“One of the most striking observations emerging from our research in Burundi is the way people constantly maintain some form of relations across great chasms of violence, class, abuse, and absence. People have civil relations with the murderers of their families; husbands and wives, even after many years, can reconnect and share all again; refugees and IDPs return home, solving their own land conflicts in the process. And all of this happens against a background of stunning poverty. Burundi specialists decry the level of land conflicts, involving as many as 9 percent of all households in the province of Makamba, a center of return of refugees and IDPs: in many areas, as much as 80 percent of the current population consists of people who have just returned during the last few years. But this still means that an amazing 91 percent of the population is not party to any land conflict, and this in a country where every square foot of land is a matter of life and death.5 Let’s not forget: throughout the country, this means Hutu and Tutsi are living side by side again, for they were intermingled everywhere. How, then, do people manage to such an extent to reintegrate, after a decade of war, dislocation, and poverty?”
“A few times in Ruhororo, for example, we heard the same image that peace means ‘you can go for a long walk and sleep where you arrive: you can knock on the door, you can sleep there and you will continue your voyage the next morning.’ This image is powerful in people’s minds. All older people I asked tell me that when they were young, this really was how things happened in Burundi until the 1980s.5 From this perspective, the mobility definition is about the restoration of the former social capital order, a sign of the desire for continuity amid dramatic change.”
“Finally, I surmise that mobility is generally a symbol of well-being: when people talk about the good life or about dreams for the future, they frequently use images of mobility as well. A better life is one in which one can move around, can go to places – whether the city or abroad – and can avail oneself of opportunities that are available there. Not”
“In the previous chapter, we argued that while democratic governance is one of the central pillars of the international post-conflict/peace-building enterprise, Burundians rarely explicitly included governance in their definition of peace. But this is not the end of the story. Our conversations reveal that matters of governance and citizenship are important to ordinary Burundians in many ways.”
“The ‘listen/respect’ category came back everywhere, often in a passionate manner. A few quotes will give an impression of what I put under this heading: I would be closer to the local people and listen to them more. I would encourage freedom of expression, so that people would talk. I would make sure that the administration would have close relationships with people, so that they would not get lies. (Eighteen-year-old former child soldier, now taxi-vélo driver, Busiga) I would listen to everyone, rich and poor. This is rarely done in Burundi (Nineteen-year-old woman, Busiga) The first thing I would do is to let the little people express themselves, listen to everyone and apply justice without bias. (Thirty-year-old female farmer, Ruhororo, Banda colline)”
“Marriage One of the most significant mechanisms through which gender ideology is produced and reproduced is marriage (Silberschmidt 2001: 659). In Africa, marriage is a cornerstone in the attainment of ‘manhood’ and ‘womanhood’; it gives one a social identity and is a crucial part of achieving adulthood (Kwesiga 2002: 58). Spinsters are generally not respected in African communities and they are an embarrassment to the family. Bachelors do not command the same social respect that married men do (Okeke 2001: 239; Kwesiga 2002: 139).”
“Corruption has become a short-cut accusation, a term used by those who are angry at the system to express dissatisfaction and cast aspersions. It is a (rhetorical) weapon of the weak – all the more credible as there indeed is a lot of corruption in Burundi. This is related to what we ended the previous section with, where we said that Burundians desire ‘better people’ rather than ‘better structures.’ Corruption as described by Burundians is a ‘bad person’s’ fault – not a structural issue. Corruption, then, is in part to the masses what human rights are to the well educated. Both are ways to ‘stick it to the man,’ terms whose currency in protest and dissatisfaction is useful. Hence, more than simply accurate descriptions of a social fact, talking about these things is a political act – a way the jargon of the international community has become reappropriated in local political struggles. Given that in Burundi both corruption and human rights violations are indeed prevalent, this makes understanding these discourses very complicated.”
“We said earlier that what Westerners call corruption was to ordinary Burundians normal. True, but there are borders – lines that can be redrawn, but which denote real differences most everyone recognizes.5 Increasingly, the types of abuse of power that many politicians and administrators engaged in went beyond what could be justified or recognized by ordinary Burundians: ‘people perceive that forms of corruption no longer rooted in a moral economy of kinship are on the rise’ (Smith 2007). Showing great deference to people of authority is a traditional norm, indeed, and it is not difficult for a Burundian farmer to enact these behaviors – the shuffling, the downcast eyes, the left hand on top of the right arm – when asking for services she would legally deserve to access as a citizen, but when that same administrator abuses his power to capture lands of her family, he has gone beyond what is mutually legitimate, and they both know it. When teachers require sex with female students to let them pass, or when employers do the same to hire, this not only runs counter to the modesty Burundians pride themselves on; it is also perceived as a clear abuse of power.”
“Note that when people talk about climate change, they are referring to the frequent droughts that occurred during the last decade in Burundi. Many people talked about lack of land – logical in a country where 57 percent of households have less than one hectare to live off (ibid.: 42). All this demonstrates that even in countries at war, there is more going on than war. War may capture the attention, dominate the political discourse, and its resolution may be a sine qua non for meaningful change, but it is not the full story of life, and people know it.”
“Little do they know how hard it is for educated young people in the city, competing against thousands of others, to find a decent job, especially if they have no connections. Some of the unhappiest people I met were young men in Bujumbura, after all these years of sacrifice, desperately looking for a job, month after month after month. Some don’t even manage to find the money to print their final theses, and will thus never get their degrees. They worked so hard, got so close, and then they still find the door closed. It is my impression that these are not people who are inclined to violence and self-destruction: they are too serious for that, they have given too much, they want to belong to the system more than anything else. And so they doggedly keep on going, asking around, trying to ingratiate themselves with more powerful people (including any foreigners they can get to meet), waiting for the day they will get a job, any job, anywhere.”
