5248 words
Genocide and Modernity
Marie Juul Petersen
130775-2138
This Time We Knew: Genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia
Martin Mennecke and Eric Markusen
Centre for African Studies
Copenhagen University
Fall 2003
Contents
Introduction 2
Modernity 3
Genocide 4
Modernity and genocide 6
The Rwandan genocide 10
The Rwandan genocide and modernity 12
Conclusion 16
Literature 17
2
Introduction
The present paper argues that the study of genocide can benefit from a perspective that takes into account
features of our modern condition. It may sound strange to say that modernity1 played a significant role for
the Rwandan genocide. Modernity is normally associated with reason and rationality – not with people
slaughtering each other with machetes. However, I will argue that some of the factors that facilitated the
genocide are closely connected to what can be called the dark side of modernity. This does not mean that
genocide is unthinkable outside a modern context, nor that genocide is necessarily more likely to happen in
modern time than it was in other times2. It only means that genocides in modern time might have certain
features that distinguish them from genocides in other times3 and by understanding these connections and
characteristics we might get closer to an understanding of the nature of genocide today.
The present analysis takes its starting point in a short discussion of the concept of modernity, outlining the
common understanding of the concept while at the same time introducing other, less commonly discussed,
aspects of modernity. This discussion will be followed by an introduction to the concept of genocide, its
roots and meanings as well as a short overview of different positions among scholars in the field. The third
part of the paper seeks to discuss possible relations between the two concepts. This is done through a
discussion of main points in Zygmunt Bauman’s Modernity and Holocaust and the relevance of these to the
study of genocide in general. Finally, these findings are applied to an analysis of the Rwandan genocide with
the purpose of discussing whether it makes any sense to discuss modernity and the Rwandan genocide as
interrelated phenomena.
Much recent work within sociology as well as in other sciences debates the occurrence of a postmodern age –
Beck’s risk society, Giddens’ late modernity and Castells’ network society are all such attempts to describe this age.
One major point in the discussion is whether this new age represents a radical break with or a logical continuation of
modernity. The present paper builds on the assumption that our age, while certainly representing radically new
phenomena and paradigms, still qualifies to carry the name modern. In this view, postmodernity, while indisputably
questioning and breaking with certain features of modernity, does still include and build on the major traits of the
modern age such as science, secularism and progress.
2 However, it could be argued that the genocides of modern times have been more frequent and brutal than other
genocides. Thus, Hobsbawm calls the 20. century the ’age of massacre’ (cf. Kastfelt 2002:2)
3 As Mamdani puts it, ”It is not simply the technology of gencide that has changed through history, but surely also
how that impulse is organized and its target defined” (Mamdani 2001:9)
1
3
Modernity
The beginning of modernity is often dated to the European Enlightenment. Modernity as an age and as a
phenomenon is related to a set of interrelated processes such as the rise of capitalism; the emergence of the
nation-state and secular forms of government; the decline of traditional hierarchies and the rise of new
class, race and gender based distinctions; and the privileging of a new set of secular ideas, often based on
the Enlightenment’s faith in progress, science and reason (Hinton 2002:7). God’s all encompassing power
was questioned and faith in man and science took the place of old religions. A basic assumption was that
man, with science as his tool, had the ability to fully understand and thus control the world.
The European modernity depended for its self-definition as rational, universal and enlightened on the
presence of an ‘other’ (Mirsepassi 2000:12) – of an opposition to this modern condition4. Tradition came to
be one such opposition. As Hinton notes: “the linkage between the modern and ‘the West’ implies the
inferiority of the ‘traditional’ others who are categorically opposed to it” (Hinton 2002:7). But this
traditional ‘other’ was not simply to be accepted as the eternal opposition to modernity – modernity’s
inherent strife for progress and control demanded that tradition be annihilated and the traditional ‘other’
modernized. As such, the colonization and sometimes destruction of so-called traditional ‘others’ has often
been legitimated in the name of progress and civilization: “A tangled web of discourse […] represented
colonial others as inferior and in need of ‘civilizing’ from Europe” (Mirsepassi 2000:5). Underlying is the
modern idea of progress as a unilinear process5. Related to this idea of progress is the idea of the
eradication of evil. Progress is a process ending in the perfectly modernized and civilized stage at which
backwards traditions and barbarism have been eradicated. As Cushman notes, “[d]eviant behavior,
violence, evil, wickedness have been with us since the beginning, but it is only recently in human history
that people have come to believe that the latter are eradicable and preventable” (Cushman 2003:7).
