--You’ve been called the entrepreneur president. Why do you believe that entrepreneurship is so important to Rwanda and other African nations?

Kagame: Entrepreneurship is important to Rwanda and other Africa nations especially because in broad terms it unlocks the energies and innovations of people. And through these efforts they’re able to do things that benefit them. They feel that’s more effective than being dependent, as has been the case for so many years. So my job in Rwanda has been to encourage Rwandans to understand their opportunities and to be sure that these opportunities are being made clear to them. We facilitate these opportunities to be availed to them so they can invest in their hard work in different activities that will make them feel empowered. They’re able to work for their living rather than to wait for somebody to do the work for them. It takes time. There’s an issue of changing the attitude, the mindset. The Rwandese have been made to see themselves as poor and dependent on people who will provide for them. If they’re sick, somebody will show up with medicine. If they’re hungry, somebody will show up for food for them. This has been very crippling.

--So the aid culture has really been crippling to your society?

Kagame: That’s the way I see it. Both those who gave aid in the past and those who have been receiving it haven’t seen this as limited in time. They thought it was a relationship that would go on forever. From experience, what we have seen, we have tried to separate from the past. We have seen this.

--This is one of your core principles. Broaden a bit. What are your several core principles in leading the change in economic development in Rwanda?

Kagame: It’s all based on, one, making people understand that they do have within themselves what it takes to enable them to uplift themselves. The other thing is doing it in a dignified way. If we started by having the people waiting for others to come and feed them, that relationship is not correct and is not good for any nation. Hard work. And people understanding they need to do for themselves. In fact, what we have found out in recent times is some of the problems are solvable. We’re raising questions, for example, I’ve been asking my own people whether they understand that in terms of aid the money that comes to them is actually money from taxes paid by citizens of other countries. I keep asking why they feel somebody from another country should be paying a tax to feed these people. Why can’t they themselves raise their own level to that of other countries? They have come to feel they owe them a living. We have to destroy that. And we destroy that by demonstrating that it’s not correct. It’s not in the bible for the Christians, or in whatever book, that there are people in this world who should provide things and others who should depend on them. We have to work hard and raise ourselves.

--Is that a result of colonialism--that people feel they were taken advantage of in the past and now deserve some payback?

Kagame: Colonialism has created a lot of negative effects. Before colonialism you learn in history that many things happened in Africa and other poor places, there were advances, in some cases scientific. But over time the colonialists came and they abandoned all of that. They embraced not only what was brought by the colonialists, but expected the colonialists to keep supplying them. Over time, this dependency and the mentality of dependency developed. Then, over time, and in recent days, we have developed non-government organizations who move into place. They are providers for everything the people need and have not encouraged the people themselves to be able to advance their own programs. They want to always be there and to take care of them. As you look, it is much easier for people to get used to have their programs served by others than to resolve their own problems. It’s human nature. If you get somebody used to the idea that they don’t have to work very hard, that somebody else will come and do for them, they tend to sit back and do nothing.