Leadership in action: How Rwanda made cleanliness next to godliness
The proverb cleanliness is next to godliness holds true to some nations. The Japanese stunned the world at the 2022 World Cup Games when they demonstrated cleanliness. They “wiped” the backside not only of themselves, but of the whole world.
Another nation that continues to impress the world in terms of cleanliness is Rwanda. It rose out of the ashes of genocide. Thirty years ago, Rwanda was trapped in the wildest acts of mass killings in the history of a generation. It is recent history. Within 100 days a million lives had been wiped off the surface of Rwanda. It was the fastest disappearance of human life by whatever measure one uses.
Perhaps only the tsunami that occurred in the South-East Asian region where 227000 people died across 14 countries could match the death rate. On average on that day of the Tsunami 14 000 people died per country. Compared to Rwanda where on average 10000 people were killed per day for a 100 days this arithmetic of country comparison brings very little comfort.
I am not aware of the record of cleanliness of Rwanda or its own self-awareness to cleanliness before the genocide. But if it was always clean, Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, brought this dimension of Rwandans' lives to the highest standard after the genocide. This is leadership in action - a remarkable achievement for a nation’s leader.
He instructed every citizen to take a broom every Saturday to clean their surroundings. This public mobilisation on such a grand scale would impact a world view on Rwanda in a rather dramatic way. It was a nation at work and the results show 30 years later. A week ago, I was in Rwanda and the cleanliness of Kigali and its nearby villages amazes one.
I have been to English speaking West Africa where the storm water drainage is open, and it is also open in Rwanda, but the difference is palpable. The drainage remains clean at any given time in Kigali compared to the bustling Makola Market in Accra, Ghana where the filthy river of open drainage passes under tables that string across it with merchandise.
Back home in South Africa the national flower – plastic – decorates our landscape. I have driven through many parts of our country, not with the purpose of finding which of our spaces wins the trophy as the plastic city. I can, however, vouch for the South Eastern side of Wepener in the Free State along the road towards Van Rooyen’s gate as the one that takes the trophy for me.
Amidst the competition for filth, a month ago I went to Abidjan via Nairobi. Kenya Airways, (KQ) the Pride of Africa, has relentlessly fought for a trophy to damage its reputation. When I booked it, my hosts asked me whether I was aware that KQ habitually cancels flights. Sure, as the sun rises from the east and sets in the west, KQ cancelled our flight from Nairobi to Abidjan. As a courtesy they asked all passengers of delayed flights to go to Gate 23 to take breakfast.
Dutifully proceeded to do so and sat next to a relatively young man compared to myself. After eating breakfast, I put the disposable trash next to myself and opened my laptop to start working. But at once the young man took the trash to the dustbin.
Soon after we were joined by enthusiastic greetings from another fellow African, who asked us to keep an eye on his luggage as he sprinted away to a call of nature. Upon his return he introduced himself and it turned out he was from Zimbabwe.
I too introduced myself and the other young man did likewise. He came from Rwanda. The penny dropped. I said to him, “I wondered why you could not stand my trash even for a second despite my protests.”
The Rwanda philosophy of cleanliness, like the Japanese, has become an ingrained culture, which is certainly second nature. The young man tried to duck and dive including, an utterance that age was just coming before beauty as the reason for cleaning up my trash.
But the unexpected spontaneity of his action was in fact in retrospect unsurprising. When the mantra of cleanliness is next to godliness catches up with a nation it becomes an unrestrained and visible export of diplomacy.
The Japanese displayed it at a grand scale during the 2022 World Cup and this is also in your eyes when you enter Rwanda. But to be witnessed at an airport suggests greater heights of consciousness of cleanliness to the level where it becomes a geographically unrestrained act of diplomacy – an export of the character of a sovereign.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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