Rwanda Genocide - Essay Example

Rwanda Genocide: A Shameful Blot On The Face Of The Humanity Introduction Humanity has suffered terrible amount of loss due to the world wars duringthe early 1900. After a slight recovery from the horrors of the war, it was believed that human beings have learnt a lesson and have realized that killing other people in the name of ethnicity or religion does not solve the problems of humanity. However, to the dismay of humanity, the brutality and the heinous way in which the Rwanda genocide was carried out from April and July 1994, where approximately 800,000 people belonging to Tutsi tribe were killed by Hutu power government (Moshman, 2004, p.183), showed that human beings have learnt nothing from their history (Dutton, 2007,p.ix). In fact, twentieth century witnessed one of the most violent, inhuman and terrible events of the history in the Rwanda genocide (Dutton, 2007,p.ix). Unfortunately, what played a major part in the rapid and systematic execution of the planned genocide was the ‘media’, which is one of the powerful inventions of the ‘modern world’. This shows that even though humanity has progressed tremendously in the field of technology, their progress as ‘human’ beings have remained stunted (Dutton, 2007,p.ix). Rwanda is a shameful blot on the face of humanity. The psychology behind the genocide Genocide is a form of violence which is carried out in a controlled and “dispassionate” way to achieve a particular political objective (Dutton, 2007,p.22). However, when the violence and brutality in killing the people of the enemy groups goes “beyond what is required for military purposes”, then it is termed not just a genocide but also massacre (Dutton, 2007,p.22). The form of violence that took place in Rwanda was not just a genocide, but was also a massacre because people belonging to the Hutu group (who carried out the violence) didn’t just kill the adults belonging to the Tutsi group but also tortured, raped, mutilated and killed the women, children and infants belonging to that group (Dutton, 2007,p.22). The aim of the people from Hutu tribe was not just to acquire power over the people from Tutsi tribe but to exterminate them completely. The question is what drives a human being to commit such heinous acts of violence against another human being? According to Power, the aggression and the repressed anger in the human beings gets an uncontrollable outlet during the war as they feel that it is legitimate to kill people during the war (Dutton, 2007,p.34). War leads people to feel fear of extinction of the race they belong to and make them to resort to violence to save themselves (Dutton, 2007,p. 34). The psychological fear and anger leads to violence and genocide. The same situation developed in Rwanda when Belgium withdrew from there in 1962, leaving two tribal groups of Hutu and Tutsi who harbored animosity against each other to solve their own problems (Dutton, 2007,p. 34). After 1962, Hutu tribe ruled for thirty years and as revenge, practiced discrimination, killings and ‘ethnic cleansing’ of people belonging to Tutsi tribe (Dutton, 2007,p. 34). In 1990, the aggravation in the political tension resulted in formation of the armed forces (called Rwanda Patriotic Front or RPF) of Tutsi people who were exiled from Rwanda (Dutton, 2007,p. 34). Under the circumstances of peace arrangements between Hutu and Tutsi tribes through Arushi Accord, the extremists from Hutu tribe were secretly collecting the weapons for what was to be one of the longest genocides of the century (Dutton, 2007,p. 34). From what the western media portrayed in front of the world, it seemed that the genocide was a result of ethnic differences between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes (Moshman, 2004, p.183). However, according to Smith (1998) and Waller (2002), the Rwanda genocide was not a result of ethnic or racial differences, but was a result of psychology of ideology and identity (Moshman, 2004, p.183). ‘Identity’ and ‘Relative deprivation theory’ People, who suffer from injustice and low status collectively, i.e. as a group, develop feeling of community and solidarity between themselves which leads them to develop a group identity (Ellemers, 2002, p.245). According to Ellemers, Wilke and Knippenberg (1993), affiliation with a particular group creates a subconscious feeling of competition towards the other groups in the society (Ellemers, 2002, p.245). Experiments by Wright (1997) reveled that the identification with the group makes a person sensitive to the plights of the group and hence, as he considers the group plight more unjust, a person is more likely to protest against the injustice towards his group than the injustice towards himself as an individual (Ellemers, 2002, p.245). Rwanda genocide was a result of mistaken identity by people. In 1973 military coup in Rwanda, General Juvenal Habyarimana, who belonged to the Hutu ethnic tribe, tried to create unity between the people of Hutu and Tutsi ethnic group by forming a one party state (Dibie & Herron, 2001, p.199). However, instead of identifying themselves as ‘national’ citizens, people belonging to Hutu and Tutsi tribes strongly identified themselves as ‘ethnic’ citizens (Dibie & Herron, 2001, p.199). This ethnic identity increased the amount of tension and hatred for each other. Moreover, people who join groups begin to adopt the beliefs of the group in order to gain acceptance by the members of the group (Moshman, 2004, p.194). The desire to be understood by others is so intense that people change their ideologies and theories with the aim of being understood by others in the group (Moshman, 2004, p.194). This desire sometimes leads people to believe the things that are not necessarily true (Moshman, 2004, p.194). According to Moshman (1999), an identity is “an explicit theory about oneself” (Moshman, 2004, p.194). Human being tries to form an identity on the basis of his beliefs, values and commitments, which in turn, affects his characteristics and behavior pattern (Moshman, 2004, p.183). So, if a person identify himself as a political liberal, his belief of liberalism is soaked by every aspect of his personality like behavior, character, religious beliefs, professional life, education, commitments etc., and without him realizing it, he becomes a slave to the ideology (Moshman, 2004, p.195). Many internal and external factors affect the process of identity formation, which involves self discovery and idea about who one