A Gun and a Camera

I love those moments of clarity where I remember why I am here and why my work is important.

Last weekend, I was at a club in Kigali with Amir.  We were meeting a few of his friends and one of them turned out to be a former soldier.  After ordering a beer, I ended up talking with this guy for at least an hour.

For his privacy, I will simply refer to him as John.  

John was born in a Burundi refugee camp to Rwandan parents and joined the Rwandan military at a relatively young age.  When the genocide happened in 1994, he was one of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) soldiers who eventually stopped the massacre and took back the country.

Now, John leads tours in various parts of the country (such as mountain gorilla trekking, which I absolutely will do before I leave this country) and works as a freelance journalist.  He often acts as a guide when international journalists come to the country looking for a way to travel to the DRC, where violence and instability provide just the kinds of stories that Westerners crave.  

During our conversation, I was describing a recent article I read in the New York Times which I felt portrayed Rwanda's involvement in the DRC as incredibly one-sided, and he recognized the name of the reporter.  It turns out that John had been his escort, but had not yet read the article.  He was infuriated by my description, telling me that he had worked hard to provide balanced sources from both sides in order to tell the closest thing to the truth.

You see, John has an interesting perspective having been a soldier.  He explained that he has used a gun before, and even killed people.  But now his weapon is a camera.

A gun and a camera are very similar.  You point them at people and shoot, and they both capture a person's humanity in different ways.  However, only the camera can tell the truth.  And the truth is what makes the biggest difference in the end.