In Rwanda, the word imbwa is among the most contemptuous insults one can hurl at another. In contrast, for some good reasons, inkaâ€"the cowâ€"is the embodiment of beauty, honor, and social prestige. This blatant irreconcilable difference reveals something profound about how language not only reflects but also sustains cultural values, moral hierarchies, and even historical prejudices.
But dogs, as anyone who has met or lived with one knows, are not revolting. They are faithful. They mourn the dead. They guard the vulnerable. We live in a world where dogs detect explosives and narcotics, rescue disaster victims, and provide emotional support to the disabled. Surely, the metaphorical debasement of this loyal animal deserves critical scrutiny.
This article sets out to dismantle the unfair cultural and linguistic demonization of dogs in Rwandan society. Drawing on real events, scripture, history, and raw sarcasm, it challenges us to reflect on what dogs reveal about human moralityâ€"and human failure. For if we insist on judging others through metaphor, then let the metaphor be just. Let it be honest. And let it, at long last, be fair to the dog and even beasts.
The philosopher Jacques Derrida, in his 2002 lecture 'The Animal That Therefore I Am,' somehow bewailed how humans define themselves through their supposed superiority to animalsâ€"using the word 'animal' as an undifferentiated, belittling category. Derrida made it well-known that this linguistic arrogance allows for violence to be justified, projected outward to both animals and other humans (Critical Inquiry, 2002). As he put it: 'Animal is a word that men have given themselves the right to give.'
Examination of the Word "Imbwa" in Kinyarwanda
You don't need to be highly qualified in linguistics to realize that in Rwandan culture, the dog is both linguistically and morally disregarded. The Kinyarwanda term 'imbwa' is not an unbiased descriptorâ€"it is an insult, a metaphor of feebleness, duplicity, disgrace, and hopelessness.
There are several examples:
First, 'guha imbwa amaboko' â€" or to give dogs your arms, is to be utterly exhausted, as if physically handing oneself over to futility.
There is 'Gutuma imbwa kurahura'â€" meaning, to make dogs lick in vain or bring fire for youâ€"is to suggest barrenness or lack of continuity, particularly in reference to infertility.
We have an expression, so and so is 'inyana y'imbwa' or 'dog's calf' which means a worthless offspring, signifying inherited disgrace.
Rwandans say: Umuntu usabiliza atabuze amaboko aba ari imbwa â€" One who begs despite having hands is a dog: equating laziness with canine status.
There is also: Kubona uneshwa n'umwana byerekana ko uri imbwa â€" Being beaten by a child proves you're a dog: expressing cowardice or pusillanimity.
All these figures of speech project a view of dogs as undesirable creatures, fit only to symbolize disgrace, failure, cowardice, and worthlessness. They are not simple or innocent descriptorsâ€"they are condemnations. The semioticist Roland Barthes warned of the 'mythologies' embedded in everyday speechâ€"how language turns ideology into common sense (Mythologies. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957). In Rwanda's linguistic landscape, imbwa has been mythologized into an anti-value, a term of existential defamation.
As philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein remarked, 'The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.' (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922.)
If we condemn a creature through language, we set the limits of empathy, ethics, and justice against it.
Ideological 'imbwa' in dehumanization
These linguistic patterns are not innocuous. They play a crucial role in shaping social attitudes and even political ideologies. During the Genocide Against the Tutsi in 1994, the words 'imbwa z'Abatutsi' or 'Tutsi dogs', was systematically used in hate radio broadcasts by RTLM and other extremist media to refer to Tutsis as nasty. It was part of the process of psychological preparation for mass extermination.
As linguist Deborah Cameron has argued, 'Language is never just a mirror of reality; it is part of the system by which reality is constructed' (Verbal Hygiene. London: Routledge, 1995). To call someone a dog is not only to demean them, but to initiate a social order in which their extermination becomes conceivable, even desirable.
George Orwell, in his book Politics and the English Language (1946), warned that 'if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.' Rwanda's genocidal rhetoric illustrates that precisely. The corruption of thought begins with metaphor.