wants to be (Moshman, 2004, p.195). At the same time, to make their identity strong, people consistently have to prove their commitment towards that identity through their actions and behavior (Moshman, 2004, p.196). If they refuse to act according to the beliefs of the group, they face the danger of being thrown out of the group and losing their identity. Hence, according to Jenkins (2001) and Mccauley (2001), identity is an effort of human being “to be a part of a something larger and more enduring than oneself” (Moshman, 2004, p.196). However, what really led to the eruption of genocide in Rwanda was not just the ethnic identity but the feeling of deprivation and injustice that was being perceived by the people belonging to Hutu ethnicity (Kendall,2007,p.664). According to relative deprivation theory, people who are dissatisfied with their conditions and opportunities provided by the society are driven to produce social movement (Kendall,2007, p.664). Rose (1982) said that when people perceive that they are deprived of the ‘fair’ share in the society, they create uprising against the power (Kendall,2007,p.664). According to Orum and Orum (1968), what creates more unrest in a group of people is the perception that compared to the other groups in the society, their position in the society is low and they are suffering from the injustice without any valid reason (Kendall,2007,p.664). People belonging to Hutu group believed that people belonging to Tutsi ethnicity were devils and arrogant (Dutton, 2007,p. 34). According to Hutu power view, people with Tutsi ethnicity enjoyed special privileges in the political arena during the rule of Belgium (Dutton, 2007,p. 34). What led the people from Hutu ethnicity to carry out the most heinous genocide of the century was the long time simmering hatred against the Tutsi people and the belief that they (Hutu ethnicity) were deprived of the social opportunities in spite of being the larger and the oldest tribe of Rwanda. The Hutu power is Rwanda took advantage of this psychology and with the aid of the media dictated the terms and conditions required to have an identity of a ‘Hutu’. One of those conditions was to carry out a systematic massacre of the people belonging to the Tutsi tribe. The role of the media. By the end of 1980, General Juvenal Habyarimana started losing his popularity in Rwanda and also started losing support from people belonging to ethnic group of Hutu (Forges, 2007, p.41). During the 1990 attack by Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), consisting of people who were refugees of the Tutsi ethnic group, Habyarimana saw an opportunity of gaining back his popularity among the people of Hutu ethnicity (Forges, 2007, p.41). He decided to gain their confidence by going against the people of Tutsi ethnic group and declaring them as traitors and accusing them of supporting the people belonging to RPF army (Forges, 2007, p.41). According to the International Commission Report (1993), this stance of Habyarimana led to more than 15 massacres over next three years, in which thousands of people belonging to Tutsi ethnicity were killed brutally (Forges, 2007, p.42). What really helped the government in instigating such a brutal and inhuman rampage of killing was the hate messages broadcast through radio and newspaper (Forges, 2007, p.42). Radio was the major source of news in Rwanda as large number of the population could not read or write (Forges, 2007, p.42). The government realized that if they had to spread the feeling of hatred and violence against the Tutsi group, they will have to use the radio (Forges, 2007, p.42). Radio was used to instigate fear, anger, hatred and political ideology about the superiority of the Hutu group (Forges, 2007, p.42). Hundreds of people belonging to Tutsi ethnicity were killed after the radio broadcast of the communiqué supposedly sent from Nairobi warning the Hutu people in Bugesera that people of Tutsi ethnicity were planning to attack them and the only way to protect themselves was to attack them first (Forges, 2007, p.42). Another media that played a major part in instigating the genocide was newspaper called ‘Kangura’ (Kirschke, 1996,p.35). It carried out a systematic and intentional abuse of people belonging to Tutsi ethnicity through the notorious “10 Hutu commandments” and consistently portrayed them as traitors whose only aim was to restore their power over the Hutu ethnicity (Kirschke, 1996,p.35). ‘Kangura’ published articles claiming that the foreign journalists were the ‘agents’ of RPF and in its 8th issue of January 1991, it warned the Hutu people by asking them to learn the plans of Tutsi ethnicity and to “ exterminate every last one of them” (Kirschke, 1996,p.37). CONCLUSION The Rwanda genocide is one of the horrors of the human history. It shows how a selfish desire to gain a political power influences the human beings to commit unimaginably heinous violence. However, most importantly, it shows how the feeling of fear and insecurity can turn normal people into a cold murders and make them slaves at the hands of the political power. Rwanda genocide was not about ethnicity. It was about the innate feeling of insecurity and the fear of extinction that every human being harbors in his heart. References Dibie, R. & Herron, S. (2001). The Politics and Policies of Sub-Saharan Africa. Maryland: University Press Of America, Inc. Dutton, D.G. (2007). The Psychology Of Genocide, Massacres, and Extreme Violence: Why Normal People Come to Commit Atrocities. CT: Praeger Security International Ellemers, N. (2002). Social Identity and Relative Deprivation. In I.Walker & H.J.Smith (Eds.)Relative Deprivation: Specification, Development and Integration. New York: Cambridge University Press. Forges, A.D. (2007), Call to Genocide: Radio in Rwanda, 1994. In A.Thomson (Ed.) The Media and The Rwanda Genocide. London: Pluto Press. Kendall, D.E. (2007). Sociology in our Times. CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Kirschke, L.(1996). Broadcasting Genocide: Censorship, Propaganda and State- Sponsored Violence in Rwanda 1990-1994. Retrieved from http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/rwanda-broadcasting-genocide.pdf Moshman, D. (2004). Theories of Self and Theories as Selves: Identity in Rwanda. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. In C.Lightfoot, C. Lalonde & M. Chandler (Eds.). Changing Conceptions of Psychological Life. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Read More