The same belief in progress and the possibility to eradicate evil is found in science, the new god of
modernity. Medicine, what Bauman calls the archetype of modern science, is about identifying,
categorizing, and eradicating what is sick, thus creating the perfectly healthy human being. But beside the
systematic categorization of illnesses, leading to major medical discoveries, modern science also introduced
a systematic categorization of human beings. The scientific concept of ‘race’ was one such attempt to
categorize human beings into systematic and immutable categories; the underlying assumption being that it
made sense to conceive of human races as different stages in the history of progress.
Thus, the dark side of modernity’s desire for improvement and progress is a tendency towards
categorization and exclusion. The present paper seeks to explore some of the consequences of this aspect
of modernity, the underlying hypothesis being that one consequence is a close relation between modernity’s
dark sides and the facilitation of genocide.
Hall notes that exploration and colonization played a crucial part in this new selfunderstanding: ”[I]n the Age of
Exploration and Conquest, Europe began to define itself in relation to a new idea – the existence of many new
’worlds’, profoundly different from itself” (Hall 1991:289).
5 This project of civilizing the savage found its expression first in colonial structures, later in the development
discourse (Mirsepassi 2000:6). Like colonization builds upon an opposition between the civilized and the savage, in
need of modernization, the development discourse builds on a distinction between the developed and the
underdeveloped, in need of development.
4
4
Genocide
Raphaël Lemkin, a Polish jurist, was the first to apply the word genocide6 in his account of the Nazi
atrocities in an attempt to distinguish between exterminational and non-exterminational massacres
(Huttenbach 2002:167)7. The most widely accepted definition of the concept – and one inspired by
Lemkin’s work – is that contained in the United Nations Convention on Genocide8 (Chalk & Jonassohn
1990:3). The Convention was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 and entered into force in 1951. To
date, 130 states have acceded to the Convention (Chalk & Jonassohn 1990:28).
Most scholars in the field agree that what distinguishes genocide as a conceptual category is the
perpetrator’s intentional attempts to destroy a social group or collectivity that has been marked as different
(Fein, cf. Hinton 2002b:5) – in other words, to annihilate or nullificate the ‘other’. Following this, a central
aspect in the discussion and understanding of genocide is the existence of an ‘other’ and the process of
‘othering’9. In other words, one precondition for genocide is the existence of an ‘other’ to be annihilated –
an identifiable victim group (Fein, in Riemer 1999:47). Other factors facilitating and preceding genocide are
a legitimating ideology of hate; and a breakdown in moral restraints (Hinton 2002:14). Also, power relations
play an important role: “Power is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of genocide” (Freeman
1995:214). As Uvin points out, all genocides in history have been instigated, organized, and legitimized by
the most powerful actor within society – the state (Uvin 2001:80). Finally, political and economic factors –
6 The word genocide is a combination of the Greek genos (meaning tribe, people) and the Latin cide (from caedere, to
kill). Thus, genocide is “the denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the
right to live of individual human beings” (UN General Assembly 1946, cf. Chalk & Jonassohn 1990:9).
7 Other important scholars in the field of genocide studies are Jessie Bernhard (1949), Pieter N. Drost (1959), Hervé
Savon, Irving Horowitz (1976), Leo Kuper (1981), and Helen Fein (2000). See Chalk & Jonassohn (1990) for a
detailed review of the literature on genocide from Lemkin to today’s scholars.
