Normally, the past is past because it is passed. But sometimes the manifests itself in the present: a present past. When this happens, the past lives with the present, transforms itself into present and imitates the present to become the future: what we can call the future-past.
When Burundians got their independence, they thought they had turned the page. However, for reasons that are unknown to some but known to others, the page was folded. It was not turned because we took God out of businesses, we overthrew our King and consequently we lost our Country. Thus, cyclic violence slammed the door of our dear fatherland. Today we hear some of our elders, and worse, some of our compatriots born after the 1995s singing and reliving the bloody events of 1965, 1972, 1988, 1993, 2010 and 2015.
As if the past should not pass, an audio message with a tone full of hatred has been circulating for days on social networks, especially on WhatsApp, forewarning and inciting inter-ethnic violence and especially revealing preconceived plans for extermination. It is a message from a female voice.
In old days, when Burundi was called a country of milk and honey, a female voice was always considered a sweet, soft voice, a voice of peace. Unfortunately, the female voice we hear in this audio message is far from sweet, soft, attractive or in search of peace. It sends shivers down spines, scare men and dispels the little hope of a hopeless people.
“… we are waiting to capture you and kill you … I, a woman of Bajiji clan … I swear to you, he [Pierre Nkurunziza] will not go to the summit of the Heads of State of the East African Community [planned during this me], and if you don’t like it, come! We will kill each other … “
A female voice inciting violence while when there is violence women and children are the very first group of people who suffers a lot. This is awful! These words filled with a hateful tone prove how “the past is never quite the past” (Jacques Audiberti). They attest the lack of any notion of love in this poor woman because she still has the past with her (Georges Perros). One could wander why she does “awake a pain that is in the past” (Henri-Frederic Amiel)? It is true that we cannot always be children by ignoring the past (Jean-Baptiste de la Roche) or, forgetting or even erasing our past lest we destroy our future. However, we must only hold onto the lessons that the past taught us, for it has normally already passed (Henri-Frederic Amiel). Finally, we often hear phrases such as: “There was genocide of Hutus or there was a genocide of Tutsi or there were massacres of Hutu or there was a massacre of the Tutsi.” Worse we still hear: “Even Hutu did that, or even Tutsi did that” to justify a despicable act. Isn’t then this present (we live) that the past had in store for us? And if this present is the fruit of the past, isn’t, a fortiori, that our future will always be the fruit of our past which is this present that we live now; a fruit of the past itself?