The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World

Musekeweya, or New Dawn, is a popular radio show created by George Weiss. The main characters are the lovers Batamuriza and Shema, who are from two villages at odds with each other. The narrative is a metaphor for the Rwandan genocide. Weiss chose radio as the medium for his show to help fix the harm radio caused the Rwandan people (as it incited many killings). The show’s message intentionally focuses on reconciliation and healing in the hopes of rebuilding empathy between the Hutus and Tutsis (the main perpetuators and victims of the genocide).

Psychological fixism is the belief that “no matter where human nature resides, it is assumed to be constant and immutable” (19). During the 19th and early-20th centuries, people used this concept to defend slavery and a hierarchy of inferior and superior races. While such ideas have since been rejected, psychologists still believed in the fixity of human nature (including empathy) well into the 20th century. It took a series of experiments on both human and non-human species for the scientific community to completely disavow psychological fixism. Today, researchers and scientists believe one’s environment and genes shape their nature.

Zaki describes the belief that empathy is a fixed trait as the Roddenberry hypothesis, “because Gene Roddenberry enshrined it in the greatest television show of all time, Star Trek: The Next Generation” (10). The character Deanna Troi, the counselor on the USS Enterprise, exhibits deep empathy. Troi’s empathy comes from her species; she was born with empathy. Roddenberry contrasts Troi with android Data, who does not understand others’ emotions; Data was programmed to lack empathy. The Roddenberry hypothesis comprises two assumptions: The first assumption is that empathy is a fixed trait that does not change over time, while the second assumption is that “our experience of [empathy] in any given moment is a reflex, instantaneous and automatic” (12). Zaki ultimately debunks the Roddenberry hypothesis.

The Rwandan genocide occurred over a 100-day period in 1994. After a plane carrying President Habyarimana was shot down, a radio message told Hutus, the country’s ethnic majority, to kill their neighbors, the Tutsis. This messaging helped fuel the conflict. During this time, Hutu extremists murdered over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, and two million people (mainly Hutus) left the country. International response to the conflict was slow, which caused further loss of life.