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W.E.B. Du Bois Institute
A Brief History of GenocideAuthor(s): Mahmood MamdaniSource: Transition, No. 87 (2001), pp. 26-47Published by: Indiana University Presson behalf of the W.E.B. Du Bois InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3137437 .
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7/25/2019 Mamdani - A Breif History of Genocied
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(I
Position
RIEF
ISTORY
O
GENO IDE
Mahmood
Mamdani
No one can
be sure how
many
people
were
slaughtered
in
Rwanda
in
1994.
In
one hundred
days,
a
group
of
military
and civilian
leaders
organized
the coun-
try's Hutu majority to eliminate its Tutsi
minority. They
killed
many
Hutu,
as
well:
anyone
who showed
reluctance
to
perform
what
was considered
to
be his
or
her national
duty
became
a
target.
But
whereas
these
Hutu
were murdered as
individuals-butchered
for their beliefs
or
their
actions-the
Tutsi
were mur-
dered because
they
were
Tutsi.
This is
why
the
killings
of
more than
half a
mil-
lion Rwandan Tutsi between March and
July
of
1994
must
be called
genocide.
The
genocidal
impulse
may
be
as old
as
organized
power.
In the
Hebrew
Bible,
Moses
obeyed
God's
command
to
exterminate
a
foreign people:
Avenge
the children
of Israel
of the
Midianites:
afterward
halt thou
be
gathered
unto
thy
people.
And
Moses
spake
unto
the
peo-
ple,
saying,
Arm some
of
yourselves
unto
the
war,
and let
them
go against
the Mid-
ianites,
and
avenge
the LORD
of Midian.
...
And
they
warred
against
the Midian-
ites,
as the LORD
commanded
Moses;
and
they
slew
all the
males
(Num.
3I:2-3,
7).
While
the
impulse
to
destroy
an en-
emy is ancient, the technology of geno-
cide
is
constantly evolving.
The Nazi
Holocaust
was a state-of-the-art
mass
extermination.
Jews
were branded
for
the
purpose
of identification and sub-
jected
to
experimentation
by
Nazi
doc-
tors.
The
killing
took
place
in industrial
compounds
where the
killers-the at-
tendants-simply sprinkled
Zyklon-B
crystals
into the
gas
chambers.
The
whole genocidal apparatus functioned
with
bureaucratic
efficiency.
The Rwandan
genocide,
on
the
other
hand,
was rather old-fashioned.
It was
carried
out with
machetes
rather
than
chemicals;
street
corners,
living
rooms,
and churches
became
places
of death.
Whereas
Nazi
Germany
made
every
at-
tempt
to isolate
those
most
guilty
of its
crimes
from their
victims,
the
Rwandan
genocide
was
a
much more
intimate af-
fair. It was carried out
by
hundreds of
thousands
of
people
and witnessed
by
26
TRANSITION
ISSUE 87
Pierre-LaurentSanner
7/25/2019 Mamdani - A Breif History of Genocied
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?
r?jrr
?P'4,rfl
I ,r
;t
7/25/2019 Mamdani - A Breif History of Genocied
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millions. A
Rwandan
government
min-
ister I met in
I997
contrasted
the
two
horrors: In
Germany,
he
said,
the
Jews
were taken
out of
their
residences,
moved to
distant,
faraway
ocations,
and
killed
there,
almost
anonymously.
In
Rwanda,
the
government
did not kill. It
prepared
the
population,
enraged
it
and
enticed
it.Your
neighbors
killed
you.
As it
happens,
the
Germans had devel-
oped
their
technique
in
Africa.
In
1904,
German Southwest Africa-the terri-
tory
that would
ultimately
become
Namibia-faced a
political
crisis.
The
future of the
colony
seemed
suddenly
precarious;
the
Herero,
a
small
agricul-
tural people numbering some eighty
28 TRANSITION ISSUE 87
Musinga,
king
of the
Rwandan
Tutsi,
c. 1916
Rwanda-Burundi
Information
ervice
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thousand,
had taken
up
arms
to
defend
their
and
and cattle
against
German
et-
tlers.
The
governor
of
the
territory
at-
tempted
to
negotiate
with
the
Herero,
but
his subordinates
persuaded
Kaiser
Wilhelm
II to
replace
him. General
Lothar
von
Trotha,
he Kaiser s
hoice,
observed
hat
the
views
of
the Governor
ndalso
afew
old
Africa
ands
n the
one
hand,
nd
my
views
on theother,ifer ompletely.heirstwanted
to
negotiatefor
ome
ime
already
nd
regard
the
Herero
ation
s
necessary
abour
mater-
ialfor
thefuture
evelopment
f
the
country.
I believe
hat he
nation
ssuch
hould e
an-
nihilated,r,
f
thiswas
not
possible
y
tacti-
cal
measures,
ave
to be
expelled
rom
the
country y operative
eans
nd
urther
de-
tailed
reatment.
his
will be
possible
f
the
water-holes
. .
are
occupied.
he constant
movement
f
our
troops
will enable
us
tofind
the small
groups
of
the
nation
who
have
movedback
westwards
nd
destroy
hem
grad-
ually....