That language persists in everyday expressions, even decades after the genocide, should alarm anyone concerned with peacebuilding and national healing. It is very important to remember and accept that words are not lifeless vessels of meaningâ€"they are ideological weapons or moral compasses.
It is crucial to observe the trend and compare this with the treatment of dogs in other societies. In much of the Americas and Europe, dogs are considered 'man's best friend.' They are symbols of loyalty, valor, and friendliness. In ancient Greek mythology, the three-headed dog Cerberus guards the gates of Hades. In Egypt, Anubisâ€"the jackal-headed deityâ€"presided over embalming and the afterlife, holding significant divine status.
Even in Islamic traditions where dogs are considered ritualistically tainted, they are not despised. Guard dogs, hunting dogs, and herding dogs are considered part of God's natural order. A friend of mine informed me that Holy Qur'an includes a story about the 'People of the Cave,' who were accompanied by a faithful dog during their religious exile.
In Chinese astrology, people born in the Year of the Dog are thought to possess trustworthiness, integrity, and loyalty. In Zoroastrianism, dogs are spiritual protectors of the dead. These associations reflect what ethicist Mary Midgley called 'moral reverence for the other-than-human'â€"a reverence absent in cultures that demonize animals linguistically (Animals and Why They Matter. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983.)
Ethologist Konrad Lorenz, father of modern behavioral biology, wrote: 'The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift. It demands no less binding moral obligations than the friendship of a human being.' (Man Meets Dog. Methuen, 1954) The contrast with how humans treat each other during genocide could not be starker.
As earlier demonstrated, Rwandan linguistic idioms reflect a uniquely negative view of dogsâ€"one so deeply ingrained that it has infected even moral philosophy. But this view is not only unfair; it is untenable in light of actual animal behavior.
In contrast, the worst atrocities of historyâ€"from biblical genocides to the Holocaust to the Genocide Against the Tutsiâ€"were perpetrated not by canines, but by humans. Some even wore priestly robes or doctoral gowns.
A Sight of Revulsion and Loyalty in Gitarama
Towards the end of June 1994, I came upon a house in the former prefecture of Gitarama, not far from Ntenyo. What I saw there was not merely evidence of genocide, but the theater of cruelty, a carefully scripted symphony of evil designed to extract not just life, but dignity.
The victim was an elderly Tutsi woman. Her killersâ€"no beasts, but fellow Rwandansâ€"had mastered the art of slow death. They did not slit her throat or crush her skull. No, that would be too quick, too merciful. Instead, they sliced off her left arm at the armpit, severing it from the shoulder.
Then, they cut her right leg at the knee, leaving it dangling, horrifically. She was rendered totally immobile, unbalancedâ€"unable to crawl or call for help. Her murderers left her to bleed to death, trapped in her own body. She did not die in a blaze of hate. She died slowly, hopelessly, alone.
Or so the genocidaires thought. Her dogâ€"a simple, loyal creatureâ€"was locked inside the house with her. The killers assumed it would eventually devour her in desperation. They bet on its hunger overriding its love. But when we entered the house more than two months later, the scene disproved every allegory we've ever applied to dogs and animals.
There lay the woman's skeleton. Next to her was the dog's. Not a single bone disturbed. They had died together. The dog refused to eat its friend. It chose starvation over betrayal.
So let us ask again: who was the imbwa? The ones who dismembered an old woman with surgical sadism? Or the creature that stayed beside her, loyal to the end? If Rwanda still uses the word 'dog' as an insult, then this momentâ€"this simple, heart-rending sceneâ€"should make us think again.
Contrast that with the actions of humans during that same period: killers betrayed godparents, neighbors, lovers, and biological kin. Priests handed over congregants. Doctors poisoned patients. Friends led each other to execution. In that moral abyss, the dog remained faithful. So ask yourself: Who, indeed, is the animal? Who, between the dog and the human, proved morally superior?
