Open Your Eyes (Salgado #5)

Sitting in the dark of my friend’s basement. Scary movie on the screen. The character walks slowly to the door. The music turns eerier. Suspense builds. When suddenly, the killer jumps out with a knife. The girls at the party squeal and scream, while the guys just laugh at the reactions. And then there’s me with my knees to my chest—missing all the action from behind a pillow.

Yes, I am “that girl,” who can watch an entire movie peering through her fingers. I don’t like scary movies. Even worse—blood and gore. I often close my eyes. However, this week while looking at the Salgado book, I couldn’t just look away.

Salgado took this particular photo in 1995 after the Rwandan Genocide had ended. The remains of many Tutsi people lie on the dirt floor of an abandoned schoolhouse. I tried to count the skulls but couldn’t determine how many souls lost their lives in that room. Their bodies were never buried, just left to decay. Salgado describes the photograph, “Most of the corpses were cruelly mutilated, with pieces of bodies scattered around a room where children once studied.”

It is probably one of the most horrible things I have ever laid eyes on, but I can’t just close my eyes.

The world turned a blind eye during the genocide, refusing to acknowledge it even occurred. But it did.

Almost a million Tutsis died in the violence. However, they are not the only ones who have suffered as a result of the genocide. Leodegard Kagaba—a Hutu—is still feeling the effects of it. “I have many scars, even in my heart,” he said. The Hutus watched as their friends and family were killed and their homes torn apart. If they opposed at all, they were slaughtered themselves. After the genocide ended, they fled the country, fearing retribution from the Tutsis. And many of them have not returned to their home country, even today. They live in various refugee camps in neighboring African countries. Ninety-percent of them do not want to go home. Even all these years later, Rwanda is still a broken nation.

We can’t close our eyes to this and the other hardships of the world. Not watching the news doesn’t change what's going on. We need to be informed, even if it means exposing ourselves to the harsh parts of the world. We can’t bring the light if we don’t acknowledge the dark. We can’t see the world and try to change it unless we open our eyes. 

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Muhumuza, Rodney. "Hutu refugees fear forced return to Rwanda." Yahoo! News. Yahoo-ABC News Network, 13 Apr. 2013. Web. 24 Oct. 2013. <http://news.yahoo.com/hutu-refugees-fear-forced-return-rwanda-112904510.html>.

Salgado, Sebastiao. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. 1994. Photograph. New York: Aperture Foundation, Inc., 2000. 206-207. Print. 

Salgado, Sebastiao. Migrations. 1994. Pamphlet. New York: Aperture Foundation, Inc., 2000. 13. Print.