How has the Genocide impacted on Rwandan Society?
How has the Genocide impacted on Rwandan society?
Kingsley Moghalu claims the Rwandan genocide was indirectly the result of European colonialism in Africa.1 The first part of this essay will attempt to show that Moghalu is right in this claim, as the ethnic rivalry between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples began during and because of the Belgian administration between 1919 and 1962. It will also provide an outline of the events that led up to the genocide, showing how mutual distrust and aggression between Tutsis and Hutus triggered the genocide. The second part will be an analysis of the social and political conditions after the genocide, to develop an understanding of how Rwandan society has coped with what happened in 1994, and to show that the impact the genocide has had on Rwanda has been both positive and negative. The third part will analyse the judicial response from the international community and the domestic justice system to show how effective each was in achieving reconciliation and a unified Rwanda.
Ethnic tensions between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority first emerged in the twentieth century under the Belgian colonial order. Before the European 'scramble for Africa', the two tribes remained distinct from each other, and the Tutsi were socially, politically and economically more affluent than the Hutu. Kingsley Moghalu writes that they “lived in a mutual arrangement of symbiotic and organic integration... they spoke (and still speak) a common language... intermarriage was not infrequent, and, with the performance of certain sociocultural rites, a successful Hutu could 'become' a Tutsi.”2 Even though Hutus were below the Tutsis in the social hierarchy, the lines between the two tribes were blurred, meaning that the distinction between them wasn't necessarily ethnic.
After relatively indifferent governance by Germany from 1880, Belgium acquired Rwanda in 1919 as a result of the Treaty of Versailles where Germany was stripped of all it's overseas
Kingsley Moghalu claims the Rwandan genocide was indirectly the result of European colonialism in Africa.1 The first part of this essay will attempt to show that Moghalu is right in this claim, as the ethnic rivalry between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples began during and because of the Belgian administration between 1919 and 1962. It will also provide an outline of the events that led up to the genocide, showing how mutual distrust and aggression between Tutsis and Hutus triggered the genocide. The second part will be an analysis of the social and political conditions after the genocide, to develop an understanding of how Rwandan society has coped with what happened in 1994, and to show that the impact the genocide has had on Rwanda has been both positive and negative. The third part will analyse the judicial response from the international community and the domestic justice system to show how effective each was in achieving reconciliation and a unified Rwanda.
Ethnic tensions between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority first emerged in the twentieth century under the Belgian colonial order. Before the European 'scramble for Africa', the two tribes remained distinct from each other, and the Tutsi were socially, politically and economically more affluent than the Hutu. Kingsley Moghalu writes that they “lived in a mutual arrangement of symbiotic and organic integration... they spoke (and still speak) a common language... intermarriage was not infrequent, and, with the performance of certain sociocultural rites, a successful Hutu could 'become' a Tutsi.”2 Even though Hutus were below the Tutsis in the social hierarchy, the lines between the two tribes were blurred, meaning that the distinction between them wasn't necessarily ethnic.
After relatively indifferent governance by Germany from 1880, Belgium acquired Rwanda in 1919 as a result of the Treaty of Versailles where Germany was stripped of all it's overseas