Unfair labelling murderers 'Animals'
In post genocide Rwanda, there is another linguistic crime against animals. The tendency to describe cruelest genocidaires as 'animals' or 'inyamaswa.' But is that accurateâ€"or even fair to animals?
Let us look at the evidence. Animals don't commit genocide. They kill for food or self-defense, not out of ethnic hatred. Carnivores do not orchestrate extermination campaigns against their kind. Lions do not massacre fellow lions based on their stripes or clan affiliations. Even hyenas do not drag other hyenas into mass graves.
Yet humansâ€"the supposed apex of moral reasoningâ€"have authored every genocide in history:
Do people remember the Biblical Genocides? I highly doubt: The so-called 'loving God' of the Old Testament repeatedly ordered the total annihilation of peoplesâ€"men, women, children, and livestock. The destruction of Jericho (Joshua 6), the extermination of Amalekites (1 Samuel 15:3), and the utter obliteration of Midianites (Numbers 31) are just a few divine mandates for ethnic cleansing.
Another evidence is the deadly biblical flood. Noah's Ark story remains a real nightmare. Just imagine, God floods the entire earth, sparing only one family and a selection of animalsâ€"in what can only be described as a divine genocide. Yes, ordered by none other than Yahweh. An entire planet submerged. Babies, elders, treesâ€"and yes, animalsâ€"killed en masse. Their only crime? Coexisting with humans. If Noah's Ark saved a few, it was no thanks to those who built their theology atop global genocide. (Genesis 6-9).
The holy scripture tells another story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Fire and brimstone fell from the sky like divine napalm. Every creature, present in the areaâ€"two-legged, four-legged, and wingedâ€"perished. All because of human sins. Who gets blamed? The cities. Who gets burned? The donkeys, the dogs, the pigeons. The crime? Moral corruption, the solution? Total annihilation in the heavenly ordered inferno (Genesis 19).
The Crusades: Religious zealots waged holy wars, slaughtering Jews, Muslims, and even Eastern Christians. These crusaders were not animals with sharp teeth or venomous snakes, but robed priests with sharper tongues.
The Inquisition: Systematic torture and execution of 'heretics'â€"again by fellow humans, not wolves or leopards.
The Third Reich: The Holocaustâ€"the most mechanized form of genocide ever conceivedâ€"was the product of human ingenuity, not bestial instinct.
The Americas, Australia and beyond: The extermination of Indigenous peoples, including the genocide in Tasmania, where entire Aboriginal groups were hunted to extinction, was not caused by snakes, scorpions, viruses, lions or cheetahs, but by colonists with rifles and racist ideology. In Australia more broadly, massacres, poisonings, and forced removals were state-sanctioned methods of cultural and physical annihilation.
During the infamous Transatlantic Slave Trade, over 12 million Africans were trafficked across oceans by Christian nations, chained and packed like cargo. Millions died en route or in brutal plantation systems. The architects of this horror were not tigers, but merchants, monarchs, and missionaries.
These facts in history must make humans to stop vilifying animals for sins they have never committed. The next time someone says, 'He behaved like a beast,' perhaps the more accurate phrase is: 'He behaved like a human stripped of conscience.'
Reorienting Imbwa and Regaining Humanity
Sincerely dogs deserve a better name. It is time to have another look at our comparisons and have a new dictionary. If a dog can remain loyal amid genocide, while humans turn butcher, who then is the real beast?
We certainly need a new lexiconâ€"one that reflects reality and morality, not prejudice and projection. We need to: Stop using imbwa as an insult. Retire animal metaphors that dehumanize both animals and humans. We should educate children that moral value is not species-specific.
In Rwanda's national memory, we need to document stories like that of the faithful dog in Gitarama as part of genocide memorialization.
Language evolves. Cultures change. Societies heal. Rwanda has transformed itself in many ways since 1994â€"but the metaphor of the dog still lingers like an unhealed wound. Let's now heal it.
