Art from Trauma: Genocide and Healing beyond Rwanda is a compilation of trauma-related essays from different scholars across the globe who write about the experiences of survivors of traumatic events or witnesses to these events. In these essays, a number of issues are raised pertaining to, amongst others, a theory that can adequately address the myriad complexities involved in trauma, the sometimes inability of language to satisfactorily give a perfect word to describe trauma, and most importantly, the responses of non-victims to trauma-related events and their direct and indirect victims. This book honors the memory of Professor Marie-Chantal Kalisa (1965–2015), a Rwandan scholar and director of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who devoted her time to giving a voice to victims of the genocide against the Tutsi, an unimaginably bloody event that played out in Rwanda in 1994.
The book discusses Kalisa’s academic writings on the interplay of the political and the personal in the narratives of the genocide, most times leaning towards a silencing of the voices of the victims, the commonly displayed insensitivity of those who claim to know it all. It also reinforces the fact that pain is felt everywhere by everyone, in different climes and places, and it is responded to in similarly various ways. The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi is among many politically-motivated annihilations of an entire people and race, spanning generations. While many of the chapters revolve around the blood-curdling Rwanda pogrom, a few of the chapters also discuss similar acts against a particular race or ethnic group, like the Holocaust in Europe and the racist attacks on Blacks in the United States.
Art from Trauma revolves around the transformative power of the arts to bring healing and closure to trauma. The essays cite many art forms and the important role they play in the psyches of victims of genocide and other types of violence perpetrated against particular peoples. Examples of these art forms include theater, painting, fiction, drumming, dance, films, photography, testimonial/memorial writing, and songs, to mention only a few. Structured into five parts, the book highlights these art forms and their power to heal, while also paying much attention to the personality and academic works of Kalisa, as these works relate to the subject of trauma and the arts.
In the foreword by Patricia A. Simpson, the reader is enlightened further regarding the powerful intricacies involved in the term “genocide.” According to Simpson, genocide goes beyond the mental and physical confines of the victim. It spreads out to “geographies and landscapes,” entangling communities, nations, and generations unborn. This view is in line with that of the creator of the term, Raphael Lemkin, who had fought to include “cultural genocide” in the description of the term. To this Polish lawyer, genocide is not only the physical extermination of a particular group of people, but also the obliteration of a people’s language, lifestyle, art, and culture.
The traumatic effects of genocide on surviving victims cannot be given a coherent explanation and/or made sense of with the aid of language only. It runs very deep, covered with heavy layers of pain, revulsion, fear, denial, and slow death. However, to Simpson, we still have to resort to language to weave a sense of meaning and healing from it. This is preferable to the denial that is silence. But one would want to know if silence is not a kind of language too. In some contexts, silence can be coded, revealing experiences that are too heavy for the fragility of words. Through the application of literature and other art forms, the trauma produced by genocide can be confronted and mitigated, giving the victim healing and respite, and the possibility of starting life anew.
Rangira Bea Gallimore and Gerise Herndon in the introduction produce an overview of the essays in the book. These essays in one way or the other address the subject of trauma in its different types as experienced or witnessed by various people in different parts of the world. Additionally, this chapter reiterates the transforming role of literature and the arts to alleviate, to some considerable extent, the debilitating effects of trauma. The introduction also throws up the seemingly “unassuming nature of trauma,” which facilitates its denial by both victims and non-victims. The emotional complexities involved heighten Cathy Caruth’s call (1995) for an interdisciplinary body of theories that will critically propound explanations and propose realistic methodologies to aid a better understanding of the experience of traumatic victims.
In the discussion of historical traumas, Dominick LaCapra (2000) and Kate Schick (2011) suggest, as a means of alleviating the pains, an “acting out” or “working through,” which Schick explains as involving three processes–the grief itself, a narrative reconstruction of the traumatic event/experience, and “critical judgment.” These processes can be effectively carried out through art forms like photography, painting, film, fiction, theater, etc. Through the arts, the heaviness of trauma is lightened and its weight becomes bearable.
Part I, comprising five chapters and titled In Memoriam: Lessons Learned from Chantal Kalisa, highlights some of the invaluable lessons Kalisa has left for posterity in the practice of field research. These lessons are mainly targeted at the researcher in his or her relationship with survivors of the genocide. One of the lessons learned is the great responsibility of the researcher to ensure that “the voices on the periphery” (8) are heard, respected, and brought to the center through active listening to their stories. Additionally, a scholar doing field research should go with an attitude that is large enough to welcome surprises from the respondents s/he would meet and talk with. The second lesson learned from Kalisa’s scholarship is that a researcher should be sensitive to the raw emotions of the survivors and apply his or her research instruments in such a way that they not become “a source of trauma” (16) to the victims. These timeless lessons are necessary in a world that has become divided along the social, economic, and political categories of first, second, and third class.