8 ”Article II of the Convention defines ’genocide’ as: [A]ny of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures to prevent birth within
the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (UN Convention on Genocide 1948).
The Convention on Genocide overlaps with previously adopted statements and conventions on crimes against
humanity and crimes against humanity, but it extends protection of groups to peace time (Hinton 2002:4). Genocide
is, under international law, considered the most serious crime against humanity (Melvern 1997:333).
The convention’s genocide definition has been widely contested – first and foremost because the very narrow
definition of the groups to be protected from genocide (national, ethnical, racial and religious): “Race, ethnicity,
nation and religion are favored categories in modern discourse. However […] many other social classifications exist”
(Hinton 2002b:3).
9 Leo Kuper argues that the plural society provides the structural basis for genocide, meaning that “societies with
persistent and pervasive cleavages between [racial, ethnic and/or religious] sections” (cf. Hutchinson & Smith
1996:263) – in other words, societies in which there exist clear divisions among ‘us’ and ‘them’ – are more prone to
conflict. However, knowing that differences among groups are only important insofar as they are made to be
important, we must ask why some differences come to have significance and some don’t. There are many societies in
which differences among groups do not lead to genocide or even social conflict (Hinton 2002b:4). So it seems that it
would make more sense to focus on the process of constructing these cleavages than merely to notice the differences.
5
both national and international – such as civil war, social conflicts and instability, resource scarcity and
economic crisis may also play significant roles in the process.
Cushman argues that most theories within genocide studies tend to focus on endogenous factors – that is,
factors internal to the specific country in which the genocide has taken place – such as the above
mentioned as causal mechanisms of genocide. He points out that while these endogenous factors might
very well be crucial, it is important to focus also on exogenous factors. One such exogenous factor is the
modern condition. Taking modernity into consideration means taking a step back and asking whether the
before mentioned endogenous factors are in some way facilitated or maybe restrained by the condition of
modernity. In the following paragraphs, I will follow Cushman’s suggestions and take a closer look at the
possible relations between modernity and genocide in a discussion of Zygmunt Bauman’s ideas about
Holocaust and modernity.
6
Modernity and genocide
The word genocide did not exist before the twentieth century: “Like the notion of race, concepts of the
‘individual’, ‘human rights’, the ‘nation-state’, and ‘genocide’ are all social constructs linked to the advent of
modernity” (Hinton 2002:6). This does, of course, not mean that the activities now referred to with the
word ‘genocide’ did not take place in pre-modern times: there have been many genocides throughout
history. On the other hand, while genocide can be said to be a generic phenomenon as old as human
society, the argument here is that genocide in its modern form is motivated by a new set of factors.
Because we have, as mentioned earlier, traditionally understood modernity in positive terms, it is difficult to
comprehend an intimate relation between modernity and something as horrible as genocide. Modernity is
associated with progress and science and genocide is perceived as a deviation from this development
towards the perfect world. As such, Holocaust was and is often interpreted as a social breakdown or as the
creation of a sick mind. Likewise, the Rwandan genocide is seen as an outbreak of ancient hatred between
ethnic groups.
In his discussion of modernity and Holocaust, Bauman argues that orthodox sociology assumes that social
institutions produce and maintain moral behavior (Freeman 1995:207). Without these institutions, the
community of human beings would be characterized by chaos and war. In this view, modern society is a
humanizing and moralizing device, and immoral behavior is to be explained as an effect of the
malfunctioning of normal social processes – not as an inherent part of these. An example of this view is
Lemkin, according to whom tribal wars of extermination belonged to times before civilization. With
civilization came the regulation of war to prevent unnecessary suffering and to protect the civilian
populations (Freeman 1995:210). On this unilinear line of progress, the Holocaust necessarily constituted a
reversion to barbarism (Freeman 1995:209)10.