My
intimate
knowledge
of
many
central
African
tribes
Bantu
and
others)
has
everywhere
onvinced
me
of
the
necessity
hat
the
Negro
does not
respect
reaties
but
only
brute
orce.
Under
Trotha s
command,
German
infantry
and
artillery opened
an offensive
againstthe insurgents.As the Herero fled
the German
assault,
every
avenue
of es-
cape
was
blocked,
save
one:
the southeast
route,
through
the Kalahari
Desert. Their
journey
across the
desert
was a
death
march:
almost
80
percent
of
the Herero
perished.
This was
not
an
accident,
as a
gleeful
notice
in Das
Kampf,
the official
publication
of
the German
general
staff,
attests:
Missionaries
at
the
court of
King
Musinga,
c. 1916
Rwanda-Burundi
Information
Service
7/25/2019 Mamdani - A Breif History of Genocied
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Tutsi
man
R.
Bourgeois
Congopresse
30
TRANSITION ISSUE 87
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No
efforts,
o
hardships
were
spared
n order
to
deprive
he
enemyof
his
last reserves
f
re-
sistance;
like
a
half-dead
animal
he
was
huntedfrom
water-hole
o water-hole ntil
he
became
lethargic
ictim
of
the
nature
of
his
own
country.
The desert
was
to
complete
he
work
of
the German
arms:
he annihilation
f
the Herero
people.
Lest
the reader
be
tempted
to dismiss
Trotha
as a
monster
from
the lunatic
fringe
of
the German
officer
corps given
a free
hand
in
a distant
and
unimportant
colony,
it should
be noted
that
the
gen-
eral
had a
distinguished
record.
In
I900
he
had been
involved
in
suppressing
the
Boxer
Rebellion
in
China,
and
he was a
veteran of
pacification
campaigns
throughout
the colonies that
would be-
come
Rwanda,
Burundi,
and
Tanzania.
General
Trotha
often
boasted
of
his own
prowess
in colonial
warfare.
The exer-
cise of
violence
with crass terrorism
and
even with
gruesomeness
was
and is
my
policy,
he
wrote.
I
destroy
the
African
tribes
with streams
of blood
and streams
of
money.
The
surviving
Herero
were rounded
up
and
placed
in
camps
run
by
mission-
aries in conjunction with the German
R.
P
Vatn
Overschlelde
B.
army.
Overworked
and
hungry, suscepti-
ble
to diseases such
as
typhoid
and
small-
pox,
many
more
Herero
perished
in the
camps.
Herero
women
were
taken
as sex
slaves
by
German
soldiers.
When
the
camps
were closed
in
19o8,
the remain-
ing
Herero were distributed
among
set-
tlers as
laborers.
Henceforth,
all
Herero
over the age of seven were required to
wear
a metal
disc
around
their
neck
The extermination
of the
Herero
in 1904
was the
first
genocide
of
the twentieth
century.
It was
in the
Herero
concentration
camps
that
the German
geneticist
Eugene
Fischer first
investigated
the
science
of
race-mixing.
bearing
a labor
egistration
umber.
The
practice
continued
until
the FirstWorld
War,
when the German
army
ost South-
west Africa.
The extermination
f
the
Hererowas
the first
genocide
of
the
twentieth
cen-
tury,
and its
connection
to the
Jewish
Holocaust
is difficult to
ignore.
When
Trotha
ought
o
diffuse
esponsibility
or
the genocide,he accused he missionsof
A BRIEF
HISTORY
OF GENOCIDE
31
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,..
4 *
'IQ ,f
Ir
*1
inciting
the Herero with
images
of
the
bloodcurdlingJewish history
of the
Old
Testament.
And it was
in the Herero
concentration
camps
that
the
German
geneticist
Eugene
Fischer
first investi-
gated
the science of
race-mixing,
ex-
perimenting
on both the Herero and the
half-German
children
born to
Herero
women. Fischer
argued
that the Herero
mulattos
were
physically
and
mentally
inferior
to their German
parents.
Hitler
read Fischer's
book,
The
Principle
f
Hu-
man
Heredity
and
Race
Hygiene
(I92I),
while he
was in
prison.
The Fiihrer
eventually
made Fischer
rector of the
University
of
Berlin,
where he
taught
medicine. One
of his
prominent
students
was
Josef
Mengele,
who would run
the
gas chambers at Auschwitz.
In
fact,
the
genocide
of the
Herero was
simply
an extreme instance
of the
gen-
eral
tendencies of colonialism.
The his-
tory
of
European
colonies is
rife with
massacresand forced
marches,
conscript
labor and
expulsions.
Colonial
powers
often
stopped
at
nothing
to subdue
their
restive
populations;
annihilation was
always
an
option.
The reverse-the extermination
of
colonizers
by
natives-never
came
to
pass,
although
it
always
hovered on the
horizon as a historical
possibility.
(The
Mau Mau rebels
in
colonial
Kenya
be-
came African heroes because
they
dared
to kill
whites.)
Nobody
understood the
genocidal
impulse
better
than Frantz
Fanon, the Martinican-born
psychoan-
32
TRANSITION
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The Rwandan
royal
family,
c.
1916
Rwanda-Burundi
Information
Service
7/25/2019 Mamdani - A Breif History of Genocied
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alyst
and
Algerian
freedom
fighter.