Part II focuses on the role of the performing arts in the healing process of survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Titled Performing Arts and Healing from the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, its two chapters, authored by Chantal Kalisa and Rangira Bea Gallimore, explore the benefits of two kinds of performing arts–radio theater and drumming–in the overall experience of survivors of the genocide. In chapter 6, “Theater and the Rwandan Genocide,” Kalisa postulates that since Rwanda is an oral society, theater is one of the creative mediums adopted by the people to express their beliefs, culture, and philosophies, and it is the same means of expression that the people turned to in the aftermath of the violent and bloody episode. While she acknowledges that the genocide against the Tutsi provided a ready and rich source of material for artists and writers to draw inspiration from, she sounds a cautionary warning based on ethical issues. Radio theater productions were quite popular after the genocide; it was the easiest means of communication, as many households had at least one radio to connect with the world. It is pertinent to note that while the performing arts were adopted as a means of healing and restoration, it was the same performing arts that were used to spread hatred, falsehood, and fear before and during the genocide. Kalisa reiterates the important and restorative role of the performing arts, particularly radio theater, in putting together the broken and scattered pieces across the country.
In chapter 7, Gallimore looks at the performing art of drumming and other arts that were in the male domain, which were handled, played, and accessed only by men before the genocide. Women were usually not allowed to have anything to do with these musical instruments. These performing arts were believed to be imbued with a particular kind of energy and power that only men could access. This belief resonates in many other parts of Africa, where, for religious and cultural reasons, it is seen as a taboo for a woman to handle a particular type of musical instrument. For example, among the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria, women are not allowed to touch or play the ikolo or ufie (Mazeli 2018). These are slit wooden drums used by the people for particular cultural occasions. Women are also not allowed to play the ogene (metal gong) and the ekwe (wooden clappers) (Ezugwu and Unoma 2023). However, for survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi, this belief of apportioning particular musical instruments was overturned, as women turned to it as means of shaking their limbs and bodies from the pervasive heavy cloak of pain, despair, and hurtful memories. Gallimore pays attention to a female drum group, the Ingoma Nshya, who are made up of female drummers who use the drum beats to preach tolerance, healing, and forgiveness. Through drumming, these women negate the saying, “A woman has no word” (53), and beat the drums to churn out their words that were encased in silence for centuries. Through this performance art handled by women, it was easier to change some other patriarchal beliefs and practices about and against women who were held imprisoned in iron bars of silence and gendered oppression.
The four chapters of Part III discuss the importance of films, documentaries, paintings, and photography in the healing process of the survivors of genocide and related violence. These chapters all echo Kalisa’s emphasis on the role of artistic productions in the lives of survivors, especially after the genocide against the Tutsi. Chapter 8 discusses two films, Grey Matter (2011) and Things of the Aimless Wanderer (2015), which treat the subjects of trauma, sub-consciousness/consciousness/unconsciousness of the survivor, and healing. Interestingly, the five chapters that make up this section focus on women primarily, highlighting their place in the restoration, reconstruction, and renewal of people and community. Chapter 9 turns a searchlight on the artistic works of the Tunisian lawyer, teacher, and visual artist, Hela Ammar, whose works have pulled out from the dark confines of denial, shame, and embarrassment of the modern “civilized” Tunisian world the sufferings, oppression, and injustice of prisoners, through a pictorial public display of prisons and the dark stories encased therein. Through the adoption of different artistic formats, Ammar projects to the outside world the abject experiences of political prisoners, in order to change the minds and consciousness of those outside the prison doors. Alexandre Daugh-Roth’s “Filming with the Orphans of the Genocide: A Transformative Dialogue through a Double-Lens Approach” in chapter 10 reflects many of Kalisa’s practices as a field researcher, and the serious role of the researcher in the documentation of survivor’s experiences. We see some of these echoed in Herndon’s chapter 2, “Speaking Nearby Genocide,” where Kalisa asks a number of pertinent questions, some of which include “who speaks for survivors?” and “who might your research hurt?”
We see a practical application of these questions in chapter 10, where a number of students from Bates College, USA, collaborated with female survivors, or their children, of the genocide against the Tutsi. This was to culminate in a short documentary where these survivors were given the space and listening ears to narrate their ordeal. This highly emotional experience, particularly for the survivors, can be soothing, healing, and consoling. The “double-lens approach” (117) of the documentary project demands much from the visitors, as they have to carry out their research in a sensitive manner, be broad minded, and not muffle the voices of the survivors or shut them up totally, and importantly, the Bates College students must ensure their camera lens does not “become a source of trauma, even if the intention is to empower” (16). While the testimonial narratives could be therapeutic to the survivors, the whole experience could be life-changing for the researchers as it “allows them to confront their personal presuppositions about violence in Africa” (117).
