In How Dare The Sun Rise, author Sandra Uwiringiyimana recounts her ordeal at a Banyamulenge tribe refugee camp and how she and her family survived the harrowing ordeal. They provided meager food and water rations, barely enough to live. While there, National Liberation Front (NLF) rebels brutalized and targeted Banyamulenge tribal members for extinction. Rebels killed many refugees who lived in the camp. Additionally, the food rations were quite meager, just barely enough to survive. Uwiringiyimana tells how difficult and dehumanizing life is the refugee camp was, yet she and her family managed to maintain their dignity and hope. Uwiringiyimana dreams of a better life for her family in America. They eventually get out of the camp and emigrate to the USA. In the U.S., she becomes a staunch activist passionately sharing her story about the atrocities taking place at the refugee camp.
I chose this book because of the book cover had a photo of a gorgeous Black teenager whose eyes revealed depth and wisdom beyond her years which also spoke of a deeply rooted inner strength. Seeing her intriguing countenance made me want to read her story. When I saw her face, it compelled me to read the novel. Also, the title intrigued me; I wanted to know what she meant with the question, “How Dare The Sun Rise?”. The book’s title infers that she is saying, “How dare life go on when there are so much pain and injustice. Doesn’t anyone or anything notice or care? How can you not see or hear about what is happening?! The entire world should stop and rise up against these atrocities!”
What I already knew about this topic is that there are refugee camps in many regions of the world. I knew that in various countries in the African continent, criminals kidnapped, brainwashed, and coerced children into killing families and friends. I have heard that the camps were places where people went to get help after being chased out of their village or country and knew that displaced families resided in those places for weeks and months, but not years. What I hoped to learn from reading this book is what Uwiringiyimana thought about her life in the Congo, refugee camp, and in America.
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The author’s purpose in writing this book is multifold: tell her people’s story, speak for the “voiceless”, and justice. She wants to convey her people’s story in her own way, through her eyes. Uwiringiyimana says, “I wrote this book because I was tired of outsiders always writing my history, my present, and my future. I was tired of simply existing between the lines of articles and books that were written by people who had never met me and knew very little of what it was like to be me.” (278). When outsiders told her story, it was invariably full of misinformation. She got fed up with outsiders stating how uneducated, starved, and dejected her people were. Not only was it not true, it was completely ignorant.
Also, Uwiringiyimana speaks on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves stating, “I wrote (this) to tell my story, Deborah’s story, and the stories of the millions of people who feel invisible. I refuse to let the lives that were lost in Gatumba be forgotten.” (278). Many of her tribe were brutally murdered, including her little sister and no longer had a voice to tell their tragic tales. She feels that the international community turned a deaf ear to her countrymen’s plight, therefore, Uwiringiyimana uses this novel as a platform for her activism to speak on behalf of her marginalized tribespeople.
And lastly, the author wants the reader to know that she seeks justice for her murdered and brutalized countrymen saying, “I refuse to stop seeking justice. I refuse to be silenced. Even with my last breath, I will seek justice for Gatumba.” (278). Uwiringiyimana is driven to bring to justice the criminals who waged war upon her tribe and slaughtered innocent children and adults. She cannot rest until she sees those murderers held accountable for their crimes. To sum it up, she not only wants the criminals brought to justice, but Uwiringiyimana wants to put a personal face on those refugees so that people will relate to them as valuable human beings, not just victims of war criminals. She wants people to see that refugees have the same goals and aspirations as anyone else. She hopes her book inspires people to show love and compassion toward all refugees whose lives were in jeopardy. Her goal is to humanize refugees in the eyes of the world and make people care about them. She hopes to shed light on the plight of her people and desires that refugees would be viewed as people who have the same hopes and dreams for their children, and accordingly, have the same God-given natural rights.
What I learned from this book and what made me think the most is the idea that Uwiringiyimana really enjoyed her childhood living in the Congo. Until I read the book, I had the same ignorant assumptions that most have; I assumed that Congo had few teachers or resources and little joy. To my great surprise, Uwiringiyimana’s life was filled with joy and contentment. She loved attending school with the other kids, played, had a beautiful family, had good food to eat and was happy. There were some local skirmishes, but that was viewed as inconveniences that occurred throughout in the Congo region; the small conflicts did not disrupt their lives much. The tribes just evacuated the villages when they heard about local disturbances.
