Monday, April 09, 2007
More Than Tribal Hatreds in Rwanda
In Collapse, Jared Diamond quotes from Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, published by the organization Human Rights Watch, to show that the generally accepted explanations of the tragedy are inaccurate. “This genocide was not an uncontrollable outburst of rage by a people consumed by ‘ancient tribal hatreds.’… This genocide resulted from the deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power.” Has the leadership in the US engaged in something similar….without the genocide, of course?
“This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then faced with RPF (rebel and Burundi) success on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few powerholders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They believed that the extermination campaign would restore the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war…” The evidence is overwhelming that this view is correct and accounts in large degree for Rwanda’s tragedy.
But other considerations contributed, too. There was a third ethnic group, the Twa or pygmies, that made up 1% of the population. They were at the bottom of the social structure and didn’t constitute a threat to anyone, yet most of them were also massacred in the 1994 killings. And there weren’t just two factions, there were three. All were mixed, not pure, either Tutsi or Hutu, but each containing elements of the other. The distinction between Hutu and Tutsi is not nearly as sharp as often portrayed.
The two groups speak the same language, attended the same churches and schools and bars, lived together in the same village under the same chiefs, and worked together in the same office. Hutu and Tutsi intermarried and while they look different on the average, many individuals are impossible to ethnically identify. In fact, about one quarter of Rwandans have both Hutu and Tutsi among their great-grandparents. Thus, Diamond says, “we cannot avoid asking ourselves: how, under those circumstances, were so many Rwandans so readily manipulated by extremist leaders into killing each other with the utmost savagery? We need to search for other contributing factors in addition to ethnic hatred.”
“This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then faced with RPF (rebel and Burundi) success on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few powerholders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They believed that the extermination campaign would restore the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war…” The evidence is overwhelming that this view is correct and accounts in large degree for Rwanda’s tragedy.
But other considerations contributed, too. There was a third ethnic group, the Twa or pygmies, that made up 1% of the population. They were at the bottom of the social structure and didn’t constitute a threat to anyone, yet most of them were also massacred in the 1994 killings. And there weren’t just two factions, there were three. All were mixed, not pure, either Tutsi or Hutu, but each containing elements of the other. The distinction between Hutu and Tutsi is not nearly as sharp as often portrayed.
The two groups speak the same language, attended the same churches and schools and bars, lived together in the same village under the same chiefs, and worked together in the same office. Hutu and Tutsi intermarried and while they look different on the average, many individuals are impossible to ethnically identify. In fact, about one quarter of Rwandans have both Hutu and Tutsi among their great-grandparents. Thus, Diamond says, “we cannot avoid asking ourselves: how, under those circumstances, were so many Rwandans so readily manipulated by extremist leaders into killing each other with the utmost savagery? We need to search for other contributing factors in addition to ethnic hatred.”