For
Fanon,
native violence was not
simply
destructive;
t was also a kind of
affirma-
tion of life and
dignity.
For
he
knows
that he
is not
an
animal,
Fanon
wrote
in
The Wretched
of
the Earth
(1961),
and it
is
precisely
when he realizeshis human-
ity
that he
begins
to
sharpen
the
weapons
with which
he
will secure
its
victory.
Writing
at
the
height
of the
anticolonial
struggle,
Fanon
distinguished
between native violence and
settler
vio-
lence.
Native
violence,
he
insisted,
was
the violence of
yesterday's
victims,
peo-
A BRIEF
HISTORY
OF
GENOCIDE 33
The court of
King
Musinga,
c. 1916
Rwlanda-Burundi
Infornmation
ervice
7/25/2019 Mamdani - A Breif History of Genocied
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A Hutu man makes
a
ritual
offering
of
beer to his Tutsl
master
and
receives a
cow
in return. To
celebrate,
the
Hutu
man dances
before
the
animal.
Pol
Laval,
Rwanda-
Bururndi
nformation
Service
pie
who had cast aside
their
victimhood
to become masters
of their
own
lives:
He
of
whom
they
have never
stopped aying
that the
only
language
he understandss that
offorce,
decides o
give
utterance
byforce
....
The
argument
he nativechooses as been
ur-
nished
by
the
settler,
nd
by
an ironic
turning
of the tables t is the nativewho now affirms
that
the colonialist nderstands
othing
ut
force.
For
Fanon,
proof
of the native's
human-
ity
consisted not in the
willingness
to kill
settlers,
but in the
willingness
to risk his
or
her life.
The colonized
man,
he
wrote,
finds his freedom
in and
through
violence. If the outcome was death, the
34
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killing
of settlers
by
natives,
that was
nevertheless derivative utcome:
Thesettler's ork s to
make ven
dreams
f
liberty
mpossiblefor
he native.
he
native's
work s to
magine
ll
possible
methodsfor
e-
stroying
he ettler .. For he
native,
ife
can
only pring p again
out
of
the
rotting
orpse
of
the
ettler....For hecolonized
eople,
his
violence,
ecause
t
constitutesheir
nly
work,
invests heir haracterith
positive
nd
cre-
ativequalities. hepracticefviolence inds
them
ogether
s
a
whole,
ince ach ndivid-
ualforms
violent ink n the
great
hain,
part
of
the
greatorganismf
violencewhich
has
surged pwards
n
reactiono thesettler's
violencen the
beginning.
On the
day
of
reckoning,
Trothawould
be
answered
n kind.
From the
beginning,
colonialism
pre-
sented
itself as a
civilizing
mission-
what
Kipling
called the
white man's
burden. The
Western colonial
project
aimed to
create
a new
society
by
build-
ing
modern citiesand
states,
ntroducing
Western aw.
Under
direct
colonial
rule,
the law
distinguished
civilized
minor-
ity
from
a
not-yet-civilized
majority,
iv-
ing rights
to
the
minority
while disen-
franchizing
he
majority.
nd
yet
whether
rulers
or
ruled,Westerners
r
non-West-
erners,
all those
subject
o
the
power
of
the
statewould
live within the
realmof
civic law.This
had the
unintendedcon-
sequence
of
racializing
olonial
society,
making
race the
primary
difference
be-
tween colonizer
and
colonized,
collaps-
ing
all
other
differences in
its
binary
logic.
Sooner or later,everycolonial
power
discovered that this
racial
dichotomy
tended
to foster racial
solidarity
among
colonial
subjects.
So the
colonial
powers
dismantled the
single
legal
universe of
direct
rule,
employing
instead
a
system
of
indirect rule.
In so
doing
they
created a
series of
parallel
universes:
non-natives
continued to
have
rights
in
the realm of
civic
law,
as under direct
rule,
but
natives
were
to
be
governed differently.
Each
ethnic
group
was now said to have
its
own set of customary laws, to be en-
forced
by
its
own native
authority -
its chief-in
its own
home
area.
n
this
way,
the
aggregate
category
native
was
legally
abolished,
and different
kinds
of
natives were
created. The
political
aim
was to
fracture he
native
population
into
ethnic
groups.
With each
group gov-
erned
through
its own
customary
law,
a
plural legal
order
produced
plural po-
litical identities; these identities were said
to stem from
tribes, cultures,
and
tradi-
tions
that
predated
the
colonial en-
counter.
This shift to indirect
rule
signi-
fied a
retreat from colonization's
original
project
of
civilization: the
natives were
to
remain
natives,
forever
proscribed
from
the
realm of
civil law.
As
political
identities,
race
and ethnic-
ity
involved
different
types
of
claims.
Race claimed
to reflect
civilization
and
development,
whereas
ethnicity
claimed
to
reflect
culture
and habit.
Civilization
was
a
world of
rights;
culture,
a world
of
custom.
The
distinction
between
race
and
ethnicity
was meant to
capture
the
difference
between
the
non-indigenous
and the
indigenous:
whites had
a
race,
and it
stood
atop
the
pyramid
of civi-
lization;
ethnicity
represented
the
diver-
sity
of
uncivilized native
peoples.
