Ourgrations

Rwanda: The Origins of Social Class

A Rwandan History

For Rwandans their history is their way of life. From the beginning, they have been influenced by many important factors. Starting with the internal affairs and ending with external influences, there have been many who have played a role in what has become the present Rwanda. But as one reviews the history of Rwanda they can't help but wonder what was the pivotal moment that caused Rwanda to fail? Did it stem from the internal social prejudice that began over two thousand years ago or was it the influence of external countries that caused Rwandans to turn on each other causing mass murder and destruction? I guess the only way to answer this question is to start from the beginning.

The first group of people that live in Rwanda are the Twa. They are short in stature and are only allowed to be hunters and gathers because they are considered the lesser of the three groups. They are only a small factor in the population and as a result they have had little affect on the overall fate of Rwanda. The Hutu are considered above the Twa and they are known as the farmers and cultivators of the country. They took to dominating the Twa because of their mass of numbers and their slightly taller, stronger and broader features. The last group in Rwanda is the Tutsi. Because of their averaged 6 foot frames, they are considered the elite, dominating social class. For Rwandans they viewed tallness as "The symbol of racial exclusiveness and pure blood" (Keane, 1995, pg. 10) and armed with this belief the Tutsi felt justified in setting themselves above the Hutu and the Twa.

Along with social class, economic status was also used to define nobility. Cattle are the sign of wealth and high social class. They are owned mostly by Tutsi but aspiring Hutus, if they bought enough cattle, could raise themselves up to the level of a Tutsi. The same went for the Tutsi. If for some reason a Tutsi lost their cattle, they would digress into the state of a Hutu. The flux continued through out the beginning of Rwanda's history, but as time progressed, a dangerous sense of second-class citizenship began to erupt in the Tutsis. They began to "Look down on [Hutus] as 'subhumans'" (pg. 13). They took to completely dominating over the Hutu and when met with opposition "Tutsi nobles showed no hesitation in massacring the occupants of rebellious villages and confiscating their property" (pg. 13). As I reviewed Rwanda's beginning history I couldn't help but notice the strong correlation between Rwanda and other developing countries. When the Pilgrims first arrived on the American continent they saw themselves as better than the Native Americans. Armed with this belief of superiority they began to dominate the Natives. Mass murder and destruction resulted in this need to be superior. Although there was distinct social class in the beginnings of America after time Americans have worked through their social differences and have been able to establish peace between cultures and social classes. With this history in mind it makes me wonder if, without the influence of external countries, Rwanda would have done the same? Because, however devious the pre-colonial Tutsi nobles were, their cruelty was magnified ten fold when Europe began to colonize Rwanda.

Early in the 20th century, Germany and Belgium first began to dominate Rwanda and as a result they began to impose their early European beliefs of distinct social classes. Favoring the Tutsis because of their similar features with the Europeans, they began to limit educational rights and administrative roles to only the Tutsis. This favoritism also aided to the beginnings of written history in Rwanda when the historians and poets saw the benefit of this favoritism for the Tutsi. In this history, it was written that:

Tutsi descended from the north and used their superior political and military abilities to conquer the far more numerous but less intelligent Hutu. This mythical history drew on and made concrete the "Hamitic hypothesis," the then-fashionable theory that a superior, "Caucasoid" race from northeastern Africa was responsible for all signs of true civilization in "Black" Africa. People of both groups learned to think of the Tutsi as the winners and the Hutu as the losers in every great contest in Rwandan history (Human Rights Watch, 1999, para. 17).

Once this notion of the superiority of the Tutsi was set in motion the challenge now was how does one truly distinguish between a Tutsi and a Hutu after centuries of breeding between the two. So in 1933 they developed Id cards to solve this problem. In a book written by Ton Keane, he describes all that these identification cards entailed. "Every Rwandan citizen was obliged to carry the card, which stated his name and ethnic identity. Once labeled, a citizen could not change his or her identity" (pg. 17). So the Europeans managed to turn this age old dispute of social classes into full-fledged discrimination. From that moment disaster unfolded. Tutsi felt justified in completely dominating the Hutu. They forced to Hutu to labor mercilessly on farms and when any Hutu tried to oppose, the Tutsis backed up with the Germans, slaughtered anyone who stood in their way. One such case happened with the northern Hutus, who had managed to escape the Tutsi influence before the Europeans arrival, were now being forced to obey the Tutsi. They rebelled but were met with instantaneous death and destruction. From that incident, the Hutu were very hostile and angry with the Tutsi and northern Rwanda became a hotbed for Hutu nationalism. In fact, President Habyarimana, the reform president of the present-day Rwanda, came from the north.