The dogs white lie, remembering the one in Gitarama in1994, has something to teach us about ourselves. Dogsâ€"unlike usâ€"do not kill for pleasure. They do not devise hate propaganda like Adolf Hitler, Gregory Kayibanda or Juvenal Habyarimana's murderous regimes. They do not steal from or betray their kin. They do not rape or enslave.
Perhaps their greatest lesson lies not in what they do, but in what they refuse to do. A dog will not sell its master for thirty silver coins. It will not abandon the wounded. It will not participate in extermination.
Humans, on the other hand, possess a dark genius for organized cruelty. From the transatlantic slave trade to atomic bombings, from ghettoization to gas chambers, from machetes and grenades to vitriolic propagandaâ€"our evil is industrial, institutional, and ideological.
So when a dog refuses to eat its dying owner, it is not just an anecdote. It is a theological challenge. It forces humanity especially Christians to ask: Who really bears the image of God?
The 20th-century theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, 'The opposite of good is not evil, it is indifference.' (The Prophets. Harper & Row, 1962) But animals are not indifferent. They grieve. They protect. They remember. It is not just humans who form moral communities.
Your Honors of the Great Moral Court of History, allow me to present my closing arguments on behalf of the accusedâ€"namely, the animal kingdom.
First of all, let us be done with the lie that genocidaires are 'like animals.' No animal has ever engineered gas chambers. No beast has drafted an ideology of racial supremacy. The most efficient murderers in history have walked on two feet, quoted scripture, and collected academic degrees. Meanwhile, as revealed, the divine record is not spotless.
Back to Rwanda, before and during the genocide in 1994. While PhDs like Ferdinand Nahimana and Leon Mugesera fueled hate with eloquence, and colonels like Bagosora planned extermination logistics with military precision, it was clergyâ€"men and women of Godâ€"who locked Tutsi parishioners inside churches and invited bulldozers. Meanwhile, dogs were howling in mourning, not chanting for murder.
Yet here we are, calling murderers 'animals,' and innocent dogs 'imbwa'â€"a term of revulsion. What if the real scandal is that the so-called beasts were better humans than some humans themselves?
So I say: spare the animals, prosecute the metaphors, and rehabilitate the dog. Because if loyalty, innocence, and moral consistency still count for something, then perhaps it's time the courtroom of language issued a long-overdue acquittal.
As primatologist Frans de Waal argued, 'We do not stand apart from the animal kingdom; we are part of it. We do not need religion to tell us what we already share with them: compassion, fairness, loyalty' (The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society. Harmony, 2009).
Ecofeminist Carol J. Adams adds: 'Animals are not voiceless. They are intentionally silenced.' (The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. Continuum, 1990). In Rwanda, that silencing is also done linguistically, through idioms and everyday speech. It is high time the voiceless were heard.
If beasts have never built gas chambers or dropped atomic bombs on civilians, perhaps they deserve something better than metaphorical exile.
Conclusion
Language is power. It can wound, liberate, indoctrinate, or redeem. For too long, Rwandan culture has used the word imbwa to mean failure, filth, or betrayal. But the dog of Gitaramaâ€"and thousands more like itâ€"defy that slander.
Rehabilitating 'imbwa' is not just about impartiality to dogs. It is about reclaiming the moral compass of Kinyarwanda language itself. In doing so, we reclaim something more profound: our humanity.
It is my heartfelt submission, the next time you hear someone called an imbwa, ask: Have they shown more loyalty than their accuser? Have they guarded the truth, refused to betray, stood by the wounded relative or friend? If so, perhaps being called imbwa is not an insultâ€"but a misunderstood compliment.
Let us Rwandans change the meaning. Let us change the word. Let us change ourselves.
If dogs could talk, they would tell us that fidelity is not naivety, that courage is not loud but silent. And, that love is shown in moments of extreme fear and despair. They would say: "We did not invent genocide. You did. And yet, you call us names."
If I may suggest, the first step toward being truly human is to stop behaving worse than the animals we so casually insult.
I rest my case.
Tom Ndahiro
Source : https://en.igihe.com/opinion/article/rehabilitating-dogs-and-other-beasts
