past experiences from their children, applying a modulated disclosure, but this silence is then possibly no longer a symptom of trauma or a holding back because of lack of words, unspeakability or shame. Instead, it can then be seen as an active choice in their social navigation, in line with what the Rwandan socio-cultural system has traditionally encouraged, which is conscious and mindful communication especially around “matters of the heart,” sometimes inviting openness and at other times advocating silence. Knowing how, why, when, and to whom to open up and speak about “what is hurting in the heart” without destabilizing the other is a cultural marker in Rwanda of wisdom, and of having a sense of integrity (Bagilishya, 2000).

A limitation of our study was that the sampling was confined to children whose parents had participated in a psychosocial support group. However, Rieder (2014) and Hatzfeld (2015) presented findings similar to ours. On the other hand, a study by Ingabire and Richters (2019) noted that some young people reported receiving parental warnings and innuendos against reconciliation, which were at odds with the public discourses urging unity, resulting in confusion and conflicting loyalties. A survey study by Williamson Sinalo et al. (2021) contravened our findings at another point. The study found that parents disclosed the genocide openly with their children and tended to share stories at home before exposing their children to public sources of information. More research using different methodologies and samplings is needed to deepen the understanding of issues raised by our study. For example, we call for research to investigate how the different psychosocial healing interventions targeting people of different ages and socio-historical backgrounds (Wallace et al., 2014) implemented in Rwanda influence the ways in which genocide legacies are being processed so that they may contribute to the wellbeing of second and subsequent generations.

Conclusion

Our study demonstrated a general silent and/or avoidant parental–child communication attitude when it comes to the parental genocide-related past. It focused on the hopes of both parents and children that awareness and insight may contribute to a peaceful coexistence; and, on the other hand, the simultaneous present fears that it may actually do the opposite. Community-based psychosocial support programs aimed at improving parent–children communication are recommended. Such programs will not only increase awareness about the family past, but also contribute to a more stable family environment and better psychosocial wellbeing, promote peaceful cohabitation in the community and, more specifically, accelerate the process of unity and reconciliation among children of genocide survivors and perpetrators.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge respondents in this study, sociotherapists, local leaders, the Community Based Sociotherapy Program and its partner organizations (Anglican Church Byumba Diocese, Duhumurizanye Iwacu Rwanda and Prison Fellowship Rwanda) for their cooperation, and The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Rwanda for its financial support. We are much indebted to reviewers for their constructive comments on previous versions of the article, to Angela Jansen, Diogene Karangwa and Noella Ingabire for their contribution to the start-up of our study, and to Marianne Vysma for her invaluable editorial advice.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Rwanda (grant number RSB0117420).

ORCID iDs

Chantal Marie Ingabire

Annemiek Richters

Chantal Marie Ingabire holds an MA in Medical Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and a PhD in Public Health from Maastricht University, the Netherlands. She works as a senior researcher at the Community Based Sociotherapy (CBS) Rwanda and is currently involved in a four-year project that aims at intergenerational healing and community reconciliation for sustainable peace through community-based sociotherapy. Her published works focus on community-based participatory health research, psychosocial support, intergenerational transmission of genocide legacies, reconciliation and peacebuilding.

Grace Kagoyire holds an MA in Public Health from the Free University, the Netherlands. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, under the Chair for Historical Trauma and Transformation, Stellenbosch University. She is conducting her doctoral research on genocide memory construction among second-generation Rwandan youth. She also works as a trainer in the implementation of community-based sociotherapy. Her published works focus on the lives of women survivors of genocide rape in Rwanda and intergenerational legacies among Rwandan youth.

Nicolas Habarugira holds an MA in Development Studies from the Independent University of Kigali, Rwanda. He is currently the project coordinator of Tujyane (Let's go together), which focuses on psychosocial reintegration of ex-prisoners in post-genocide Rwanda. Prior to this he worked for community-based sociotherapy programs, occupying different positions. His main interest is peacebuilding, conflict transformation, human rights, mass atrocity and genocide prevention. He has contributed to different peace support missions, including international election observations in transitional democracies in Africa.

Theoneste Rutayisire holds a MA in Medical Anthropology and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He works as a senior researcher at Community Based Sociotherapy (CBS) Rwanda. Since 2005 he contributed to different research programs aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of sociotherapy in Rwanda conducted by both CBS and other institutions namely the University of Rwanda. His published works focus on the development of community-based sociotherapy in Rwanda, lived experiences of Rwandan génocidaire ex-prisoners and women with husbands in prison, and the assessment of needs of Congolese refugees in Rwanda and Uganda.

Annemiek Richters, MD, PhD, is emeritus professor of culture, health and illness at Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands and staff member of the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. From 2005 onwards, she has contributed in a number of leadership capacities to the development of community-based sociotherapy in Rwanda. The majority of her publications over the past years focus on research addressing themes that emerged from the practice of community-based sociotherapy in Rwanda.

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