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Machete Season Chapter Summary

1400 Words6 Pages

In 1994, Rwanda was gripped with murderous fervor as Hutus across the country took up machetes against their Tutsi neighbors in what became 100 days of genocide that left 800,000 dead. Does the history of Rwanda provide any evidence of the implementation of the ten steps of genocide? How did Belgian imperialism influence the relationship between Hutus and Tutsis? What ultimately made the average Hutu decide to murder their Tutsi neighbors? In this paper I will investigate how the ten steps of genocide was used in Rwanda, the effects of imperialism on Rwandan culture and gain insight into why Hutus decided to kill Tutsis through the analysis of the book Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld.
Book Review
I believe Machete Season revealed two major themes. The first is that societal factors can influence the normalization of violence. The second is people can rationalize killing others if they believe it is their duty or their mission given by an authority figure. There were many ethical issues that were raised from the responses that the prisoners gave. However, I will provide insights on two of those ethical …show more content…

Should orders to kill civilians be followed? In Syria, helicopters and jets bomb cities and have learned to target Syrian volunteer White Helmets on second bombing runs. The Syrian government has on several occasions gassed its own people with chemical weapons. These orders from authority figures continue to easily influence violent action against the innocent and unarmed countrymen. Just as the pilots have a choice to be inaccurate with their payloads as to minimize casualties, the Hutu did have a choice to not kill. Rwanda is a landlocked country with a handful of countries to travel to in order to escape from rhetoric preparing the society to kill another group of people. What happens after people have been labeled as ‘other’? Are they dispensable

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Paul Rusesabagina An Ordinary Man Quotes

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In the book “An Ordinary man: An Autobiography” by Paul Rusesabagina, the author faces many bad problems and experiences distasteful moments throughout the whole novel. The author uses quotes the explain the significance of the 1994 Genocide in his own eyes. Near the middle of the story, as Paul explains the harsh treatment and taunting of RTLM against them, he tells us about a teacher who brainwashed her students into hating the “Hutus.” “It always bothers me when I hear Rwanda’s Genocide being described as the product of ‘ancient tribal hatred.’ I think this is a easy way for westerners to dismiss the whole thing as a regrettable but pointless bloodbath that happens to primitive brown people (Rusesabagina Chp.4 Pg.53).”

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U.S. soldiers are trained to follow orders, which is exactly what they did as hundreds of villagers were indiscriminately killed in the My Lai Massacre. Even if the soldiers were acting under confusing orders, that is a failure of the chain of command, and even if the killings were orchestrated by a few incompetent officers, those officers never should have been placed in leadership roles. The real tragedy of My Lai represents an entire system of willful negligence and lack of accountability on the part of the military. Thus the responsibility for the massacre lies with the men involved, but also with the military chain of command that gave the order and then tried to cover it up.

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Was The Rwanda Genocide Dbq

1323 Words | 6 Pages

In Source B we see that the Hutu extremists backed up their massacre and killing by saying that what they were doing was an order given to them. They said that they were told to kill all the Tutsis and this made it easier for them to do it, they were not the ones who had to decide what they had to do. They believed that because they were being ordered to kill that there would no consequences that they would have to face. This is similar to Hitler’s ideal in saying that it is natural to be cruel. In Source D, Hitler says that he is only going to be cruel because nature is also cruel; it is therefore a natural aspect of life.

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Effects Of Imperialism In Rwanda

1889 Words | 8 Pages

“An in-depth analysis on effects of Imperialism on Rwanda” Nowadays, European countries such as England, France, Germany, Belgium, and many other countries possess a colossal clout throughout the world. It is an impeccable fact that such countries, indeed, have served as a rudiment pivot and step for the world to be advanced to the point where we are since the Industrial Revolution. Such countries, because of it, without a doubt, have a crucial status globally and become the superpower and commercial hub on our planet. On the back side of their gleaming growth, however, there is an invisible part left behind their luminous development: the Imperialism. The term “Imperialism” refers to a policy of extending a country’s authority and political clout by using its military forces and diplomacy.

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1244 Words | 5 Pages

The Tutsi, who were tall and quite light skinned...shorter,darker Hutu... The Belgians viewed the minority Tutsi as closer in kind to the Europeans and elevated them to positions of power over the majority Hutu” (pg. 47). The reason that the Belgians are so important is that these two social constructs are a creation of Belgium and have some responsibility to the current state of Rwanda. If they had a hand in creating it then they can have a hand in ending it.

