The Courage to Forgive

A reflection on forgiveness, healing, and the quiet strength that rebuilds a nation.

“There are many words in the language of healing, but none are as misunderstood—or as powerful—as forgiveness.”

For many years, forgiveness to me felt like betrayal.

How could I forgive what destroyed my childhood?

How could a nation forgive what was done to its people?

After the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, forgiveness wasn’t something we were taught—it was something we had to grow into. It came from brokenness. It was born in the aftermath of silence, in homes where mothers raised orphans and fathers were too haunted to speak. It grew in the hearts of those who chose to plant seeds again on land that had known so much blood.

Last week, I had the privilege to speak at Cal State LA. (Thank you Professor Lisa Sueki for making it happen) to a group of social work and social justice students. Toward the end of my talk, a student asked me a question I’ll never forget.

I had just shared a short documentary I helped create back in 2013 for the 20th commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi. In it, I interviewed people from all walks of life - survivors, returnees, community leaders, and even perpetrators still serving their sentences.

“Forgiveness isn’t the end of the story, it’s the beginning of a new one.”

The student looked at me and asked, “Did you ever feel like you were betraying your people by talking to the perpetrators?”

It was a powerful question—one that took me back to the early years of my healing.

I told him I didn’t feel like I was betraying anyone. I was documenting truth, gathering stories that could help my country understand itself again. But the word “betrayal” stayed with me. Because for a long time, that’s exactly what forgiveness had felt like.

Growing up, forgiveness seemed like turning my back on my family members who were killed—like speaking a language the dead could not answer. It felt too early, too impossible, too unfair.

So instead, I chose a word that felt safer: acceptance.

Acceptance meant I could live with what had happened without pretending it didn’t.

Acceptance meant I could honor the dead by living well.

Forgiveness, I thought, was for saints. But life had other lessons to teach me.

While filming that documentary, I interviewed a man who had once been a perpetrator. He told me his story with a tremor in his voice. During the genocide, he was ordered to kill his own wife and children—because his wife was Tutsi. For days, he refused. But eventually, under threat of being killed alongside them, he obeyed.

One of his children—his youngest—escaped and was later raised by his mother’s sister, a deeply faithful woman who taught him about forgiveness.

Ten years later, that boy went to prison to forgive his father.

I will never forget the man’s eyes when he told me this story. They were hollow, like they had forgotten how to hold light.

I realized then that he had never forgiven himself.

The forgiveness, I think now, was never for him—it was for the child. The child who chose not to live with hatred. The child who refused to let his father’s actions poison his own soul.

That is when I began to understand that forgiveness isn’t about excusing the inexcusable. It’s about refusing to let the past imprison you.

Years later, when I was interning at Entertainment Tonight in Los Angeles, my boss read my first book, Embracing Survival. He called me into his office and told me how inspired he was by the forgiveness in my story.

I laughed softly and said, “Oh, I don’t think I’ve found forgiveness—I’ve only found acceptance.”

He looked at me and said, “Dydine, maybe forgiveness is what acceptance looks like when it’s finally at peace.”

That moment changed something in me. I realized that I had forgiven without knowing I had. I had forgiven each time I chose not to let pain define me. Each time I chose to love, to rebuild, to live with purpose.

Forgiveness had quietly become my freedom.

It didn’t mean I had to hug those who caused the pain. It didn’t mean I had to forget. It simply meant I refused to let the past walk through my mind with its dirty feet.

Forgiveness in Rwanda did not begin with peace—it began with courage. The courage of mothers who raised children not their own. The courage of neighbors who built side by side again. The courage of a generation that learned to say I see you instead of I hate you.

For me, forgiveness is still a daily practice. Some days, it looks like compassion. Other days, it looks like tears.

But always, it is a choice to keep my humanity intact in a world that tried to take it away.

Forgiveness is not the end of the story—it is the beginning of a new one.

And it takes courage to begin again.

Dydine at Cal State LA 2025

“Forgiveness is not about letting someone else go. It’s about setting yourself free”