In this
way
the colonial state endeav-
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HISTORY OF
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ored to
supplant
the
political question
of
native
rights
with the
anthropological
question
of native character.But the un-
breachable
divide
between
colonizer
and
colonized
was not the
only dichotomy
of
indirect rule.
Anyone
resident
on
the ter-
Under
colonialism,
the distinction
between
race and
ethnicity
was meant
to
capture
the
difference between
the
non-indigenous
and the
indigenous:
whites had
a
race,
and it
stood
atop
the
pyramid
of
civilization;
ethnicity
represented
the
diversity
of uncivilized
native
peoples.
ritory
at
the
beginning
of coloniza-
tion-usually,
sometime
in
the
I88os,
during
the
scramble for Africa-was
generallyconsidered a native.Those who
came after
were treated as
resident
aliens,
strangers.
In
Uganda,
for
example,
the
colonial state
recognized
the
ethnic
iden-
tities
of
the
Baganda,
the
Banyankole,
the
Acholi,
and
so on. But
the
Asians,
who
had
been
brought
over from
India
by
the
imperial
British East
Africa
Company
to
build the
railway,
were a race.
By
making
a distinction
between
the
indigenous and non-indigenous, the state
created a
middle
ground
between colo-
nizer and colonized.
Alongside
the
mas-
ter
race,
the
law
constituted
subject
races;
while
full
citizenship
in the
colony
was
reserved for
members of the
master
race,
the
subject
races were
virtual or
partial
citizens.
Though
subject
to
discrimina-
tion,
they
were
still
considered
part
of
the world
of
rights,
of civil
law. The sub-
Tutsi
boy
ject
races
were
integrated
into
the
ma-
Romain Baertsoen
chinery
of colonial
rule as
agents
and ad-
ministrators
in
both the
public
and
pri-
vate
sectors.
And
as
such,
they
came
to be
seen as both
instruments
and beneficia-
ries of
colonialism,
even as
civil
law cod-
ified their second-class
citizenship.
The
so-called
subject
races
of
colonial
Africa were
many.
Besides
the Asians of
East and South
Africa,
there were the
Coloureds of South
Africa,
the
Arabs
of
Zanzibar,
and the Tutsi of Rwanda and
Burundi.
Historically
and
culturally,
these
groups
had little in common. The
Asians
obviously
had
their
origins
else-
where,
but the
question
of what distin-
guished
other
subject
races
from
indige-
nous
people
was
more
complex.
In
Zanzibar,
Arab
was
a kind of catchall
identity,
denoting
both
those with Arab
ancestry
and
those with
ties
to Arab cul-
ture. And South
Africa's
Coloureds
were
identified
by
their
mixture,
through
their
ancestral links to Asia, Africa, and Eu-
rope.
The
Tutsi,
on
the other
hand,
were
wholly
indigenous
to
Africa. So the
colonial
designation non-indigenous
needs
to
be understood as
a
legal
and
po-
litical
fiction,
not a historical
or
cultural
reality.
The
postcolonial
struggle
forjustice-for
redress
of colonial
wrongs-raised
a ba-
sic
question:What
is a settler?
The term
did not invoke
a
legal
category:
colonial
laws had
spoken
only
of
natives and
non-natives.
Settlerwas a libel
that natives
hurled back
at the beneficiaries
of colo-
nial rule.
As
different forms
of national-
ism
emerged-narrow
or
inclusive,
cultural
or
political,
reactionary
or
pro-
gressive-each
form
arrived
at a differ-
ent
understanding
of
what
a settler was.
Was the settler
experience
based on im-
36
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'i
~~
~ ~
.
~
?
~?
i
, ,
~
. .
~
~
x ,
_
~ .
~,~
~?i,~
~,;
. .
.,
.,
' ,
,~
~
.;
3i
~ ~
i
i
i
.'~.
~,~'?~'?
?
1
r' ...?.i~'
~
?:iL~ ; ?
~
?
?
?7?
~~~
.
.... ?
-
~~
~ ~,
r;i J '??I
~ ~i'
~. .??~
~
?~,~
?~ ~~~
,
~ /
~,
,~
,
I__ _? ? ? I I_? I? j
Llul
?r:? ?. II
?
-'?r? ,
1(\r.r I'?\
?;-,,* ' C *i
?????-??_
1
?\. ,1
- ?1?-?
I?,
t
_i.
,
r
1-
: ?? ;:t ?-?;
I:-I' ii
?n
I ..?rJ'n
? _,?
?; 5 ?r,
r? *
7/25/2019 Mamdani - A Breif History of Genocied
14/23
L 7
e~
Tutsi
girl
Pol Laval
Rwanda-Burundi
Information
ervice
g
r
7/25/2019 Mamdani - A Breif History of Genocied
15/23
migration,
or on
conquest?
Was
every
non-native a settler?If settlers had come
into
being
through
conquest
and
owed
their existence to a state
that
enforced
settler
prerogative,
then
the
abolition
of
that
prerogative-and
the
state
that en-
forced it-would also abolish
settler
and
native
as
political
identities. But if
settlers
were
created
by migration,
then
nothing
less than
repatriation
would re-
solve the
settler
question.
The situation was inherently unstable.
