Rwanda Genocide: Deviance and Social Control
The Rwandan genocide was a pivotal part of our nation's history. Through our presentation we present a brief history of the genocide and how it ultimately unfolded. Our goal is to discuss the sociological significance of deviance and social control connected to the genocide. We looked to expand on the significance in depth, relating to topics we covered in class as well as group research. Deviance and social control were important factors building up to the Rwandan Genocide and allow us to dissect the sociological factors specifically.
The Hutus made of about eighty percent of the population, while Tutsis covered the other twenty percent along with a small indigenous group named the Twa. Hutus were identified mainly as having darker skin, while Tutsis were light-skinned, taller people with high cheekbones and longer necks. These features were made noticeable by the Rwandan government, creating a stigma
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(Campbell, 4) The term deviance is described as the violation of norms. Hutus obviously acted deviant during the genocide, but the reasoning behind it made sense to their population. The Hutus were given legal right to perform violence against Tutsis. Tension within the two groups was already built up prior to genocide as a result of political uproar. Thus, there were already genetic predispositions which created inborn tendencies. The Hutus turned acts of deviance into norms, which is why the genocide lasted as long as it did. People actually thought that Tutsis should be killed and that was the only option. Hutu militias promoted the removal of Tutsis as a positive sanction. The Tutsis were limited in many ways. They were tremendously outnumbered and caught off guard, resulting in their only technique of neutralization; self-defense. Tutsi militias were formed, but it was never enough to withstand the attacks of the Hutu
He places a lot of his emphasis on fear and intimidation as the main drivers of the violence and says that no matter what reason perpetrators gave for their individual participation, there was one main rationale that drove genocidal violence. That one rationale was that the violence occurred in the following way: “the RPF killed President Habyarimana; RPF soldiers had invaded to kill Hutus; all Tutsis were RPF supporters or potential supporters; ergo, Hutus had to kill Tutsis to prevent being attacked by them” (Straus 153). The most common reason respondents stated was the cause of the genocide was the death of their president, but some said it was because elites desired power. As a reader, it is hard to understand why perpetrators chose to kill people who did not pose any immediate threats when the perpetrators themselves feared insecurity. The Hutus believed that the Tutsis wanted to take back their power so the Hutu extremists had a goal of terminating them, but it is still difficult to interpret the happenings of the genocide because there were so many dynamics. But regardless of all that went on, in sum, The Order of Genocide maintains that three dynamics lead to the killing: war, race, and power. Without a war in Rwanda, the genocide may have just been unable to take place. But the war resulted in “fear, insecurity, rage, revenge, and self-defense” and tensed up the country to perform violent acts of killing (Straus, 173-174). Race allowed all Tutsis to be labeled as the enemy. And finally, power gave hardliners an ability of control to issue the elimination of all Tutsis and authorize the
Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali once said, "We were not realizing that with just a machete, you can do a genocide." To be candid, nobody anticipated the Rwandan Genocide that occurred in 1994. The genocide in Rwanda was an infamous blood-red blur in modern history where almost a million innocent people were murdered in cold blood. Members of the Tutsi tribe were systematically hacked or beaten to death by members of the Interahamwe, a militia made up of Hutu tribe members. In just 100 days, from April 6, 1994 to mid-July, 20% of Rwanda's population was killed; about 10,000 people a day. Bodies literally were strewn over city streets. Genocide obviously violates almost all articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; however, the article I find most important is Article 3 - the right to life, liberty, and personal security. In just 100 days, one million people were denied the most basic privilege granted to every human – the right to live, simply because they were born to the wrong tribe.
After the Europeans supported the Hutus, they began the revolt. By 1959 the Hutus had gained power and were taking land from the Tutsis. The Tutsis moved to neighboring countries and created the Front Patriotique Rwandais and were trained by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The Hutus finally gained independence for Rwanda in 1962. The new Hutus government, which was inexperienced, had problems. Tension between the people grew and in 1990 the civil war began and didn 't end till 1993. Then in 1994 the Hutus President’s plane was shot down, and the Hutus believe it was the Tutsi that did it, and the Tutsi believe the Hutus people did it to have a reason to start the genocide. The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 happened over a period of 100 days. The brutality perpetrated by the Hutus upon the Tutsis resulted in 800,000 deaths After the Genocide the government get rid of ethnicity cards that would be able to ethnically identify them. In today’s Rwandan society the Hutus and the Tutsis get along, because they have realized that they are similar to each other when it comes to everyday
The Rwandan Genocide was a terrible event in history caused by a constantly weakening relationship between two groups of people. The country of Rwanda is located in Africa and consists of multiple groups of people. Majority of Rwanda is Hutu, while a smaller amount of people are Tutsis. The genocide started due to multiple events that really stretched the relationship between the two groups to its end. One of the starting factors was at the end of World War 1. Rwanda was a German colony but then was given to Belgium “who favored the minority Tutsis over the Hutus, exacerbated[exacerbating] the tendency of the few to oppress the many”(History.com). This created a feeling of anger towards the Tutsis, because they had much more power then Hutus.
Africa has been an interesting location of conflicts. From the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to the revolutionary conflict in Libya and Egypt, one of the greatest conflicts is the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide included two tribes in Rwanda: Tutsis and Hutus. Upon revenge, the Hutus massacred many Tutsis and other Hutus that supported the Tutsis. This gruesome war lasted for a 100 days. Up to this date, there have been many devastating effects on Rwanda and the global community. In addition, many people have not had many acknowledgements for the genocide but from this genocide many lessons have been learned around the world.
