Genocide Rwanda: When Victims Become Killers - Essay Example

Genocide Rwanda- "When Victims Become Killers" The 1994 Rwanda genocide saw the killing of more than 800,000 Tutsis. As one of the most memorable event of the late twentieth century, the genocide has attracted a lot of attention and there have been attempts to explain it. Mahmood Mamdani, an influential Ugandan scholar who wrote the book "When Victims Become Killers" as one of the insights into the genocide. Does it mean that the massacre was a defense action by the Hutus against their own death or threatened existence?

There is a need to look at the political situation that existed at the time so as to ascertain who the potential victim was. In his paper, the main people on scene are the Tutsis, the Hutus, the government and the Belgiums in the context of the genocide. The paper gives an account of the colonial past and political factors issues that gave rise to genocide. The genocide was a result of struggle for power between the Tutsi and the Hutus. By the late nineteenth century, Tutsi, the minority, were a symbol of power while the Hutus, the majority, were the subjects.

Ironically, the Tutsi were identified as an alien race whereas the Hutus the indigenous race. At this time, the Tutsis ruled, owned land and raised cattle while the Hutus cultivated the land hence they were serfs of the Tutsi lords. The Hutus had to give a portion of the harvest to the Tutsi in return for the use of a cow and protection. Generally, the Hutu occupied the low positions of ‘alien races’ in the colonial period (Mamdani 102). The Hutus were therefore under oppression by the Tutsis.

As the population grew, the power of the Tutsis was threatened just as the livelihoods of the Hutus. This struggle peaked in the 1950s when the search for independence caused the Tutsis to turn against Belgians, the colonialists. This caused the Belgium to switch its support to the Hutus and finally, they allowed them to take power in 1959 through a bloody revolution. As earlier noted, the genocide was a result of struggle for power between the Tutsi and the Hutus. Mamdani reveals that in 1994, the Hutus as well as the Tutsis wanted to have a chance of forming the next government.

This means that the Hutus saw themselves as the only potential victims of the political struggle (Mamdani 129). If the Tutsis were to come to power again, the Hutus would have definitely been forced to live under oppression just as it was before they came to power. Such a though was really frightening given the fact that the Tutsis could launch a revenge mission and reclaim all that they lost during the reign of the Hutu-led government. I therefore agree with Mamdani that the Hutus, also the killers, were actually the potential victims of the existing power struggle.

In this case, the foreign-Tutsi was the main problem which called for a double liberation of the Hutu. Conclusion The massacre was a defense action by the Hutus against their threatened existence because as the perpetrators of the holocaust, they saw themselves as the actual victims of the existing political drama. From history, the Hutus had lived under oppression by the Tutsis for a long period of time. Having the Tutsi in power was therefore most likely to plunge them back to the same situation.

This gave morale to the hundreds of thousands of Hutu citizens to combine efforts with their government to eliminate their Tutsi neighbors, Tutsi wives and Children. Hutus and all government officers opposed to the dictatorship in the government were also seen as threat and were killed. Works cited Mandani Mahmood. When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University Press. 2002.