In America, that would be analogous to tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and earthquakes where we live with and prepare for these regular phenomena, and we simply proceed with our daily lives. It was refreshing to learn she had a great life, adored going to school, and being with her family and friends, just like I do. The fact she had a happy, normal life, and that she still considers the Congo a beautiful place to live and grow up was so unexpected. Prior to reading this, I thought the Congo was impoverished, barren place. I was stunned to find that there were schools in the Congo and that the children were quite educated. After undergoing such extreme trauma in the refugee camp, the fact that the author still has a positive, high opinion of the Congo is intriguing and causes me to do more research in that region. Furthermore, what I found really foreign was the concept that children could grow up healthy, happy, productive, contributive, though surrounded by violence.
It made me think about how growing up in Stockton, we have some unruly people who incite turmoil, yet, we do not allow that fact to steal our joy, we simply acknowledge that there are some issues, and we continue thriving; we avoid those bad situations. I know that Americans would be completely traumatized living under those conditions, but Uwiringiyimana’s people continued on with their daily lives under that circumstance; their minds accepted that situation as normal and therefore they adapted to their environment, and adjusted their behaviors for success. They saw loved ones murdered and were very sad as a result, but through it all, they remained kind and loving people. As a matter of fact, they were actually quite happy and surprisingly well-adjusted people even after the worst tragedies struck them. This viscerally demonstrates how God made us so resilient and able to overcome environments, obstacles, and challenges.
One specific question that I would like to ask the Uwiringiyimana is “Why didn’t you and your family go to Grandma’s house as planned in the first place?” Additionally I would ask, “Why didn’t you leave before the killers arrived?” Also, I still want to know what is behind all the many wars going on where Uwiringiyimana lived? Is it really merely based on ethnic tribal differences, or are these dissensions backed by governments who actively work to instigate and perpetuate tribal divisions to keep the region unstable; these governments then control and manipulate these conflicts for their own selfish gain.
I even wonder if powerful global multi-billionaires are orchestrating these strifes to profit from them, i.e., to influence the stock market, to manipulate gold and other mineral prices, etc.? I have so many more questions I would ask her in person, so I would consider reading more on this issue. It pertains to many important issues that American media largely ignores and chooses not to report. It is quite relevant to us because the same atrocities could happen on U.S. soil if we are foolish enough to think it could never happen here. We need wisdom to correctly discern the current social and political atmosphere because the world governments are becoming increasingly corrupt, controlling, and manipulative.
There are many reasons that reading a fictional novel is different and easier than reading a nonfiction book. First off, when reading a fictional novel, I know it is not real. My emotions are easier to deal with knowing it is only make-believe. I know the characters are not actual people who need help or prayers. Nonfiction, however, is much more challenging. It requires an emotional commitment and a response to take some sort of action. My emotions are often in a state of cognitive dissonance. I cannot easily wrap my mind around the subject because it is too emotionally disturbing to deal with. I cannot accept what I am reading when it deals with horrible things that really happen.
Knowing that many atrocities are being perpetrated upon defenseless people or animals makes me want to stop reading, but I know I have to keep reading because something is wrong that needs to be addressed. It makes me want to rise up and help those who are being adversely affected by man’s injustice and inhumanity. It takes me longer to read nonfiction, but it is hard to put it down. I feel compelled to finish to see how the people deal with their ordeals. Emotionally, I need to feel that things turned out “okay” despite any suffering the writer endured. I am compelled to pray and intercede to plant a seed of faith into a situation. For this reason, I am driven to finish the story no matter how painful it is to read about their suffering. But I find it rewarding, just the same.
My reading strategy differs when reading these two types of books. I can read straight through when reading fiction and I am able to process my emotions quickly since I am not actually invested in reality. A good fiction novel causes me to make intriguing and creative correlations between the socio-political situation in various eras and fictional novel events; I can do this without having to grapple with the disconcerting spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical discord that nonfiction often evokes. Horror stories cannot scare me the way nonfiction can.
When reading nonfiction, I have to take my time to emotionally digest and even pray my way through it so I can wrap my mind and emotions around the subject. It takes me longer to read through nonfiction, as a result. I feel better after reading nonfiction because it forces me to work through difficult soul-piercing issues, i.e., rage at injustices that target helpless children such as the “child-soldiers.” Frankly I do not have a preference for fiction over nonfiction. I enjoy reading both because they each have their own benefits, as I previously mentioned.