By establishing
these
infinitesimal dis-
tinctions
in
law,
the
colonial
state
created
an
array
of
indigenous
and
non-indige-
nous
identities.
In
postcolonial
Africa,
as
in
colonial
Africa,
these identities were
the fault
lines
along
which
political
vio-
lence
exploded.
The
violence
started
with
colonial
pacification,
which
took
on
genocidal
proportions
when settlers
set out to appropriate native land-as
with the Herero of
southern Africa. But
political
violence continued
during
the
anticolonial
struggle, although
the
initia-
tive shifted from
the settler
to
the native.
While it
has
been
widely
noted
that the
most
violent anticolonial
struggles
took
place
in
the colonies with the
largest
set-
tler
populations
(like
Kenya,
Rhodesia,
and
Angola),
few
have
noted
that
Africa's
worst
postindependence
violence
has tar-
geted
the former
subject
races: the
Tutsi
in
Rwanda
in
1959,
the
Arabs in
Zanz-
ibar
in
I963,
the Asians
in
Uganda
in
I972-and,
once
again,
the
Tutsi in
Rwanda in
1994.
I visited
Rwanda a
year
after the
geno-
cide. Ntarama is
about
an
hour
and a half
by
car from the
capital, Kigali,
on a dirt
road
going
south toward the Burundi
border.
I
arrived
at
a
village
church made
of
brick,
roofed with iron sheets. Out-
side
there
was a wood and bamboo
rack
bearing
skulls. On the
ground
were
as-
sorted
bones,
collected and
pressed
to-
gether
inside
sacks,
sticking
out of
the
torn cloth. Ntarama is
perhaps
the most
famous,
and
the
most
visited,
of Rwanda's
killing
fields;
the
church has become
a
starting point
for the
growing
number
of
people
who come to
Rwanda to
try
to
understand.
Inside
the
church,
wooden
planks
were
placed
on
stones
as
makeshift
benches.You could see a
pile
of
belong-
ings-shoulder
sacks,
tattered
clothing,
a
towel,
a wooden
box,
a
cooking
pot,
plastic
mugs
and
plates,
straw mats
and
hats.
Then
bones,
entire
skeletons,
all
caught
in
the
posture
in
which
they
had
died. Even
a
year
after
the
genocide,
the
air stank of blood and earth and rotten
clothes-a vicious
human mildew.
The
church wall
was
still covered
with old
posters. They
reminded
me of
the ex-
hortations
I had
seen under
other radi-
cal
governments
in
the Third
World.
One
read,
Journee
Internationale de
Femme -
International
Women's
Day.
Below
it,
in
boldface:
EGALITE. PAIX.
DEVELOPPEMENT.
I
was
introduced to a man
called
Cal-
lixte
who had
survived the
massacre at
Ntarama. He wore
sandals made
of
rub-
ber
sliced
from
worn-out
automobile
tires;
his
clothes were
old,
but
not
torn.
On
the seventh of
April,
in
the
morn-
ing, they
started
burning
houses,
he ex-
plained.
Only
a few
were
killed.
The
burning
pushed
us
to this
place.
We
thought
this was
God's
house;
no one
would
attack us here.
On the
seventh,
eighth, up
to the
tenth,
we were
fight-
A
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ing them. We were using stones. They
had
pangas,
spears,
hammers,
grenades.
On
the
tenth,
their numbers
increased.
On the
fourteenth,
we were
pushed
in-
side the church.
The
church
was attacked
on the fourteenth and the fifteenth. The
actual
killing
was on the fifteenth.
On
the
fifteenth,
they brought
Pres-
idential Guards.
They
were
brought
in
from
neighboring
areas o
support
Inter-
ahamwe.
Here,
there
were
women,
chil-
dren,
and old men. The
men had formed
defense units outside.
I
was
outside. Most
men died
fighting.
When our
defense was broken
through,
they
came and killed
everyone
here. After
that,
they
started
hunting
for
those
hiding
in the hills.
I ran
to
the
swamp
with some others.
Who took
part
in
the
killing?
I
asked.
In my sector, Hutu were two-thirds,
Tutsi one-third.
There were about
5,ooo
in
our
sector. Of
the
3,500
Hutu
all the
men
participated.
There were
prominent
leaders who would
command.
The rest
followed.
Had there been
marriages
between
Hutu and Tutsi
in
Ntarama?
Too
many.
About one-third of
Tutsi
daughters
were married to Hutu.
But
Hutu
daughters
married to Tutsi
men
were
only
i
percent:
Hutu didn't want to
marry
their
daughters
to
Tutsi who were
poor.
And
it was
risky,
because the Tutsi
were discriminated
against-Tutsi
men
didn't want
to
give
their
daughters
where there
was no
education,
no
jobs.
Prospects
were
better
for
Tutsi
daughters
marrying
Hutu men.
They
would
get
better
opportunities.
Callixte
spoke
without
emotion;
his
40
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Funeral or the
king,
1959
Vansinay,
Rwanda-Burundi
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Female mlienjbers
of the
royal court,
1957
H.
Goldstein,
Congopresse
voice
remained
steady
and
calm
throughout
our conversation.
I
wondered
whether
this
was because he had related
the
story
many
times before. Tutsi women mar-
ried to Hutu
were killed.