Genocide is the “deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.” (Dictionary.com, 2010) In 1924, after World War I, Belgian colonists entered Rwanda and allowed the Tutsi dynasty to remain in power. However, after World War II concepts of right and wrong changed. Since the Belgians had been favouring the Tutsis, this change in ethics caused the Belgians to have compassion on the Hutus and promote the Hutu cause, creating tension. (Thompson, 2007) It was the Belgians who cre...
“Beginning on April 6, 1994, Hutus began slaughtering the Tutsis in the African country of Rwanda. As the brutal killings continued, the world stood idly by and just watched the slaughter. Lasting 100 days, the Rwanda genocide left approximately 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers dead” (Rosenberg 1). When Rwanda’s President, Habyrimana, was killed in a plane crash, turmoil and massacres began. A series of events escalated violence until two ethic groups were engaged in bloody battle: The Hutus and the Tutsis. Throughout the Rwandan Genocide, the Tutsis were targeted because the death of President Habyrimana and problems in social and economic life was blamed in them, thus resulting in the 100-day genocide.
Tutsis are related to the Masai and the people along the Nile, while the Hutus
The main reason the Hutus killed Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide was for economic reasons. The Tutsis began to benefit greatly from killing Tutsis by looting them and gaining things like money, land, and cattle. The looting of Tutsis became a means of income to the Hutus. The Hutus neglected their fields in favor of killing so they could loot for better food and goods. As Jean Baptiste states, “Why dig in the dirt when we were harvesting without working, eating our fill without growing a thing?”(Hatzfeld, 60) The Hutus mind set of being farmers shifts to being killers who can benefit more from that, than from their regular jobs of harvesting. As stated by Adalbert, “…we didn’t care about what we accomplished in the marshes, only about what was important to us for comfort.” (Hatzfeld, 83) This shows how the men became more concerned with looting and profiting from the killing than actually being concerned with killing people. So in a sense, the job of killing became a means for the men to do their more comfortable job of looting. One can begin to enter the Hutu mind set and see how, by killing other people, people they may have a...
Extermination began because of the hate the Hutus had for the Tutsi but after the Tutsi were blamed for the president's death they used “revenge” as an excuse. The interahamwe had roadblocks set up searching for people with Tutsi identification card, they killed them off on the spot. There was 100 days of murder and they would end up with 800,000 dead from both Tutsis and Hutus. Hutu extremist used propaganda to convince people to kill off anyone, even those close to them such as neighbors and friends if they were Tutsis. Since Rwanda wasn't the wealthiest place, most deaths were slow and painful because they used machetes, knives and clubs. It didn’t help that most Hutus tortured their victims before killing them. Tutsi did anything to find
The Rwandan genocide occurred due to the extreme divide between two main groups that were prevalent in Rwanda, the Hutu and the Tutsi. When Rwanda was first settled, the term Tutsi was used to describe those people who owned the most livestock. After the Germans lost control over their colonies after World War I, the Belgians took over and the terms Hutu and Tutsi took on a racial role (Desforges). It soon became mandatory to have an identification card that specified whether or not an individual was a Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa (a minority group in Rwanda). The Tutsi soon gained power through the grant of leadership positions by the Belgians. Later on when Rwanda was tying to gain indepe...
To fully understand why this slaughter occurred, we must first look at the history of the Hutu and the Tutsi. In the early 1900's, the Tutsi were placed in positions of power by Belgium, because they looked "whiter". Governed by Belgium's racist way of thought, ethnic identity cards were introduced. The Catholic Church supported the Tutsi and the new social order and educated the Tutsi and imposed their religion on them. Though the population of Rwanda was ninety percent Hutu, they were denied land ownership, education, and positions of power. In the 1950's, the end of the colonial period, the Hutu overthrew the Tutsi government. The Hutu maintained the practices of ethnic division, and the Tutsi were forcibly removed from positions of power. Many Tutsi fled from Rwanda and were not allowed to return. Many Tutsi that stayed in Rwanda were killed. Supported by Uganda, the Tutsi formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a rebel army. The rebel army was anxious to regain citizenship and their homes in Rwanda, and began a civil war that lasted four years. The world wide coffee marke...
The Rwandan Genocide “It is our responsibility to empower the powerless while giving voice to the voiceless” -(Irwin Cotler “Six Lessons from the Rwandan Genocide”) When the Rwandan Hutu majority betrayed the Tutsi minority, a destructive mass murdering broke out where neighbor turned on neighbor and teachers killed their students; this was the start of a genocide. In this paper I will tell you about the horrors the people of Rwanda had to face while genocide destroyed their homes, and I will also tell you about the mental trauma they still face today. Hutu and Tutsi Origins When Rwanda was first settled, the people there raised cattle, the ones with the most cattle were considered “Tutsi” and everyone else was ‘Hutu”.
This essay will start by observing the principles of preventing genocide that are described under the Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that was approved in 1948 by the United Nations General assembly (United Nations, 1948). This report will examine the events leading up to and after the Rwandan genocide and the decision by the United Nations that they needed to intervene strictly on humanitarian grounds in Rwanda. It will be argued that the international community and the UN had an inability to recognise the early warnings of international crisis and there was a general unwillingness of national governments to contribute military and financial support. The essay will also critically evaluate the incapacity
There are several ethical issues surrounding the decision by the Hutu politicians to start the genocide. It is unfair and unethical for the Hutus to blame the entire Tutsi tribe for the president’s death. The Hutu politicians are so much driven by hatred that they fail to consider the innocent lives to be lost in the planned genocide. Instead, they organiz...