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Nationalism: Ultranationalism And Genocide

774 Words | 4 Pages

Belgian occupied Africa in 1994 favouring the Tutsis over the Hutus giving them more privileges . Both of these groups developed a sense of nationalism, feeling victimized by one another, this sense of nationalism led to Ultranationalism among these groups causing tension among the groups. Extreme forms of Hutu nationalism fueled by propaganda led to a 100-day bloodbath in which caused mass casualties between these groups. Stirred feeling of nationalism in hopes of a better future increased tensions between these two groups leading to genocide. Ultranationalistic leaders used pride and devotion on one’s country as justification for the actions and racist

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Rwanda Genocide Response

635 Words | 3 Pages

The American Government 's Response to The Rwandan Genocide The United States often have an had interest in the political, social and civil crises of other countries in order to benefit themselves. American senior officials hid the truth of the Rwanda Genocide to avoid public moral obligation. The government did not give any financial or political support to the country because Rwanda did not offer minerals or political advantages and stability; the US ' government did not want to be involved in another conflict, even though it has helped other countries in the past.1 But what is truly deeper hidden, are the stories of people like Immacule, a young girl, who, unlike thousands of others, survived the catastrophic genocide in Rwanda.

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1303 Words | 6 Pages

To conclude, it is important to acknowledge the historical context of this horrific genocide. There are multiple factors causing the Rwandan Genocide, such as the social, political, and economic factors. First, “social differences between the Hutu and the Tutsi traditionally were profound” (“Rwandan Genocide of 1994”). These differences lead to prejudice and

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1053 Words | 5 Pages

The Rwandan Genocide was an event that resulted from decades of inner conflicts between Rwanda’s two main ethnic groups. This groups are the Hutus and the Tutsis, the conflict started in 1962 when under the Belgian rule the Tutsis were majorly favored than the Hutus. The reasons being that the Tutsis were originally the nation’s landowners, they had a more purified and noble appearance and they were much taller than the Hutus. The Tutsis were benefiting majorly they were granted access to education and economic privileges, while the Hutus were underprivileged and disenfranchised. Belgian rule also introduced 2 key elements these were Christian missionaries and modern weaponry.

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Terry George aims no less than to demonstrate the Rwandese reality through the extremely violent and cruel scenes in the movie, he manages to convince the audience that really, over 800,000 people were in fact killed in no more than 100 days and more than 2 million refugees had to seek shelter elsewhere in the world (1). To begin with, it is important to understand the root causes of the conflict between Tutsis and Hutus to in turn understand the genocide demonstrated in the movie. Rwanda was

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One cannot fight fire with fire. While massacre reigns in Rwanda and people take betrayal to the extreme, Paul Rusesabagina in his book, An Ordinary Man, proofs how violence is unnecessary while standing against the power of the word. As Rusesabagina states, words are “powerful tools of life”(Rusesabagina, 19). The war between the two different ethnic groups, Hutus and Tutsis, and the death of thousands left a mark Rwanda’s memory; the author says: “It is the darkest bead on our national necklace” (222). Even though a large part of Rwanda’s population is massacred, many are saved by one of Rwanda’s timeless heroes.

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When the Rwanda genocide began in 1994, its population stood at more that 7 people. Roughly 85% of the population was Hutu, 14% Tutsi, and 1% Twa (un.org). The decades following Rwanda’s independence from Belgium in 1962 saw growing ethnic tensions and periodic violent attacks and reprisals between Rwanda’s Hutu majority and its Tutsi minority. On April 6, 1994, the deaths of the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda in a plane crash caused by a rocket attack, ignited several weeks of intense and systematic massacres.

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848 Words | 4 Pages

The genocide was an after affect of the scramble for Africa by European countries who help no regard for the people who already lived their. In the scramble for Africa many European countries raced to make claims on land in Africa that was already lived on by natives, they mistreated the natives and killed and enslaved many of them. This was prevalent in Rwanda when the belgians imperialized the land. The belgians sent the Hutus who were the majority of the population into slavery and lead to mass deaths of their people. But they lead the land through another ethnic group the tutsis who made up about 15% of the population compared to the 85% population of Hutus.

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1464 Words | 6 Pages

In fact, Rwanda has a long history of politicization of land: those who held political power often intervened and appropriated land for their own purposes” Thus struggle for power by both ethnic groups is what we ultimately see on the outside as to why this conflict occurred, however it is in fact because those who owned the land had the power that we know that this issue was more of a territorial one. This conflict turned into such violent one as the Hutus believed that the only way to gain ownership of the land and of the power was to exterminate the Tutsi. Land belonging to Tutsi was distributed to Hutu after they were killed or exiled. It is because of the twos deep rooted hatred and resentment of one and other that the violence escalated to such a horrific

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