I know
only
one who survived. The administration
forced Hutu
men
to
kill their Tutsi wives
before
they
killed
anyone
else,
to
prove
they
were
true Interahamwe.
One
man
tried to refuse. He
was told
he must
choose between the
wife
and himself.
He chose to save his own
life. Another
Hutu man rebuked
him for
killing
his
Tutsi
wife.
That
man
was also
killed.
Kallisa,
the man who was forced to
kill
his
wife,
he is in
jail.
After
killing
his
wife,
he became a convert.
He
began
to
dis-
tribute
grenades
all around.
*
* m
Colonial Rwanda was a halfway house
between
direct and indirect
rule,
com-
bining
features of both.
Customary
laws and native authorities were es-
tablished
alongside
civic law and civic
authorities. But the native authorities
in
charge
of the
Hutu were
Tutsi rather
than
Hutu.
That
is,
indirect
rule
in
Rwanda established the Tutsi as
a
distinct
race. Thus the colonial state in
Rwanda
engendered polarized racial identities
among indigenous people,
not
plural
ethnic identities.The colonized
popula-
tion
was
split
n
two,
with the
majority,
the
Hutu,
opposed
to
both
Belgians
and
Tutsi.
Why
was Rwanda
different?The
an-
swers lie buried
in
the recesses
of
the
racistmind. Africa
roper,
he
philoso-
pher Hegel
said,
hasremained-for
all
purposes
of connection with the rest of
the
world,
shut
up;
it is
the
gold-land
In
the
church
at
Ntarama,
you
could see a
pile
of
belongings-shoulder
sacks,
tattered
clothing,
a
towel,
a
wooden
box,
a
cooking
pot,
plastic
mugs
and
plates,
straw
mats and
hats. Then
bones,
entire
skeletons,
all
caught
in the
posture
in
which
they
had died.
Even
a
year
after the
genocide,
the air stank
of
blood and earth and rotten clothes.
compressed
within itself-the land of
childhood,
which
lying beyond
the
day
of
conscious
history
s
enveloped
n
the
darkmantleof
Night.
But the
more
Europeans
ot
to know
Africa,
he
less tenablebecame the no-
tion that the Saharamarkedthe limit
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Presentation of
the royal cow
herd,
1939
From
Societe,
culture et
pouvoir
politique
en
Afrique
interlacustre:
Hutu et
Tutsi de
l'ancien
Rwanda
by
P
Kanyamachumbi
(Kinshasa,
emocratic
Republic f
the
Congo:
Editions
Select)
between
night
and
day-between
bar-
barism and civilization.
Europeans
en-
counteredconsiderable
vidence of or-
ganized
ife
on the
continentbefore heir
arrival.That
evidence
sometimes came
in
the form of
ruins,
ike the
Sudanese
pyramids
or the
stone walls at
Great
Zimbabwe.
It also came
in
the form of
highly
developed
African
societies like
the
Kingdom
of
Rwanda,
whose
politi-
cal
history
stretchedback
hundredsof
years.Rwandabelied the racistconvic-
tion that the nativeshad no
civilization
of their own.
The
colonialists'
explanation-the
Hamitic
hypothesis -was
ingenious:
every
sign
of
progress
n the Dark
Continentwastaken
as
proof
of the civ-
ilizing
nfluenceof an
alienrace.Ancient
Egypt,Ethiopia,
Rwanda: ll
these were
the work of an
ancient
European
race,
the children
of
Ham-Noah's
son,
in
the Hebrew
Bible. The Hamites were
taken to be black-skinnedCaucasians;
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they
wanderedacross
he African
conti-
nent andruledovertheirracial
nferiors,
the black-skinned lacks. n
1870,
at
the
Vatican
I
council,
a
group
of
cardinals
called for a mission to
centralAfrica n
order o rescue
hapless
Hamites
caught
amidst
Negroes,
to
alleviate the an-
tique
malediction
weighing
on
the
shouldersof the
misfortunateHamites
inhabiting
he
hopelessNigricy.
In
Rwanda,
he
Europeans
dentified
therulingTutsiasHamiticandtheHutu
as
Bantu- real Africans who
served
the Tutsi. Of
course,
the Hamitic
hy-
pothesis
failed to resolve
some
glaring
contradictions.
While the term was in-
troduced
by linguists
o
describe
he lan-
guages
of
the
Hamitic
peoples,
he Tutsi
spoke
Kinyarwanda
Rwandan),
Bantu
language.
And
although
he notion
of
a
Hamitic
race
implied
a
shared
pheno-
type-tall, thin,with aquilinenoses and
coppery
skin-the
speakers
f Hamitic
languages
included the
blond-haired,
blue-eyed
Berbersof
north
Africa.The
greatest
difficulty,perhaps,
was
that the
Hamites were
supposed
to be
cattle-
herding
pastoralists,
nlike the
agricul-
turalistBantu.
But
by
the second
half of
the
nineteenth
century,
many
Tutsi
ived
just
like their
Hutu
neighbors,
without
cattle,
working
the land
under Tutsi
overlords.
While
numerous
African
peoples
were
identified as
Hamites-indeed,
three of
the
precolonial
political
entities
that
became
Uganda
were
considered
Hamitic
kingdoms-Rwanda
was the
only
colony
where
Hamitic
ideology
came to
be the
law of the
land.
