Violence and Structures

Abstract

The news of 6 April 2009. The first item takes the viewer to the village of Mbyo, Rwanda. Two men, Frédérique Kazingwemo and Félix Habiyamana, look back at the Rwandan genocide, which began exactly 15 years ago. The voice over tells us that one is Hutu and the other a Tutsi, driven apart by the war. Frédérique participated in the genocide, ‘I am a murderer’ he admits. Félix fled to Burundi, and upon returning to his village he found out that most of his family had been killed. Now the two men are friends again. They stand close to each other, they shake hands. ‘It was not our fault’ they explain. ‘It was the system’. The next item shifts to the banking crisis and its causes. A young banker, in front of a glass building, pitches his truth: ‘it is not the individual bankers who are to blame for this, it’s the system’.