“our interviews suggest that many rural men migrate to the city precisely to prepare for marriage. Married men who do not already work in the city rarely migrate there (it is different for those who live in towns surrounding cities). After the death of my parents and oldest brother, I took care of the siblings. In 1997, I came to Bujumbura to do different jobs and then I managed to buy my own bike and I started doing taxi-vélo. I have done this job since 2002 and it allows me to have everything I need. I managed to build a house and I married because of my work. I also managed to buy three goats and five parcels of land to cultivate. I think that with God’s help I will manage the development I wished for when I came to the city. (Twenty-six-year-old migrant, Musaga) I am saving some money to buy a couple of cows. After that, I will seek a wife. I am busy building a house with a tile roof in my colline to prepare my marriage. (Twenty-year-old male migrant, Musaga)”
“Prostitution’ similarly denotes a fall from grace, a failure to live up to expectations of productivity and chastity by women. All these, then, are images used mainly for young people, and their power lies in their association with failure.”
“How many eventually regularize their marriage? One of my drivers did so after twenty-two years of living together and four children, so it is always possible. How many informal marriages dissolve? How many break up, but are renewed after some time? We came across many men for whom the dream of marrying persisted. This unemployed self-demobilized ex-combatant from Kamenge is typical: ‘if my situation improved I could go and live with my son and his mother: I would like that, if she is still available.’ This wish reflects a value deeply embedded in Burundian culture: fathers should do everything possible to support and raise their children, even those born outside marriage.”
“ We must pardon everyone because if not, it will be like we will have to punish all the population. We must pardon everyone because all ethnic groups did bad acts. (Thirty-eight-year-old female, Nyanza-Lac)”
“Perseverance is so important to these young people. Most of these quotes are from the poorest of the poor. They know that life is hard, that failure is likely, but they also intend never to give up. In the literature on young men in Africa, it has become so common to describe them only as angry, frustrated, drifting into mindless violence – potential rapists and killers, all of them, it seems. In some theories, their very existence is taken as an indicator of violence, regardless of their personalities, beliefs, dreams. And yet, when you talk with them, how different they are from these simplistic images – how filled with perseverance and hope, ready to take on life and all that it may bring.”
“If she is not able to complete her studies, she will get married at the proper age, i.e. not too young.’ And educated men, both urban and rural, desire to marry women who have attained a certain level of education as well (although none of them wants to marry a woman with a higher education level than himself!).”
“This book is based on the voices of people – primarily young people – throughout Burundi: people who have been refugees, internally displaced, dispersed, ex-combatants; in the city and the collines, Hutu and Tutsi.”
“Michael Quinn Patton describes four levels of interviews, from ‘informal conversation’ (where the subject often does not even know s/he is being interviewed) to ‘closed, fixed-response interviews’ (basically questionnaires) (2002: 349). Our approach squarely falls into his second category, ‘interview guide approach,’ in which ‘topics and issues to be covered are specified in advance, in outline form; the interviewer decides sequence and wording of questions in the course of the interview.’ The interview schedule itself consisted of only twenty-one questions. All these questions sought to probe into people’s perceptions, dreams, and analysis of development, governance, the future – their future. We encouraged people to ask questions if they had any. In the rural areas, people systematically asked the same thing: What are you going to do with this? In urban areas, the questions were often more direct, sometimes a tad aggressive: So, now that you’ve asked us all these questions, what’s in it for you?”
“Widows are clearly one of the most disadvantaged groups in Burundian society. We heard sad stories of widows abused by family members, ostracized by their communities, losing access to land, and living in destitution. We also heard repeated references to unmarried and married men having covert relations with widows – a way to have sexual relations with a woman without having the financial responsibility of marriage. A group of young men from the Ruhororo IDP camp explained to us, ‘sometimes men see [a euphemism for having sexual relations with] a widow in her own house, but they would not build a second house for her. Widows often have relations with married men, because they need to financially.’ Windows, financially vulnerable, are less desirable for having already been married and are not given the same level of respect as unmarried young women.”
“All Burundians we spoke to told us they have been materially hurt by the war. The litany of theft and destruction, of forced migration, of education years lost, and of family members and friends killed, is unending. Almost nobody, it seems, whether rural or urban, rich or poor, has not seen their meager assets depleted if not eradicated entirely by the war.”
“At times, when we had spent some time in a particular location and word had spread about our presence, people approached us for interviews. Surprisingly, these were often very poor or vulnerable people, typically women and frequently widows, who wanted someone to listen to their story, just for once. These were some of the most amazing conversations we had.”
“Finally, for research like this, the quality of the translators is crucial. Kirundi is a language of allusion and proverbs: information is conveyed between the lines, hinted at, but rarely expressed directly. The challenge is also social: the translator is the front-line person who interacts with the interviewees, making the connection, maintaining the social aspects of the relation, putting people at ease.”
“ My family – my wife and my six children – was killed. I know who did it. I sometimes meet them in the street: they greet me and I greet them. I have forgiven them: they can never bring back my family, so it is the best thing to do. It is best to forget and to get on with life. (Forty-two-year-old ex-combatant, CNDD, now chef de colline, Nyanza-Lac)”
“More and more Burundians have started redefining the enemy not as all people of the other ethnicity but as extremists on the other side, or even as politicians of all stripes. By”
“Of course, many women have suffered as well, especially during these war years: they have been raped by combatants, beaten by their husbands, left behind by their boyfriends, kicked out of school when pregnant. Some are left with little choice but prostitution, or becoming a concubine, in order to survive. In a society where violence has become omnipresent, where the law does not function, and where frustration and anger are everywhere, it is actually amazing that all this does not occur even more frequently.”
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