The for-
eignness
of the
Tutsi
was
institutional-
ized
by
a series
of
reforms hat
embed-
ded the Hamitic
hypothesis
in the
Belgian
colonial state. This set the
Tutsi
apart
from
other so-called
Hamites in
Africa;
it also
ruptured
the
link between
race and color in Rwanda.
Between
1926
and
I937,
the
Belgian
authorities
made
Tutsi
superiority
the
basis
of
changes
in
political,
social,
and
cultural
relations.
Key
institutions
of the
pre-colonial
Rwandan state were
disman-
tled. In the
process,
power
was
central-
ized;Western-style
schools were
opened,
and admission was largely limited to
Tutsi.
Tutsi received an
assimilationisted-
ucation:
they
were
taught
in
French,
in
preparation
for
administrative
positions
in
the colonial
government.When
Hutu
Europeans
encountered
considerable
evidence of
organized
life
in
Africa
before
their arrival. The
Kingdom
of
Rwanda
belied
the racist conviction that the natives had
no
civilization of their
own.
were
admitted,
they
received a
separate
curriculum,
taught
in
Kiswahili.
(The
graduates
of the
French-language
cur-
riculum
were
called
Hamites. )
The
underlying
message
was
that
Hutu
were
not destined
for
citizenship.
*
*
*
In
the
I950s,
as
the
struggle
for
decolo-
nization
raged
across the
African
conti-
nent,
Rwandan
society began
to
splinter.
While
the Tutsi
agitated
for
indepen-
dence-and a
Tutsi state
without
Bel-
gian
masters-the Hutu
made
increas-
ingly
strident
demands
for
social
reform.
A
new
political
elite
emerged
from
the
ranks of
those
who
had
been
branded
with a
subject identity,
and
they
made
their
suffering
a
badge
of
pride:
Hutu
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Power
The
revolution
of
1959
brought
this
Hutu elite
to
power,
and
in
1960,
Rwanda achieved
independence.
Those
of
the
Tutsi elite
unable
or
unwilling
to
live under Hutu
rule were murdered
or
sent into exile.
The Hutu state
responded
to
guerrilla
attacks
mounted
by
Tutsi ex-
iles
with violence
against
Tutsi
who
re-
mained
within the
country,
thus
pushing
a second
group
into exile.
(Many
of
this
second
group
went
to
Uganda.)
Where
the Hamitic
hypothesis
had enforced
Tutsi
supremacy,
the
new
Hutu
regime
heralded
an
egalitarian
social revolution:
democracy,
majority
rule,
and Hutu
Power came
to seem
synonymous.
De-
fending
the
revolution
from
Tutsi
sub-
version became
the sine
qua
non of
Rwandan
politics.
In
the
1950s,
as the
struggle
for
decolonization raged across the African
continent,
Rwandan
society began
to
splinter.
A
new
political
elite
emerged
from
the
ranks of the
socially oppressed
with
a new
slogan:
Hutu
Power
The
promise
of
1959
quickly
turned
sour:
the
revolutionary
state
had
repu-
diated inegalitarian colonial
rule with-
out
changing
the
institutional
identities
that
underpinned
it. Instead of
forging
a
way beyond
natives
and
settlers,
1959
wedded
Rwanda's
future
to the
political
identities
that had
been
constructed
un-
der colonial
rule.
The
revolution
re-
versed
"settler
privilege"-replacing
Tutsi chiefs
with
Hutu-without
re-
forming
the
concentrated
power
of the
native
authority.
It
did introduce
local
elections,
thereby
making
Hutu func-
tionaries accountable to their
popula-
tions.
But after
1972,
the radical
govern-
ment of
the Second
Republic
eliminated
the local elections and re-created
the
colonial
authority-defined,
now,
not
only
as
"customary"
but also as "revolu-
tionary."
These
were
the
organs
of
power
that orchestrated and
organized
the mass
slaughter
of the
genocide.
* * *
The dilemma of postgenocide Rwanda
lies
in
the chasm that divides
the Hutu
majority
from
the Tutsi
minority.
The
minority
demands
justice,
the
majority
calls for
democracy
and the
two
de-
mands
seem
irreconcilable. Irreconcilable
because ever
since the colonial
period,
violence
has
been motivated
by
a mutual
fear
of victimhood.
Every
round
of
per-
petrators
has
justified
the use of violence
as the only effective guarantee against
being
victimized
yet again.
The contin-
uing tragedy
of Rwanda
is that each out-
break of
violence
only
creates
another
set of victims-turned-killers.
In
the
political
vocabulary
of the
African Great
Lakes
region,
the
search
for
a form of
governance
that
can
guar-
antee both
justice
and
democracy
in
countries
torn
by
civil
war has come
to
be
known
as the search for
a "broad
base."
In countries with
a
history
of bit-
ter
fragmentation,
where
no
political
movement
could marshal
a
consensus,
coalition
government
came to
be seen
as
inevitable.
The
practice
of the broad
base
made
a clear distinction
between
means
and
ends.
All
political
movements-
whether
monarchist or
"tribalist,"
even
when identified
with a brutal
dictator-
ship
such as that
of
Idi Amin-were
welcomed into the broad base, provided
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they
renounced
violence
as a means
for
attaining
their
objectives.