Eventually, the Belgium began to notice the lack of potential political power in the Tutsi and instantly turn their allegiance to the Hutu. The Hutus are the largest social class in Rwanda and the Belgium's began to see the advantage of allying with them. So when the Tutsi monarch, Mwaami Rudahigwa, died in 1959 and the Hutu raised up in defiance against the Tutsi, Europe just sat back and allowed it to happen. This massacre was described as "The most horrible and systematic human massacre we have had occasion to witness since the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis" (Keane, 1995, pg. 19). To escape the massacre over 200,000 Tutsi fled to Uganda as refugees. There the refugees, along with their offspring, would play a key role in the overthrowing of Uganda's government as influential military leaders while still harboring a ever growing desire to return to Rwanda.

At home, in Rwanda, the Hutu began to take utter control over the country. They threw every Tutsis out of the any university and out of influential positions in the government. When they were met with opposition they did the same as was done to them and their forefathers. They butchered and smothered any one who showed defiance against them. In one such incident the Hutu systematically slaughtered 10,000 opposing Tutsi. Convinced of their superiority the Hutu thought it was their job to purge Rwanda of any Tutsi. While this chaos continued, Juvenal Habyarimana, from the northern part of the country, rose up with an supposed intention of restoring peace and order back to Rwanda. While this was his claim he had different intentions and eventually took the power of the government from the southern part of Rwanda up to the northern regions. Habyarimana claimed to want to promote peace but inevitably wanted to discriminate and scapegoat against the Tutsi.

Corruption continued as aid from foreign governments and agencies began to fill the pockets of the senior government ministers and officials while Rwanda began to sink deeper and deeper into poverty. As huge populations began to move across the country due to famine and severe hunger, the economic balance of the country began to weaken scaring thousands of Hutus. When the issue of starvation was brought up to government officials, however, they just told the Hutus that is was because of the Tutsis that they were having all of these problems. In 1990 a Tutsi dominated guerilla staged a fight against Habyarimana regime which caused Habyarimana and his men to stage a dangerous exercise in scapegoating. Their goal was to direct the anger of the poor to the Tutsi thus enabling them to remain in dominating power. Although it is speculated that Habyarimana did not intend on the killing to reach to toll that it did but it is assumed that as Ton Keane states in his book titled "Season of Blood" that

What can be said it that he encouraged the most virulent anti-Tutsi propaganda and that, given Rwanda's history, he must have been aware of the potential consequences. Habyarimana did nothing to quell the violence that was being instigated by his henchmen in the militia and army. Hutu extremism was essentially a useful tool by which the corrupt elite that ran the country could hold on to power (pg. 24).

As time increased however, the pressure to reform to democratization began to weigh on Habyarimana. Even while supported by the French and receiving rebels and supplies from them, Habyarimana was forced into negotiations the resulted in the Arusha Peace Accords of August 1993. Many protocols were discussed, namely a dramatic reduction in the power of the president and then integration of the Rwandan Patriotic Front [RPF] into the armed forces. Little did Habyarimana know that this peace accord was to be his death ticket because on April 6, upon returning from Arusha, Tanzania, his plane was shot down killing him and crashing in to the presidential palace. From that moment on, genocide broke out in Rwanda.

So which is it? Was it the inevitable division of social classes put into place thousands of years ago or is it the external influence of other countries that brought Rwanda down on its knees? From what I can tell it is both. Until humans can live peaceably among each other and defeat this need of dominance and superiority, genocides just like that in Rwanda, will break out continually. Until we as a world can aid and assist those countries that are going through troublesome times with the right intentions and a uncorrupt way, genocides will continue to happen. So the moral of Rwanda's history, an ounce of participation and prevention will result in a pound of cure. We all can and will play a part in every history that will originate right here on Earth.

References

Human Rights Watch (1999). Leave none to tell the story: Genocide in Rwanda. Retrieved April 1, 2006, from www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/

Keane, F. (1995). Season of Blood. London: Penguin Books.

Mamdani, M. (2001). When Victims Become Killers. Princeton: Princton University Press.