Eileen M. Angelini and Heather E. Connell, in chapter 11, interview the Austrian Holocaust survivor, the late Ceija Stojka, a painter and musician, who lost many members of her immediate and extended families to the Nazis during World War II. After she regained her freedom, Ceija documented through painting some particular persons and experiences during that trying period. Angelini and Connell reiterate in this chapter the transformative power of art to heal. Their unforgettable interview with Ceija led to Connell’s production of the seventy-minute 2013 documentary film, Forget Us Not. This film has won over seven awards, and among other credits, is lauded for making “space for the voices on the periphery to emerge and grow stronger” (8), a passion Kalisa pursued during her academic career.
Part IV comprises three chapters which look at fictional works that deal with the subjects of colonial and marital rape, genocide, the genocide against the Tutsi, and trauma that is transmitted from one generation to another. In selected novels of the Burkinabe writer, Monique Ilboudo, the Rwandese writer, Benjamin Sehene, and the American author, Jewell Parker Rhodes, the effects of traumatic experiences on both the perpetrators and their victims are analysed from different angles, depending on the moral stance of the writer. While Nicki Hitchcroft in chapter 12 critiques Ilboudo’s portrayal of female rape victims, Josias Semujanga in chapter 13 applauds the narrative technique of Benjamin Sehene in his minute and detailed exploration of the thoughts and psyche of Father Stanislas, the murderer and rapist in the 1999 epistolary novel, Le feu sous la Soutane (Fire Under the Cassock). In chapter 14, Kalenda Eaton focuses on the potency of trauma in outliving its victims and transcending into another generation until conscious and deliberate steps are taken to curtail its corrosive effects, as we see in the novel of Jewell Parker Rhodes, Magic City (1997).
Part IV generally attests to the transformative power of literature as espoused by Kalisa in her book, Violence in Francophone African and Caribbean Women’s Literature (2009). Dwelling on the impact of colonial and postcolonial violence on the private and public lives of women, as critically analysed in the fictional works of selected women writers, literature can become “a ritualistic method of salvation” (194), as it involves reliving, remembering, and re-visioning traumatic experiences, which, according to Kalisa, “helps victims regain control of life after trauma” (194).
The last section of the book, Part V, titled Scripting Self and Healing in Women’s Narratives, consists of two chapters which have only women as their subjects. Chapter 15 discusses the friendship and sustenance of such friendship through the writing of letters that spanned over two decades between two female Spanish intellectuals, Zenobia Camprubi Aymar (1887–1956), a writer, translator, and poet (who was married to the 1956 Nobel Prize for Literature writer, Juan Ramón Mantecón) and Pilar de Zubiaurre (1884–1970), a writer, art dealer, and pianist. These two writers were living in exile, the latter in Mexico and the former in Cuba, because of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Their letters to each other enriched their nostalgic feelings for their homeland, healed the pains of their exile, and nurtured a friendship that lasted until the death of Zenobia in 1956. This chapter, written by Iker González-Allende, critiques the often-negative patriarchal attitude towards women’s writings, in this case, letter writing, and presents the enduring letter-writing legacy of these two friends who shared their love and pain for their homeland.
The last chapter, chapter 16, written by Marzia Caporale, examines grief, motherhood, and other related emotions of the French-Rwandan writer, Scholastique Mukasonga’s 2008 novel, Le Femme aux Pieds Nus (The Barefoot Woman). The novel celebrates Mukasonga’s mother and memorializes her brutal death during the genocide against the Tutsi. Just like her first novel, the 2006 Inyenzi ou les Cafards (Cockroaches), this novel celebrates her childhood memories of family and relations, and also profiles the author’s grief at her inability to give her mother’s corpse a decent burial. Mukasonga thereby uses her writing as the dignified shroud to wrap her mother’s corpse in. Through her writing, she draws strength and consolation from the act of being able “to restore dignity to her mother, symbolically subtracting her body from yet another form of violence–that of the bystander’s voyeuristic gaze” (222).
Art from Trauma: Genocide and Healing beyond Rwanda in very creative ways examines and explores the subject of trauma, an experience that could subsume one into oblivion, denial, and death, but which, thankfully, due to the arts including literature, can help to pull the survivors out of this dark place.
Works Cited
Caruth, Cathy. 1995. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ezugwu, Ifeoma, and Adaora Unoma. 2023 “Gender Issues in Music Education in Nigeria Schools,” International Journal of Studies in Education 19: 330–338.
LaCapra, Dominick. 2000. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
Mazeli, Rosemary. 2018. “Traditional Music: Context for Gender Harmony,” ARCN International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 12: 9 -13.
Schick, Kate. 2011. “Acting Out and Working Through: Trauma and (In)security,” Review of International Studies 37: 1–19.
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[Review length: 2832 words • Review posted on November 15, 2024]