1/x: A Rwandan friend wrote yesterday:

“‘Patriots, they are stealing your country!’
‘You know who the enemy is and you know what to do!’
‘Be vigilant. Fight now. Or they will steal what is yours.’

You may think I’m quoting USA rhetoric. No. This is 1990-1994. Country? Rwanda.”

2/x: “What happened in the USA is in many ways uniquely American. But I was thirteen when Rwanda descended into deadly chaos. The following can be said of both situations. To start, there were leaders. Leaders and their influential lieutenants with a ton of crowd charisma.”

3/x: “Leaders who mastered the art of repetition and used it to hammer home the most simplistic of messages. ‘You are good, they are bad; defend yourselves or else it is the end of you; you are the victims here, so fight for yourselves.’“

4/x: “Leaders who latched onto ‘factual matters proof, real or imaginary, to defend their rhetoric.

There were militant groups with pompous names. Groups that vowed to fight and pledged to do whatever it would take to take ‘it’ back and preserve ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ was.”

5/x: “And behind them were ordinary people who believed they were acting in the leaders’ name. When the wheels of justice turned, the leaders claimed what their followers did was not what they had intended. Their comments had been misinterpreted. Too few took responsibility.”

6/x: “It has now come to this. America needs to defend America against Americans who are violently attacking Americans. The sentence sounds abnormal. But replace the word 'America' with ‘Africa’ or an African country and many people will think it more normal.”

7/x: “If there is a society that believes they are inherently spared from any possibility of internal bloodshed, they need to think again. No one is that different from other people who violently fought their fellow citizens in distant or in recent history.”

8/x: “Sadly, the worst might be yet to come in the USA. Almost anyone can walk into a gun shop and come out smiling. And not just extremists. Many well-meaning and educated Americans were part of the Capitol mob. Mothers. Fathers. Grandparents. An Olympic champion.”

9/x: “As hard as it is to hear, nothing was wrong with some them. In Rwanda, I saw neighbors turn into killers. I hope the Capitol riot is a shock big enough for those who should wake up to take purposeful action. A hidden blessing. I hope America will emerge stronger.”

10/x: “There really exist conditions under which we suspend judgement and wholly lend ourselves to a collective that seeks to achieve an objective no matter the cost. Fear and anger can be invisible but boiling. If you are unaware of their signs, they will deal with you.”

11/x: “But the worst is when leaders decide to capitalize on these feelings. Because there are people with much talent who use it to fan, grow, and use your fear and anger.”