Ethnicity And Rwanda Genocide

Question 1

How many Tutsi died in the first 100 days of 1994?

Answer 1

800, 000

Question 2

Define ethnicity

Answer 2

The political expression of identity of origin in competition with other ethnic groups

• ethnicity is fundamentally decisive and competitive

Question 3

Comment on primordialist philosophy on Africa

Answer 3

Western style politics almost impossible in new African states because Africans sense of civil responsibility is far weaker than loyalty to their ethnic group

• the modern, rational state less real and less recognisable to Africans than ancient primordial affinities of blood, language, locality and religion

Question 4

Which key primordialist thinker was active in Nigeria in the 1960s?

Answer 4

Clifford Geertz

Question 5

Consider counter arguments to primordialist thinking. What were the arguments of nationalist era scholars?

Give an example of a nationalist era scholar

Answer 5

That the seemingly ‘primordial’ differences between groups would wither away in the face of industrial, scientific and technological progress (Turton)

• Ethnicity belonged to a ‘vanishing world’, however it still had to be utilised by the state because ethnicity is the precursor to Africa’s next stage of development

Question 6

Comment on instrumentalist thinking

Answer 6

Ethnicity is not a fixed, unchanging, ancient identity, but rather a tool used by people for a particular political, economic or social purpose

• ethnicity is mutable, rather than primordial

Question 7

Where does the term Hutu originate from?

Answer 7

19th century process of enserfment

- this caused the word Hutu to carry an aura of servitude through history

Question 8

Give an example on how it could be argued that ethnicity is mutable

Answer 8

Before the 1850s poorer Tutsi were often called Hutu if they worked as servants of powerful tutsi

• ethnicity in Rwanda an extension of social status rather than primordial ancestry

Question 9

How did the state foster ethnic conflict?

Answer 9

The state transformed agriculturalists into serfs - the class division between the pastoralist elite and agricultural peasantry became redefined as an ethnic division

Question 10

How did the Belgians approach Rwanda’s complex social relationships?

Answer 10

Issued fixed identity cards which arbitrarily and permanently labelled people Hutu or Tutsi