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Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda Book Review Themes Regret PTSD Dehumanization Misogyny Racism Memorable Moments Book Summary Began with backgroud information (Real life.

Overview The 2000 winner of the Goscinny Prize for outstanding graphic novel script, this is the harrowing tale of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, as seen through the eyes of a boy named Deogratias. He is an ordinary teenager, in love with a girl named Bnigne, but Deogratias is a Hutu and Bnigne is a Tutsi who dies in the genocide, and Deogratias himself plays a part in her death. As the story circles around but never depicts the terror and brutality of an entire country descending into violence, wewatch Deogratias in his pursuit of Bnigne, and we see his grief and descent into madness following her death, as he comes to believe he is a dog. Told with great artistry and intelligence, this book offers a window into a dark chapter of recent human history and exposes the West's role in the tragedy. Stassen's interweaving of the aftermath of the genocide and the events leading up to it heightens the impact of the horror, giving powerful expression to the unspeakable, indescribable experience of ordinary Hutus caught up in the violence. Difficult, beautiful, honest, and heartbreaking, this is a major work by a masterful artist.

Originally published in Stassen's native Belgium in 2000, this graphic novel takes on the 1994 Rwandan genocide and does a credible job of bringing the horror of that dark stain on recent history to the page. Alternating between the time of the genocide and a time about five years after it, the story follows a young Hutu teenager named Deogratias. Prior to the massacre, we see he is a normal boy trying to get into the pants of two pretty Tutsi sisters.

However, in the aftermath of the genocide, he has been reduced to a homeless, ragtag lunatic with only moments of lucidity, who tries to keep horrible memories at bay with the aid of the local banana beer (urwagwa). Those familiar with the kinds of atrocities perpetrated in genocides or civil wars won't be particularly surprised at the final revelation as to what rendered him insane - nonetheless, it's grim and powerful stuff. There's also a subplot involving a French tourist who served in the French army in Rwanda during the genocide.

This exists mainly to highlight the French complicity in allowing the genocide to unfold - albeit guilt that is only marginally greater than that of other Western powers. What happened in Rwanda serves to point out the emptiness of slogans such as 'Never Forget', and while it has been covered by many excellent non-fiction books and films, Stassen is to be commended for bringing the horrific story to another medium.

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This is rough material, definitely not for kids, although the translator's introduction does a nice job of providing enough background for one to use it in a high school history or ethics class. Over the years when I've had to defend the medium of comics to my less illuminated friends and co-workers I've been able to point to many examples of works that rise above the mire of the usual. Things like 'The Watchmen', 'Bone', 'Love and Rockets' and others. I will now add 'Deogratias' to this distinguished group. The book is the product of Belgium writer/artist J.P. The book is told against the backdrop of the brutal ethnic cleansing that took place in Rwanda in the early 90's as the majority Hutu savagely butchered some 800,000 of the minority Tutsi ethnic group as the world looked on and did nothing.

Stassen first provides a brief, but very necessary history lesson about the events that led up the genocide and what has happened after. Stassen now resides in Rwanda with his family. The book if required reading if only for Stassen's opening monologue and history lesson.

The story itself moves back and forth in time with the lead title character Deogratias. These shifts in time come with no warning or captions and at first are a little dizzying but you'll soon have it figured out. Deogratias in present time is a pathetic creature, wearing ratty clothing, and addicted to Urwagwa or banana beer. He also seems to be quite mad as other villagers ask him if he is 'still a dog?'

This will become significant later in the story. We first seem him interacting with a French tourist who was in the military back during the genocide. This character is meant as a representative of the French government who if they didn't actually back the horrors that took place, they turned their back as they went on.

As we move back in time we learn about the past of Deogratias, a Hutu, and others of his village. We see him in school as even the teachers spew hate against the Tutsi.

Deogratias is in love with A Tutsi girl named Benina but her mother wants Benina to have nothing to do with him. The radio broadcasts are filled with hateful tirades against the Tutsi who they refer to as cockroaches.

Deogratias is expected to take up arms with his Hutu brothers but all he can do is think of saving Benina and her family. Ultimately he will pay for this with his very sanity. Deogratias is a powerful, tragic, horrifying story. Made all that much more terrible because of the real-life events and even worse by the world's complete lack of action to stop the violence. Was it because this was black on black racism?

