[Applause]
I'm gonna start this episode with a
question and please don't treat him
please don't Google the answer what is
the country with the biggest share of
female politicians inside its parliament
you might be thinking right now Norway
Sweden maybe Great Britain well if
that's the case your thinking is wrong
because the answer it's actually Rwanda
one of the poorest places in sub-saharan
Africa
[Music]
I'm sure many of you already know this
country at least those of you who are as
old as me because in the year 1994 the
Rwandan genocide it appears on every
news station around the world it was one
of the biggest atrocities in mankind's
history in just 100 days the Rwandan
government brutally killed almost a
million people this meant that every one
in five Rwandan was murdered for decades
Rwanda was the synonym for humanitarian
catastrophe starvation and it was a
memory of the darkest side of the human
condition nonetheless 23 years later in
the year 2017 Rwanda is turning into
something at much different complexions
from Rwanda investing in one of the
world's fastest growing economies yep
you heard that right Rwanda is becoming
a hot topic in the financial world a
country that used to appear on
humanitarian aid commercials now is
starting to fill financial newspapers
and it's presidents Paul Kagame has
become the new African rock star being
received at prestigious places like
Harvard or the Brookings Institution yes
of course everyone does agree that his
starless kind of Etherea turn winning
elections with over 96% of the vote
doesn't exactly sound democratic does it
but I mean despite all of that who can
judge a man that he's taking Rwanda out
of poverty the figures speak for
themselves
since Paul Kagame came into power
Rwandans have tripled their income and
the percentage of the population that
lives in extreme poverty is reducing
year after year
so now the question is how did Rwanda
end up like this or perhaps maybe this
is too good to be true and is the some
detail we're missing here
today well we are going to answer those
questions before we do as usual let's
take a look back at the history and
trust me this one is pretty intense
[Music]
prefabricated hatred remember this date
April the 6th 1994 on this date the
plane the Rwandan president was flying
in was hit by an anti-aircraft gun
no one really knows who organized this
attack but the Rwandan army whose
soldiers belonged to the Hutu tribe
blamed their rival the Tutsis Tutsis
were a minority insider ones are living
in an apartheid situation local media
referred to them as cockroaches and many
of them had already escaped to refugee
camps in neighboring countries but no
one could have predicted that the
mounting prejudice would have unleashed
carnage
what messages like this were broadcast
on the radio the Rwandan army was
passing out clubs and machetes to
civilians if any of those who to
civilians showed mercy to his or her
Tutsi neighbors he or she would risk
being executed as a collaborator
[Music]
this explains why many Rwandan z' clubs
that could see wives to death and why
even some Catholic churches became human
slaughterhouses in just 100 days nearly
a million people died by their neighbors
machetes
[Music]
and well now you might be wondering why
did the Hutus hate the Tutsi so much
were they really that different
and while the answer as you expect is no
[Music]
you see many African countries have lots
of different cultures and races living
together South Africa for example has
nine official languages Uganda has over
15 nonetheless Rwandan territory was
surprisingly homogeneous for centuries
one single language one single culture
the Hootie's the Tutsis and other tribes
they lived in relative harmony but in
the 20th century
Belgium colonized this country one of
the first policies made by the Belgian
government was to force the locals to
label themselves according to the tribe
they belong to this way it would be
easier for the colonizers to identify
who was who and during the first years
the Tutsis were the tribe in charge of
government institutions created by the
Belgians then one day those Tutsis
started asking for independent and
that's when Belgians started supporting
the Hutus with racist propaganda this is
how when Rubens became a sovereign state
in 1962 Hutus and Tutsis had already
become fierce enemies that hatred it was
fabricated by the colonizers and many
Tutsis had to flee to refugee camps in
neighboring countries
[Music]
among them was the man that you see on
the screen now Paul Kagame now remember
his name
because it will be the key figure in
this story Paul Kagame he was raised on
one of those aforementioned refugee
camps this one it was situated in Uganda
it was the beginning of the 1980s back
then Uganda was in the middle of a civil
war and Kagame along with other Rwandan
refugees for to the Ugandan government
and they won and this is how Kagame as a
military legend was born in the 1990s he
would lead other attacks against the
Hutu led Rwandan government but the
turning point was in 1994 100 days after
that horrific massacre on April the 6th
[Music]
tegami was making his entrance in Kigali
the Rwandan capital with 2,500 soldiers
the genocide was over and Rwanda it had
a new government this time it was a
Tutsi led governments with Kagame is
serving as the vice president but hold
on trista seconds because the story it
doesn't just end here because imagine
the scenario for one he had to help lead
a divided country where genocide
survivors had to live next to the
neighbors that had killed their friends
and family
[Music]
and didn't help that Rwanda was one of
the ten poorest countries on earth with
few resources to export and on top of
all of that this brand-new Tutsi
government was not an example of
transparency and respect for human
rights as you can imagine many of the
soldiers who had taken over Kigali they
wanted revenge and well during the next
year no one made an effort to stop the
executions and the unfair trials if this
wasn't enough many ministers trying to
use their positions to fill their
pockets with the little money that
Rwanda hat corruption was certainly on
the rise meanwhile Paul Kagame had the