For the
Tutsi-led
regime
in
today s
Rwanda,
achieving
the
broad base would
mean a
radical
proposition: making
a dis-
tinction
between
proponents
of Hutu
Power and
perpetrators
of the
genocide.
While the
ideology
of Hutu Power was
broad and contradictory, born of the
hopes
of
the
1959
revolution,
the
ideol-
ogy
of the
genocidaire
s a
narrow
alle-
giance,
coalesced
by desperation.
True,
the latter is
born of the
former,
yet
this
child
of
adversity
cannot be confused
with
its
parent.
Hutu Power reconciled
itself to
living
in
the
polarized
world of
Hutu and
Tutsi,
but the
genocidaire
ooked
for a final
solution
in
the
physical
elimi-
nation of the Tutsi. The necessary dis-
tinction
is one
between ends and
means,
A
BRIEF HISTORY
OF GENOCIDE
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Laval,
Rwanda-Burundi
Information
Service
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politics and ideology-between those
proponents
of Hutu Power
willing
to
give
up
violence
and those
not
willing
to do so.
The former
would be
invited
into the broad
base;
the latter
would not.
Ultimately,
the Rwandan
government
may
need to
recognize
that
the central
conclusion
it has
drawn from
the
history
of Rwanda
since
independence-that
the
only possible
peace
between
Tutsi
and Hutu is an
armed
peace-is
short-
sighted. t is anarticleof faith hatpower
is the
precondition
for survival.
But
Rwanda s
Tutsi
leadership
may
have to
consider
he
oppositepossibility:
hat he
prerequisite
o
cohabitation,
econcilia-
tion,
and a common
political
future
might
indeed
be to
give up
its
monop-
oly
on
power.
Like the Arabsof
Zan-
zibar,
r
even the
whites of South
Africa,
the Tutsi
of Rwanda
may
also
have to
learn that-so
long
as Hutu and Tutsi
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exist
as
political
identities-relinquish-
ing power may
be a surer
guarantee
of
survival than
holding
on to it.
After
all,
if
Rwanda
was the
genocide
that
happened,
then South Africa
was
the
genocide
that didn't:
just
as a tidal wave
of violence
engulfed
Rwanda
in
1994,
South Africa held elections
marking
the
peaceful
transition to a
post-apartheid
era.
If
some seer
had
said,
in the late
I980s,
that there would
be
a
genocide
in
one of these two places, I wonder how
many
people
would have been able to
predict
which it would
be.
* * *
The
genocide
weighs
heavily
on the
minds
of Tutsi survivors. And it's true
that
neither the Arabs of Zanzibar nor
the
whites of South Africa have suffered
genocidal
violence like the Tutsi
of
Rwanda. To find historical parallels to
this
situation,
where an
imperiled
mi-
nority
fears
to
come
under the thumb
of
a
guilty majority yet
again-even
if
the
thumbprint
reads
democracy -we
must
take
leave
of Africa. For
only
in
the erst-
while
settler
colonies
of
the New World
do
we have a
comparable history
of vi-
olence-a
history
that has
rendered the
majority guilty
in the
eyes
of victimized
minorities.
Such, indeed,
has been the af-
termath of
genocide
and
slavery:
the
genocide
of
indigenous
populations
in
the
Americas,
as in
Australia and New
Zealand,
and the
slavery
of
Africans
in
the
Americas.
If
we are to
go by
these
experiences,
we
have to admit that the
attainment of
enlightenment by
guilty
majorities
has been a
painfully
slow
process.
If the Nazi
Holocaust was
testimony
to the crisis of the
nation-state in Eu-
rope,
the Rwandan
genocide
is testi-
mony
to
the crisis of
citizenship
in
post-
colonial Africa.But if the Nazi Holocaust
breathed life into the Zionist demand
that
Jews
must have
a
political
home,
a
nation-state of their
own,
few have ar-
gued
that the
Rwandan
genocide
war-
rants the
establishment of a
Tutsi-land
in
the
region.
Indeed,
Europe
solved its
political crisis by exporting it to the
Middle
East,
but
Africa has no
place
to
export
its
political
crisis.
Thus,
the Tutsi
demand for a state
of
their
own
can-
not-and should
not-be met.
In
Rwanda,
as
elsewhere,
a
conflict can
end
only
when
the
victor reaches
out to
the
vanquished.
In
Rwanda,
as
elsewhere,
this
process
of
reconciliation
begins
when
both
groups
relinquish
claims to
Few have
argued
that
the Rwandan
genocide
warrants
the
establishment of a
Tutsi-land in
the
region.
Indeed,
Europe
solved
its Jewish
crisis
by
exporting
it
to the
Middle
East,
but Africa has no
place
to
export
its
political
crisis.
victimhood, embracing
their
identity
as
survivors.
In
this
sense,
survivor doesn't
just
refer to
surviving
victims-as it
does
in
the
rhetoric of the
Rwandan
govern-
ment.
In a
Rwanda
that has
truly
tran-
scended the racial
divisions of
colonial-
ism,
survivor will
refer to
all those who
continue to be
blessed
with life
in
the af-
termath of a civil
war.