Ethnicity and Genocide in
Rwanda
1994 Rwandan Genocide
• The culmination of 4 years of civil war,
waged along ethnic lines.
• Beginning on April 7, more than 1 million
men, women, and children lost their lives
in a period of 100 days
Pre-colonial ethnic divisions?
• Arrival of the Tutsi and
Hutu in Rwanda
• Are the divisions between
Hutu and Tutsi ethnic or
socio-economic
– Share language, religion,
and cohabitate
– Division was occupationally
defined: based on size of
cattle herds.
• “Tutsi feudalism”- cattlework exchange
– Some physical differences:
height, skin color, skull
shape
Precolonial political system
• Precolonial political system is not well
understood.
– Rwanda was a kingdom ruled by Tutsi king
and predominantly Tutsi court.
– Was this a centralized and inegalitarian
system or more theoretical?
Colonial Rwanda: Fixing ethnic
difference
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Indirect rule
Ethnic identification cards
Empowered Tutsi to rule Hutu
majority
– Given weapons and support
for rule
– Incorporation of North-West
Rwanda into Tutsi rule
Official discourse that viewed Tutsi
as more intelligent, reliable and
hardworking
– Administration and army jobs
reserved for Tutsi
Imagined Communities
• Benedict Anderson: Imagined communities.
– Though precolonial divisions were probably quite
fluid, the colonial experience in Rwanda helped to
solidify and radicalize ethnic differences between
Hutu and Tutsi. Ethnic differences became a powerful
way of organizing social relations, politics, and
individual sentiment
– Racism “justifies not so much foreign wars as
domestic repression and domination”
Ethnic hierarchy created under
colonial rule
• Bazungu to Tutsi to Hutu to Twa: Persons
at each level having privileges denied to
those at lower levels and distaining those
below them.
– Served as a mechanism to divide and rule
Rwanda
Decolonization and the “social
revolution”
• Decolonization by European colonizers and rise
of Hutu elites against Tutsi oligarchy.
• Ideology of the “social revolution”: Rwanda
belongs to the Hutu, its original inhabitants, who
had been brutally subjugated for centuries by
the foreign masters, the Tutsi. In 1959, the Hutu
wrestled power away from their masters and
installed a true democracy.
– Ethnic interpretation of history
– Discourse of democracy had a powerful legitimizing
affect on international community
• Break Time!!! Be back in 5 minutes
Social Revolution: Systematic
discrimination
• Quota system to limit Tutsi access to
higher education and state jobs.
• Continuation of ethnic ID cards.
• Army, diplomatic service and
parliamentary positions reserved for Hutu
Post-Independence Development
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With a few exceptions the majority
of Rwandan people, both Hutu
and Tutsi, did not see an
improvement in their well being
following independence.
– Levels of poverty across
ethnic boundaries remained
extremely high.
Failure of Post-independence
government to improve people’s
livelihoods was a source of
dissatisfaction and social unrest.
Threats to Regime in 1990s
• FPR (Rwandese Patriotic Front) invasion.
Comprised predominantly of Tutsi
refugees pushed into Uganda following
post-independence ethnic conflict.
• Frustration among Hutu in south with lack
of power within regime
• International pressure to democratize,
power share with FPR.
Racism as a political instrument
• In order to deflect internal and external threats to
power, Rwandan regime initiated program of
vilification of Tutsi
– Mobs organized by government officials to attack
Tutsi
– Political rallies and media vilified Tutsi
– Tutsi described as an “enemy within”
• This diverted people’s attention from their own
subjugation and impoverishment by the
government and toward an “external” threat.
Ethnic Genocide
• Beginning in the early 1990’s the
Rwandan government successfully spread
ethnic fear throughout society, organized
and legitimized the forces of violence and
genocide, and desensitized people to
violence.
• Phases of mass violence
– Authorization, routinization, dehumanization
Conclusion
• Racism and ethnic prejudice are social constructs that
are mobilized by those in power to serve as political tools
of control and repression.
• Fomenting a belief in ethnic and racial differences can
help to divert people’s attention away from the causes of
their own impoverishment. Redirect people away from
class divisions (material differences in wealth and power)
and toward immaterial racial and ethnic differences.
• The genocide in Rwanda, though an ethnically based
conflict, was the result of political efforts to maintain
power and control.