charisma the popular support and
especially the political ambitions rise
even higher and this is why in March of
2000 that u2 president resigns and
without an election
well the inevitable happens
[Music]
regarding the eternal president in the
year 2000 Paul Kagame became the new
Rwandan president and he came to power
with two clear goals the first one was
to unify the Rwandan people after the
genocide the second was to pull his
country out of poverty so what did he do
to achieve this latter goal well he
traveled a lot
Kagami created an advisory team that
went to countries like China Thailand
and Singapore so can you guess what
those three places what do they have in
common well the answer is that they were
countries that used to be poor and back
then they were emerging nations
Kagami arranged meetings with
politicians economists sent civil
servants and from these meetings he
wrote down scores of ideas in a notebook
then he returned with the golden formula
to build a wealthy country this notebook
became the foundation for the brand-new
Rwandan Constitution and more
importantly a vision 2020 basically
vision 2020 was a government development
plan launched by Paul Kagame
with the goal of transforming Rwanda
into a middle-income country in just two
decades modern peaceful country or
extreme poverty no longer existed but
wait just a minute because this isn't
the normal buzzword filled speech of a
politician Rwanda is vision 2020 it had
44 clear and accountable goals for
instance it said that by the year 2020
one in every three Rwandans must have
electricity at home to both the
governments and private consultancy
firms are analyzing and measuring the
progress of all of these goals
so let's take a look at an example one
of those targets was to make rwanda a
gender equality Haven and now the
Rwandan Constitution requires that at
least 50% of all government positions be
held by women in fact at the time of
making this video the Rwandan parliament
has the biggest chair of female MPs in
the entire world
and the wage gap between men and women
is lower than in countries as
progressive as Denmark today there is a
brand new generation of female Rwandan
entrepreneurs leading a country and
what's more Rwanda is investing the
small amounts of money they collect in
taxes pretty wisely in a country where
80% of its population used to live off
subsistence farming the government has
built power generators and roads that
increase agricultural productivity now
Rwandan farmers are beginning to export
food to their neighbours
[Music]
all of this explains why 23 years after
the genocide Rwanda GDP is growing at an
average rate of 8 percent a year this is
similar to emerging economies like China
or Vietnam on the same streets where in
1994 people were clubbing each other to
death
startups like Rwanda motorcycle company
are being born the motorcycle factor is
created this year in 2017 with American
investment if you want to start a
company in neighboring countries
you will need weeks or even months to
deal with all the paperwork in Rwanda
you're done with all that in just two
days and of course this has attracted a
lot of foreign investors especially from
China and America and so now you might
be wondering how did they end up here
what's Paul Kagame secret well divvy up
the answer it has a light side but it
also has a dark side tolerance at
gunpoint everyone believes it Rwanda
works streets are safe and tolerance
between Hutus and Tutsis is imposed by
law the ones in Constitution itself
forbids the use of the words Tutsi and
hooting to refer to a person according
to the government all citizens are
Rwandan and no one should care about
their tribe of origin either the media
nor institutions are allowed to say
anything that could spark hatred or open
past scarce and well in fact they can't
even criticize the government both the
police and the military they are present
all over the country to make sure that
everyone follows these laws yeah it is
true Paul Kagame is a popular president
indeed he has his own YouTube channel
and a Twitter and Facebook account that
he uses almost daily but no one else has
the freedom to express their ideas
freely
[Music]
and while the same goes for other
political parties we're talking about a
president who's been in power for 17
years and he wins elections with
outcomes higher than 95% of the vote as
you can imagine this is not exactly
Democratic one of his opponents Frank a
bonanza of the only permitted opposition
party hailed the process he had
attempted to run for the 2010
presidential election but his party was
unable to register for the vote in other
words the Rwandan model is based on
three pillars ease of investing and
doing business infrastructure
developments and at the top an
authoritarian government that guarantees
safety and tolerance at the expense of
other human rights
[Music]
well now we want to know what your
opinion is do you think that this lack
of democracy is legitimate if the
country can step out of poverty or
perhaps Aranda would be better off if
they structured the country in a more
democratic and Western model well please
leave your answer in the comment section
below
and if you do want to learn more about
the history of another African country
click on this video where I talk about
Angola which is the world's most
expensive country I've also recently
started a new channel bio graphics where
we look at biographies from famous
people throughout history as well as the
present-day we've got some politicians
on there but also business people and
other famous and notable people so
please do check it out there's a link in
the description below also please do
visit our friends at the reconsider
Media podcast you can find them at
reconsider Mediacom
they provide the vocals in this video
that aren't on mine and don't forget we
publish brand new videos every Monday
and every Thursday so please do
subscribe and hit that thumbs up and as
always I'll see you next time and if you
want to learn more about politics and
here even more of my lovely voice you
can join us at reconsider media we have
a podcast at reconsider mediacom slash
podcast see you there
[Music]