Was it because there were no strategic locations or oil fields as stake? Whatever the case, This is a story that will haunt the reader for a long time. Reviewed by Tim Janson. First published in Belgium in 2000, this translation of Deogratius: A Tale of Rwanda by Alexis Siegel may appear to be like a comic-but it does not have any humorous content. The setting is 1994 in Rwanda, in Eastern Africa. A bit of history is required.

Everyone carried ID cards to designate whether they were Hutu, the majority ethnic group, or Tutsi. Extremists from the Hutu group planned to exterminate the Tutsi minority and kill moderate Hutu who opposed their goal. The ID cards made it easy for the murderers to know who to kill. The story, told through flashbacks of the days before and after the horrific genocide, is told from the viewpoint of Deogratius, a Hutu boy and Benina, a Tutsi girl. In the genocide, 800,000 humans are murdered while the world did nothing. The United Nations estimated that 3 million people were murdered as the war spilled over in the neighboring countries to find the refugees from Rwanda.

Codebreaker para sims 2 gba. The graphic author's storytelling is powerful and eloquent. The history lesson is told from the eye of a young boy and an older man-both native and white immigrants, soldiers and others. Armchair Interviews says: Not an easy read, Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda is an important history lesson told in this manner by the author who now resides in Rwanda with his family.

In Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda, Jean-Phillipe Stassen reveals the difficulties of reconciliation for post-genocide Rwanda. As we see in the above panel, Deogratias, a Hutu participant in the genocide, is victimized as he is plagued by the memory of his barbaric acts. Historically, as the Rwandan government attempted to make reconciliation possible, many survivors find it difficult to live in such close proximity to the people that slaughtered their loved ones. The world asks itself, is reconciliation possible after the horrors of 1994?

Stassen seems to imply that the relationships after the genocide are complex. While many of the people still harbor bitter feelings in their hearts, some people avenge their friends and family.

Deogratias is no exception. According to Charles Ntampaka, the sharing of drinks is a sign of reconciliation because “sharing drinks signified a pact and the putting to rest of mistrust” (Buckley-Zistel 145).

Similarly, Stassen appears to use poisoned urwagwa as a symbol of distrust in Deogratias. Because Deogratias was forced to murder by his Hutu “brothers,” and because Benina and Apollinaria were his friends, he felt like he, too, was a victim of the Rwandan genocide. He recognizes the atrocity of his actions, and alcoholism is the only way he can cope with the post-traumatic stress illustrated in this panel. Perhaps living among the perpetrators is just as responsible for making Deogratias mad as the actual genocide itself, which is why he isolates himself from humanity when it gets dark. Deogratias feels like the perpetrators-including himself-must be punished. The urwagwa and revenge killings demonstrate that perhaps reconciliation cannot be achieved so easily.

Despite post-genocide trauma experienced by Deogratias in Stassen’s graphic novel, the modern-day Rwanda depicted in Susanne Buckley-Zistel’s scholarly article, “Remembering to Forget: Chosen Amnesia as a Strategy for Local Coexistence in Post-Genocide Rwanda,” the majority of the country has found it in their hearts to forgive the same people who destroyed their families after the killers were released from prison. Buckley-Zistel believes that many Rwandan’s have a condition that she’s deemed “chosen amnesia,” through which Rwandans consciously choose to forget about the past to cope with living with murderers and traitors (Buckley-Zistel 132). This “chosen amnesia” among individuals, which Buckley-Zistel studied and researched for two years, is the only way that reconciliation can be achieved. The forced reconciliation imposed on Rwandans, the effects of which are depicted in the video clip below, operates on a national level. As this video explains, the reconciliation that the world sees isn’t completely real.

The survivors have accepted their losses, but there is still tension in their relationships with their neighbors. Beatrice says that she reconciled with the killers “because she was asked to,” supporting Buckley-Zistel’s argument about chosen amnesia. Peace between her and the killers isn’t possible because it wasn’t her choice as an individual to forgive, and the core problems in her community haven’t been solved. Beatrice, like Deogratias, cannot forgive someone with no remorse. Mathias and Pastor Gahigi, however, are able to form a seemingly peaceful relationship.

