Personal Responsibility

25 min

"They made me do it"

Article 49 of Rwanda's Constitution, as published in 2023, contains a sentence that every citizen should know by heart:

"Every Rwandan has the duty to defy superior orders if they constitute a serious and obvious violation of human rights and freedoms."

The sentence answers the oldest excuse there is: "I was only following orders." In law and in conscience, a person remains responsible for what they choose to do, even under pressure. Rwanda honours people who acted on this. During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Félicité Niyitegeka ran the Centre Saint Pierre in Gisenyi, where Tutsi had taken refuge. Her brother, an officer in the army of the time, sent people to take her to safety and asked her to leave those sheltering with her. She refused, and chose to die with them. She is a national hero of the Imena category, and the Centre is now kept as Igicumbi cy'Ubumuntu, the Hearth of Humanity (CHENO).

Most of your choices will be far less dramatic: whether to revise, whether to tell the truth, whether to forward a message. The principle is the same. This lesson is about owning your choices.

Definition

Personal responsibility: accepting that you are the author of your own choices and actions, and of their consequences, and acting accordingly.

Accountability: being willing to explain and answer for your actions to others (a teacher, a family, a court) and to accept the consequences.

Integrity (ubunyangamugayo): acting according to your values even when nobody is watching.

Self-discipline: doing what you have decided is right or necessary, even when you do not feel like it. Example: revising for one hour before using your phone.

Locus of control: where a person believes the control over their life lies. An internal locus: "my results depend mainly on my effort". An external locus: "my results depend on luck or on others". The idea comes from the psychologist Julian Rotter (1966).

What is yours to own?

Figure 4: zones of control, influence and concern, after Stephen R. Covey's "circle of influence" (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, 1989). Responsible people spend their energy in the two inner zones. Drawn by Ganzaa.

Personal responsibility does not mean taking the blame for everything. It means sorting the world into three zones and spending your energy where it can make a difference:

In the zone of control, you are fully responsible: your effort, your words, your choices, your attitude.
In the zone of influence, you share responsibility: you can persuade a friend, propose a plan to your class, set a good example, but the final choice is theirs.
In the zone of concern, you are not responsible for the outcome, but you are responsible for your response. You cannot change the date of the national exam; you can change your revision timetable.

Excuse or ownership?

Compare two ways of talking about the same events.

Situation	Language of excuse (external)	Language of ownership (internal)
You fail a test	"The teacher set impossible questions."	"I revised the wrong chapters. Next time I will ask what the test covers and start a week earlier."
You arrive late	"The bus was full."	"I left at the last minute. I will leave twenty minutes earlier."
You forward a false rumour	"Everybody was sharing it."	"I did not check it. I will delete it, tell the group it was false, and check before I share."
A group project fails	"The others did nothing."	"I did my part but did not speak up early. Next time I will agree tasks and dates at the first meeting."

Ownership has three parts: own it (name your share honestly), fix it (repair what you can), learn from it (change what you will do next time). Notice that ownership is not self-punishment. It looks forward.

Areas of personal responsibility

Area	Responsible choices	Rwandan link
Health	Sleep, exercise and eat well; refuse drugs and alcohol; wear a helmet on a moto	Constitution, Article 45: every Rwandan has "the duty to take part in activities aimed at good health"
Learning	Plan revision; ask for help early; never cheat	A student's work prepares the "dedication to work" of Article 48
Money	Save part of what you receive; avoid debts you cannot repay	Agaciro: the value of dignity behind Rwanda's commitment to self-reliance (Agaciro Development Fund)
Digital life	Check before sharing; protect passwords; never share images of others without consent	Law N° 59 of 2018 counts even "a message sent to a person" as public
Others' safety	Speak up or report when someone is harmed	Rwanda Investigation Bureau lines: 116 (child abuse), 3512 (domestic and gender-based violence), 3029 (Isange One Stop Centre), 166 (emergencies and crime information)

Warning

Responsibility is never the victim's. Personal responsibility applies to your own choices. A person who is abused, cheated or attacked is not responsible for what was done to them. Any sexual contact with a child is abuse and a crime, whatever the circumstances, and the child is never to blame. If it happens to you or someone you know, tell a trusted adult or call 116.

Tip

Swap the verb. Replace "they made me" with "I chose", and "I can't" with "I haven't yet". Then ask: "What is one thing in my zone of control that I can do today?" It turns a complaint into a plan.

Important

Discuss. Article 49 speaks of orders that are a "serious and obvious" violation of human rights. Why do you think the Constitution includes the words "serious and obvious"? What should a person do when an order seems wrong but is not obviously so?

British Red Cross: "How to manage your worries: Circles of Control", about 1 minute. A short activity: sort your own worries into the circles, then compare them with Figure 4.

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Practice

Define personal responsibility and accountability.
Explain the difference between an internal and an external locus of control, with an example of each.
Sort into the three zones of Figure 4: (a) the price of transport; (b) how much you revise; (c) whether your friend smokes; (d) your reply to an insulting message; (e) the rain on sports day.
Rewrite in the language of ownership: "I couldn't finish my homework because my little brother kept disturbing me."
Explain the meaning of Article 49 of the Constitution and why it matters in Rwanda's history.
Explain why Félicité Niyitegeka is honoured as a national hero, and what her choice teaches about personal responsibility.
"Young people today blame others for everything." Evaluate this claim, using ideas from this lesson.

Show answersHide answers

Personal responsibility: accepting that you are the author of your choices and actions and of their consequences, and acting accordingly. Accountability: being willing to explain and answer for your actions to others and to accept the consequences.
Internal: the belief that outcomes depend mainly on your own effort ("I passed because I revised every day"). External: the belief that outcomes depend on luck or other people ("I failed because the teacher dislikes me").
(a) concern (you cannot control it); (b) control; (c) influence; (d) control; (e) concern.
"I did not plan a quiet time and place for my homework. Tomorrow I will do it at the school library before I go home, or ask my parents for a quiet hour."
Article 49 gives every Rwandan the duty to defy superior orders that seriously and obviously violate human rights and freedoms. Some people who took part in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi later claimed that they had only followed orders; the Constitution makes clear that such orders must be refused, and that each person remains responsible for their acts.
During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, as head of the Centre Saint Pierre in Gisenyi, she refused her brother's offer to take her to safety because it meant abandoning the Tutsi who had taken refuge with her, and chose to die with them. She shows that responsibility for others can be chosen, even at the highest cost, and that pressure from family or authority does not remove a person's moral choice.
Partly true at most. Everyone, young or old, is tempted to use the language of excuse. But many young people show strong responsibility: volunteers in community work, students who refused division at Nyange in 1997. A fair conclusion is that responsibility is learned, not fixed by age, and is built by practising ownership in small things.

Quick check

Sort each item into its zone.

Tap one on the left, then its partner on the right.

Key points

Personal responsibility means owning your choices and their consequences; accountability means answering for them to others.
Spend your energy in the zones you control and can influence; for what you cannot control, own your response.
Ownership has three parts: own it, fix it, learn from it. It looks forward and is not self-punishment, and a victim is never responsible for harm done to them.
Article 49 of the Constitution gives every Rwandan the duty to defy orders that seriously and obviously violate human rights; Félicité Niyitegeka (Imena) chose responsibility for others at the cost of her life.

1"They made me do it"

2What is yours to own?

3Excuse or ownership?

4Areas of personal responsibility

"They made me do it"

What is yours to own?

Excuse or ownership?

Areas of personal responsibility