Rwanda genocide - Essay Example

Rwanda Genocide Lecturer Rwanda Genocide Xenophobia, the hatred or fear of certain targeted ‘outsiders,’ is one of the most destructive group phenomena in human history (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2000, p. 214). Various incidents in our collective past portray how xenophobia has negatively affected the lives of so many people. Racial superiority has caused much violence and many deaths for those who have been labeled, by the ‘superior’, as ‘inferior’, which has been spawned mostly by an extreme hatred for those viewed as different or inferior.

Such acts of violence have resulted into massacres and other similar inhuman activities. Concerned countries of the world have often refused to act in time to stop these events even though ample signs of trouble were apparent. Racial superiority has traditionally been an issue for various countries, at one point or another in their history, but none worse than that displayed by the Tutsis over the Hutus in RwandaFeelings of hatred have been translated into outright acts of violence against those viewed as inferior, and this, at times, prompted retaliation against their oppressors as in the case of Rwanda.

“Rwandan genocide took place between April and June 1994. During this tragic period of 3 months, some 800,000 Rwandans died, the majority was ethnically Tutsis, murdered by their rival countrymen, the Hutus” (Le, 2004). The Rwanda genocide was spread out over the span of three months. Hutu uprising against their fellow citizens was triggered when Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu and the then Rwandan president, was killed in a rocket attack at his plane near Kigali airport, on 6 April 1994 (Le, 2004).

Tutsi leader, Paul Kagame (the current Rwandan President, but then, the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front) was blamed for the attack and death of the president (Le, 2004). This was denied by Kagame, who blamed the attack on Hutu extremists. Nevertheless, within a few hours of the attack, violence broke out all over the country; and such violence would not wane for three months after the assassination of Habyarimana (Martin, 2003). By then, nearly one million Rwandans had lost their lives.

Media is one of the strong tools and starting point of the progression that led to genocide. “Radio was extensively utilized as the support medium for sowing the seeds of deep hatred against the Hutus in the penultimate stage, by projecting them indiscriminately as liars, thieves and killers” (Assah, 1994). Hutus, as a race, was thus subjected to intense stigmatization; their eventual annihilation as the only solution, for the successful culmination of the last and final stage of their extermination, was evidenced by the Rwandan genocide.

Use of media in whatever form serves, to some extent, to dehumanize the target group, by degrading and stigmatizing them. The most trivial crimes against the larger group would be exaggerated so that the whole target group would become the enemy. Then, there is a move to carry out a more systematic propaganda, to state sponsored hate and so on towards public support for mass crimes and to genocide as being the only way forward (Nacos, 2002, p. 9). There are many instances where the international community could have interfered to prevent the Rwandan genocide from happening.

The country was in chaos and was, therefore, a danger to itself and that issue could have been used as a reason enough to intervene to resolve impending issues and curtail the spread of violence. During the genocide, there was no firm solidarity among the UN members because the members had differing opinions on the issue (Valentine, 1996). Most of these UN members also had no solid investments in the country and, therefore, most of them had no financial considerations at risk in Rwanda. Three members of the permanent Security Council had their reasons for refusing to interfere (Valentine, 1996).

The US would have nothing to gain by interfering in Rwanda while France and China were actually supplying the guns to the country (Valentine, 1996). Further, US refused to lend jamming equipment to the UN as a possible means of stopping the propaganda movement by the Hutus. This implies that early action from the international community could have stopped the incident from escalating and could have prevented the deaths of many Rwandans. The close coordination and the altruistic goals adopted by the international community would have prevented the incident from happening or would have allowed the incident to be resolved immediately (Valentine, 1996).

Instead, the lack of solid action from the international community, their profit-driven goals, and their lack of interest in the incident weighed heavily on the lives of 800,000 individuals. In future, enhanced cooperation and coordination should be established, with the US and other concerned countries, in order to help control and manage similar situations better. Such equipment could have been used to monitor the communication between the parties involved and to control any inciting words, which could trigger people’s participation.

These measures would have been able to establish effective management of the incident, which would have saved the several lives that perished. Racial issues arose because of the feelings of superiority felt by one group over the other, and of one race clinging to their xenophobia. As a result, such resentment spilled over and created violent and fatal repercussions against the ‘inferior race’ who were blamed for the problems facing the country at the time. Only with the coordinated management of these incidents, by the concerned countries of the world, can future outbreaks of violence such as this be prevented.

ReferencesAdorno, T. W., and Horkheimer, M. Elements of Anti-Semitism: The Limits of Enlightment. In L. Back and J. Solomons (Eds). (2000). Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader. New Fetter Lane, London: Routledge, p. 214. Assah, K. (1994, Apr 22). Rwanda Spirals out of Control. Philadelphia Tribune, pp. 1-A; A. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/337695844?accountid=28371Martin, G. (2003). Rwanda: 1994; Chronicle of a Genocide Foretold. Black Renaissance, 5(2), 8-8. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/215528645?

accountid=28371Nacos, B. L. (2002). Mass-Mediated Terrorism: The Central Role of the Media in Terrorism and Counterterrorism. USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., p. 9.Le , M. (2004, March 24). Kagame Accused Over Plane Attack. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3497688.stmValentine, V. (1996, Listening to Deaf Blacks. Emerge, 7(3), 56-56. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/230824595?accountid=28371