Naho se bene wacu ?

 

Translation from the French into the English

 

Music: traditional

Arrangement: Massamba

Text: Marie-France Collard, Dorcy Rugamba

Text in kinyarwanda: Massamba

 

 

(And our people?)

 

While the speaker leaves, Massamba accompanying himself on the traditional cithare (inanga), sings a very old melody and against this musical background the Chorus of the Dead raises the question of the responsibility of the Rwandans themselves:

 

1.

This monster who has killed us / was conceived in the colonial / womb

 

But he was born here, in / Rwanda! / He grew up, was nurtured and / brought up / on our hillsides, in our homes / by Rwandans!

 

Those who governed us first / those who, in the name of / democracy, abolished the / monarchy / it is they who distilled / hatred amongst some / and shame amongst others

 

2.

They put the people into a logic / of crime / They inaugurated this “ethnic / republic” / where all Rwandans were not / equal before the law / they developed a culture of / impunity

 

As lightning preceders thunder / thought precedes action / For a long while / it put conscience to sleep / it skilfully orchestrated crime / it planned and structured the / genocial machine

 

3.

You shall not kill, says the law / They said: You shall / You shall kill your neighbour, / your godson, your nephew / You shall kill your wife and your / brother´s wife / You shall kill them when I give / you the signal / When I tell you: “the work” can / begin / you shall massacre them, old and / young / the tall, the fair, and the dark / you shall kill them to the last / one

 

You shall kill and it will be a / civic act / You will have deserved well of / the country

 

4.

In a criminal society / murderers are respected / We know those who / taught this law / we obey them

 

Who were they / if not our mayors / our military police, our doctors / our priests? / Who drew up the lists? / Who marked out the houses? / Who bought tonnes of / machetes?

 

Who distributed them? / Who? /If not the highest authorrities of / the country?

 

5.

Friends / we do not claim to know exactly / why / On the green hills of Rwanda, / The sons of Gihanga / dismembered other sons of / Gihanga. / But we believe we understand / this / Tear up the very roots of the / culture of a people for a century / And you will plant in each head / the seeds of crime