Mathias felt great remorse for participating in the genocide, and he comments on the inhumanity of his actions. As a participant, Deogratias feels the same guilt that makes him feel like an animal and transform into a dog in the illustrations. Pastor Gahigi, as a victim, expresses similar feelings as Deogratias when he says, “Before I forgave Mathias, I was like a crazy person.” Perhaps Deogratias’ madness is a result of his inability to forgive not only the men who forced him to murder his Tutsi friends, but also himself. One of the difficulties when approaching the Rwandan genocide is how to appropriately represent the events that took place.

A common way to address issues such as this one is through artistic representation. Visual artists who have attempted to explore the Rwandan genocide have produced some interesting work, but the question is who the work is meant to be viewed. In the essay “Invisible Again: Rwanda and Representation after Genocide,” Nicholas Mirzoeff states “Making the genocide visible was a task that seemed unapproachable to those few Western artists who have the courage to address the subject.

Their work has been driven to adopt given frameworks of Christianity, conceptual art, or documentary photography” (36). The framework of Christianity is certainly visible in Deogratias from the narrative’s close focus on the Christian school and the character of Brother Philip. Stassen makes the idea quite blatant through the fact that the Deogratias means literally ‘praise be to God.’ This sentiment is not lost on other artists though; George Gittoes visited Rwanda during the aftermath of the genocide, and the photos he took in a refugee camp led to extremely expressionistic paintings. The most well known, The Preacher contains Christian themes. “It shows an African man from the waist up, holding a bible, with his arms extended and raised. His gesture is somewhere between surrender and supplication” (Mirzoeff, 89).

The man’s pose in the painting is at once asking for forgiveness and offering up a sacrifice to atone for what was done; the man becomes a martyr. The bright color palette and the rough style in which the image was painted speak to the violence and horror of genocide; they express more than could ever be said with words. The colors used by Gittoes are similar to those used by Stassen in Deogratias, and like Gittoes, Stassen often uses frames with little to no wording to express feeling such as in the last page of the novel. The Preacher by George Gittoes Conceptual art has also been utilized quite effectively to speak about Rwanda. Alfredo Jaar made a project called Signs of Life, in which he found postcards in Rwanda and on their backs wrote the name of a survivor of genocide followed by the phrase “is still alive.” He then sent them to fiends of his living in Western nations.

This project gains its strength from the power of exposure; Jaar’s works attempt to spread awareness about the genocide by speaking for survivors, while the pleasant fronts of the postcards speak to the fact that the Rwandan genocide is veiled and not often talked about. Signs of Life from The Rwanda Project by Alfredo Jarr By far the most visible art form for addressing the genocide has been documentary photography. Many photographers, such as Gilles Peress, travelled to the country in the immediate aftermath of the genocide in order to document the tragedy. Peress’ photographs, such as The Judgement, show us a view of sadness and devastation in Rwanda.

They paint a picture of a nation in Chaos and have not necessarily achieved the ends the photographers had in mind. “The difficulty is that the view is precisely that which most Westerners would expect to see: one of pre-political formless chaos. Indeed, a number of photojournalists, including Peress, who worked in Rwanda and hoped that their work would lead to political change, have found that the experience of failure in this regard reduced their confidence in the medium to such an extent that some have left the field altogether” (Mirzoeff, 88). The work of many photojournalists, rather than enacting political change, has instead been used as a tool to memorialize the genocide in an attempt to bury it.

This work, put on display in museums has been paraded under the slogan “never again” which situates the Rwandan genocide in the same vein as the Holocaust. These memorials put on a false front which suggests that we have learned from the events of Rwanda, when in actuality, violent atrocities are still occurring in Africa and around the world. Contributors: Sara Mortensen Lars Soderbergh Jared Christensen Works Cited Applegate, Elizabeth. “Reimagining the Swallow and the Toad: Narrating Reconciliation and Identity in Postgenocide Rwanda” Research in African Literatures 43.1 (2012): 71-90. Buckley-Zistel, Susanne.

“Remembering to Forget: Chosen Amnesia as a Strategy for Local Coexistence in Post-genocide Rwanda.” Africa 2006: 131-150. Kerstens, Paul. “’Voice and give voice’: dialectics between fiction and history in narratives on the Rwandan genocide” International Journal of Francophone Studies 9.1 (2006): 93- 110.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “Invisible Again: Rwanda and Representation after Genocide.” African Arts.

38.3 (2005): 36-39+86-91+96. Stassen, Jean-Phillipe. “Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda.” New York: Roaring Brook Press.