{"id":1079,"date":"2011-06-24T06:27:49","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T06:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2011\/06\/24\/tp-saran-53\/"},"modified":"2020-03-08T12:06:14","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T08:06:14","slug":"tp-saran-53","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/tp-saran-53\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda Leapfrogs on Singapore Highway"},"content":{"rendered":"
With English as Teaching Medium<\/u><\/span><\/h5>\n

\u00a0By<\/strong>\u00a0TP Saran\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is a country where there are no mud huts, <\/strong>no litter of plastic bags, no beggars, no one going barefoot, where the motorcyclists wear helmets and fluorescent jackets, where appointments are kept on time, where policemen ask for nothing other than your documents, where the environment is protected like a national treasure, where smoking is condemned, where there are no open sewers or potholes in the streets, where one can stroll around without any fear at any time of the night, where one sleeps early to get up early, where a working day means actual work done, and where power cuts in the capital are as rare as road accidents. Singapore? No \u2013 Rwanda, population 10 million, that barely 15 years ago was the theatre of a bitter ethnic strife that left more than a million dead.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Paul Kagame, its leader, decided to look to the future, although the scars of the recent past remain. He decided to ban any reference officially to the Hutu or Tutsi community, and is pitiless towards those who are corrupt. The current growth rate of Rwanda is 8% and several big hotel chains have already established themselves there; FDI is flowing in, and the country has impressive airline connectivity. From the energy supply point of view there is huge potential for the use of methane from Lake Kivu, and Rwanda is already positioning itself as a regional technology hub.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul Kagame decided that the official, and teaching language of his formerly francophone country would be English, and this is \u2018une directive appliqu\u00e9e \u00e0 la lettre<\/em>\u2019 \u2013 according to the author of the interview \u2013 conducted in English \u2013 which appeared in the French magazine Le Point<\/em> of May 7, 2011. The last books Kagame has read are Naked Economics <\/em>by Charles Wheelam and Competitive Strategy <\/em>by Michael Porter. His favourite drinks are water and tea, and the following two question-answers reveal the man\u2019s vision for his country:<\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Quel est votre \u00e9tat d\u2019esprit en ce moment?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Serein. D\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 agir pour construire le futur. Optimiste avec raison pour l\u2019avenir de mon pays, mais pas optimiste b\u00e9at, car on ne b\u00e2tit rien sans effort permanent.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Que pensez-vous de ce questionnaire\u00a0?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 D\u00e9cid\u00e9ment, je n\u2019aime gu\u00e8re parler de moi.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

But more telling was his reply to the last question he was asked:<\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Votre actuel et dernier mandat s\u2019ach\u00e8ve en 2017. Le Rwanda pourra-t-il vivre sans vous\u00a0?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Le contraire serait un \u00e9chec pour moi et pour le pays\u2026 Certains disent que ce sera le chaos, d\u2019autres que je m\u2019accrocherai au pouvoir. En r\u00e9alit\u00e9, vous le verrez bien, quitte \u00e0 \u00eatre surpris\u00a0: le leadership changera de main, mais le chemin et la direction resteront le m\u00eame.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>And, in reply to another question, he had said that \u2018ici, les gens votent pour la s\u00e9curit\u00e9, le niveau de vie, la justice, la r\u00e9conciliation. <\/em>C\u2019est-\u00e0-dire pour l\u2019essentiel.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Talk of visionary leadership\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 24 June 2011<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With English as Teaching Medium<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":6560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28],"tags":[22201,22202,587,22199,22198,22203,114,22200],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-affairs","tag-charles-wheelam","tag-competitive-strategy","tag-michael-porter","tag-paul-kagame","tag-rwanda-leapfrogs","tag-teaching-medium","tag-tp-saran","tag-tutsi-community"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MT-Logokk.jpg?fit=1200%2C880&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-hp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}