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.
Just like the Holocaust, each citizen in Rwanda had a card indicating what tribe they belonged to. The genocide ended 3 months later when the Rwanda Patriotic Front took control of the Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. The article examines how the country has changed so much since the genocide occurred. Jean-Claude starts to remember what life had
Sexual violence is a sensitive topic for any and every woman. Whether it is sexual harassment, rape, or domestic violence, no woman wants to be taken advantage of by any man or even a woman. In the article, “Not an Indian Tradition. The Sexual Colonization of Native Peoples,” author Andrea Smith contrasts sexual violence and history from white woman to Native American women. Sexual violence differs for woman of color than white women alone.
C. Introduction The Rwandan genocide lasted three months and in those three months it is said that 1 million Tutsis were killed. The Holocaust lasted 4 years and 6 million Jews were killed. Bearing this in mind it would be expected that The Rwandan genocide should be extremely well known because of the loss of lives, impact and brutality of the event and the similarities it holds with The Holocaust. The fact is that the Rwandan Genocide is not very well known and is not thought to be in the same category as The Holocaust, where in fact it is.
Some people, who go through horrific and important historical events are sometimes given recognition for their brave heart and their courageous actions. Others, sometimes, are glorified to look like they are divine and so perfect that they resemble a God-like figure. Take Immaculee Ilibagiza into account. She suffered through the Rwandan Genocide and Steve Erwin is keen on sharing her story with the world. In her story, Left to Tell, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s temptation to elevate Immaculee’s status in the world leads to a misleading interpretation of her divinity and perfection.
When the international community responded indifferently toward the Rwandan genocide, “labeling it an ‘internal conflict’,” as the U.S. Holocaust Museum states, perpetrators could commit those genocidal crimes with little constraint; this directly led to the genocide later in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Adding fuel to [the Congo’s] unstable mix, some one million refugees, mostly the Hutu fearing the… Tutsis, fled into [the Congo]… at the end of the Rwandan genocide” and before the first war of the Congo. Additionally, leaders of that genocide followed, and “Organizing themselves in the fertile grounds of the massive refugee camps in Eastern Congo,... [they] began preying on the local Congolese population and making incursions back into Rwanda” (The U.S. Holocaust Museum 1).
A lot of instances in this book they profanely discuss women in terms of prostitution and rape. “We’re carrying on our backs the overseas sins of generations of fighting American GIs--gang rapes in Vietnamese jungles, the same in Seoul and Pusan, pregnant Englishwoman abandoned after World War II, Japanese women raped and impregnated and abandoned during the occupation, thousands of French whores filled with syphilitic cocks while the Great War raged on.” (Swofford 92) Rape has been a part of war for centuries and people decide to avoid discussing it. From what we learned throughout the semester I think a lot of this has to do with the “brotherhood” of the marines. Together, it is a form of “joint power” with all their “male aggression,” We’ve learned that in history men like to bond over disrespecting women when they are
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
The primary independent variable of the participation of women in armed groups is something that should not necessarily be the focus of the article. A genuine flaw of this study is the assumption and emphasis on the mere participation in each of these armed groups as being the primary factor that contributes to the rate of sexual violence. While it is true that Cohen does acknowledge that power dynamics and gender dynamics contribute to the perpetration of sexual violence, this is not a primary focus of the study—but maybe it should be. It would be more impactful to view the issue from the lens of a broader range of factors that could contribute to sexual violence in the Sierra Leone conflict. These factors could include, but are not limited to, masculinity and femininity, power dynamics, and other socio-political contexts.
Hotel Rwanda directed by Terry George and released in 2004, is one of the films that most accurately depict the reality of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This genocide marks one of the most bloody and abrupt in the history of genocides where the Tutsi began slaughtering the Hutu. The story is told through the main character Paul Rusesabagina’s heroic acts as a hotel manager and his dedication to his family and people. The story centers on him and his family sheltering Hutu refugees at the Mille Colline Hotel in Kigali, resisting the Tutsi rebels as they began the massacre of Hutu families almost overnight. The film clearly portrays how and why the genocide began and it is through this that theoretical concepts such as ethnic violence and ethno-political mobilization can be drawn.
The most alarming aspect of the children of Rwanda was that yes, many were victims, but others were perpetrators as well. Many children were used as tools of the genocide since they were the most vulnerable, and persuasive-compared to a Rwandan adult. They participated in the genocide as members of the Rwandan army, because soldiers killed, burned and destroyed, regardless of sex, ethnic group and most importantly age. In almost all cases, children were forced into committing crimes, or joined rebel groups/the army because that was their only option if they had become an orphan as a result of other mass
For several decades various cultures have been rich with history and traditions that transcended time. However these cultures go through very dark times such as genocide. Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, specifically those of a particular ethnic group or nation. On one hand neutrality is a positive alternative of genocide because if a country stays neutral, that country would likely have peace. On the other hand being a bystander or being neutral is letting thousands of innocent lives die at your hands.
A time when children were ripped from their mothers arms and killed in front of them. Mothers, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, entire families all slaughtered. Entire generations lost. Women brutally raped and tortured in front of their families or thrown in ditches left to rot and die. The screams of victims had soared through the skies of Rwanda.
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.
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
