Africa-Press – Rwanda. There is decent logic to the common claim that sports shouldn’t be politicised. However, I think that in the case of the agile and incredibly impressive promotion of sports in Rwanda, it is challenging to separate sports from the strategic politics behind it.
Whether or not you’ve had the chance to experience the enthralling atmosphere of the Kigali Arena, you have likely either gotten to watch the recent #BAL games, followed by Afrobasket and later the Afro-volleyball competition, or come across pictures of the events on social media.
More recently, you have probably heard the exciting news about Rwanda hosting the 2025 World Cycling Championship, possibly through the same platforms.
This brings me to another interesting feature of the Rwandan society; social media, particularly Twitter, is as popular amongst the youth as it is among our governing institutions and news outlets. This might seem anodine, or unrelated to the governmental efforts in sports promotion, however I see a few exciting commonalities to these patterns, which I would like to highlight in this piece.
There are three things that ought to speak to the onlooker when considering sports in Rwanda, and the popularity of Twitter use as a medium of interaction between Rwandan governance, Rwandans and the world. These three prongs depict the core of modern Rwandan society, the vision of our leadership and the nurturing of our culture.
The first is youth empowerment, the second is communal exchange and cohabitation, and the third is perceiving Rwanda’s reach and size beyond the deceptive borders drawn by our colonisers.
Not just a blue bird
According to Susan Hockefield, an American Neuroscientist who served as the Massachussets Institute of Technology’s President for 8 years, “Through his years in office, President Kagame has driven a wide-ranging effort to develop Rwanda’s greatest natural resource, its people”. This is reminiscent of President Kagame mentioning the “human intelligence” Rwanda employs and cultivates when asked about the country’s use of Israeli Spyware Pegasus, which he denied.
When we consider the concept of community in a modern landscape transformed by a global pandemic, social interaction is heavily reliant on interconnectivity. In this new order, the emphasis President Kagame placed, almost a decade ago, onto I.T., access to internet and the local production of smart devices, strikes as the type of foresight that elevates a leader to a visionary status.
This said vision sustains itself in an elegant circular cycle. Our leadership, which years ago saw a Rwanda open to the world, and that had the world opening to its people, can now use the same platforms it has subtly encouraged and prepared Rwandans to use, to inform us and engage us in the unrolling of said vision.
Through Twitter, Rwandans are gaining instantaneous access to information on their country as reported by fellow citizens, but also claiming a voice Rwanda’s oppressors are not free to silence.
This is an important aspect of the human intelligence the President speaks of. Rwandan leadership grasps the impact of platforms of persistent and consistent exchange. Whether of development ideas, observations and analysis of our society, or a revisiting of our history, this exchange is essential to a community that has relied on effective cohabitation to overcome and develop.
It’s ironic that the country so frequently accused of freedom of speech violations would have such a strong Twitter (a medium that highly promotes free speech) culture, sanctioned at the highest level. On the platform, the Rwandan civilian will be encouraged to have their say on the politics that impact their daily lives, such as, for instance, celebration or criticism of Rura Rwanda, calls for accountability from ill-performing network providers, or even questions on vaccines and covid-restrictions.
The use of Twitter in Rwanda is a testament to the Rwandan fostering of a vocal youth. The attentive ear that Rwandan leadership lends to the desires of said youth, even as they take to the bird app to voice their remarks, is empowering a whole generation of Rwandans to know that the silence once expected from us is a thing of regretful past leadership approaches.
Why sports?
Both social media and sports have a spiritual commonality that unites the masses. I believe that stadiums are mirrors of cathedrals, where the greatness of the architecture is only surpassed in effect by the level of emotion – typically hope, faith and even love – that unites its visitors.
While the faithful may visit a cathedral to worship a spirit, the sports fanatic is driven by an esteem for an entity they have chosen to identify with, and provide support to.
When a country arises from the type of painful past Rwanda has had to overcome, the ability to unite in the strife for greatness sports evokes is essential. The support of those that represent us, the celebration of our allies in their own wins, constitute the spirit through which we can push for positive change, not only in Rwanda but across the continent.
There is something generous, something community-centred about sportsmanship, particularly in team sports. A career like few others, it requires pushing the boundaries of your own body and battling stress and the fear of loss to arrive at the victory you wish to offer to those rooting for you.
This is where I would struggle not to find a parallel between Rwanda’s politics – and at the very least its history – and our celebration of athletes, and invitations for the public to do the same. We owe our current stability to the selflessness, drive and determination (albeit against unimaginably different stakes) of those that fought, and still do, for Rwanda.
These individuals, be it the frontline medical workers that tackled the post-Tutsi genocide epidemic, and now combat the Covid-19 pandemic, or the soldiers that gave their lives to liberate our country in 1994, are the people we must keep taking to Twitter to celebrate. They are the reason a Rwanda with space for joy, for sports and communal celebration, can now exist.