Another common explanation points to anti-semitism as the root cause of Holocaust (e.g. Norbert Elias
1996). The killing of millions of Jews is thus seen to be a product of intense religious prejudice that has its
roots in pre-modern social formations (Bauman 1989:18). Adorno’s idea of the authoritarian personality11
has inspired yet other kinds of explanation. In this view, “certain deep-seated personality traits made
‘potentially fascistic individuals’ particularly susceptible to antidemocratic propaganda” (Browning 1992:65).
Holocaust can thus be explained by the existence of these traits within the German population12.
The problem, according to Bauman, is not the validity of these explanations – they all provide valid
contributions to an explanation of the phenomenon of genocide. The problem is that, regardless of
whether Holocaust is explained as an abnormal event, related to ancient and pre-modern hatred, or as a
normal event, springing from the violent human nature, modernity is left out as irrelevant to the
understanding of the phenomenon.
Likewise, Hannah Arendt argues that Holocaust was not a normal event and could thus not be judged solely by the
instruments of a normal criminal justice system (Cobban 2002:2). Holocaust was a ‘rupture with civilization’ that
shuttered all existing ideas of progress.
11 The authoritarian person is someone who is able to perform abnormal and cruel acts due to lack of societal
restraint.
12 Daniel Goldhagen’s thesis on Holocaust as a consequence of the German Volk is an extreme case of this view.
10
7
Bauman challenges these explanations, arguing that modernity is in fact a necessary prerequisite for
Holocaust13. This does not mean that modernity at any time or inevitably will lead to genocide, but that
modernity made room for Holocaust as a possibility and that the modern norms, values, roles and
institutions facilitated the Holocaust. As such, Bauman provides an alternative to the – more reassuring –
notion that Holocaust and other genocides are the creation of abnormal individuals, facilitated by a
(temporary) breakdown of the civilizing process of modernity.
Bauman argues that far from being an aberrant throwback to a pre-modern state of barbarism or a mere
deviation from an otherwise straight path of progress, Holocaust was the product of modernity (Hinton
2002:6). Modern culture promotes the myth that a world without modern knowledge and institutions
would be a Hobbesian war of all against all (Freeman 1995:208), whereas Bauman suggests that human
relations spontaneously generate moral drives and that modern societal organization actually weakens their
constraining power. The danger of the modern myth is that is distracts attention from the destructive
potential of the modern civilizing process (Bauman 1989:28). Holocaust demonstrated precisely what the
rationalizing, engineering tendency of modernity is capable of if not checked and mitigated by the pluralism
of social powers (Bauman 1989:83).
One important factor in the relationship between modernity and Holocaust is the bureaucratic procedure and
routine: “The Nazi mass murder […] was not only the technological achievement of an industrial society,
but also the organizational achievement of a bureaucratic society” (Browning, cf. Bauman 1989:32). More
specifically, Bauman notes how modern specialization within a bureaucracy provokes individuals to lose
sight of how their activity contributes to an overarching objective as they focus on the immediate result of
their specific task. Bureaucracy is thus a machine for the exclusion of moral responsibility (Tritter & Archer
2000:186).
The rational advances of bureaucracy bread social distance. Actions can take place such that other human
beings are so far removed from the self – either physically, spiritually, socially, or otherwise – as to no
longer appear human. Technology meant that it was possible to apply murder techniques that distanced the
killers from their victims. Methods were sought to reduce the physical proximity between perpetrator and
victim: “[T]he gas chambers reduced the role of the killer to ‘sanitation officer’, asked to empty a sackful of
‘disinfecting chemicals’ through an aperture in the roof of a building, the interior of which he was not
prompted to visit” (Bauman 1989:46)14.
Thus, Bauman argues that the rational, modern bureaucracy played an important role in the facilitation of
Holocaust15. However, bureaucracy alone does not prompt an engagement in genocide.
For a discussion of another aspect of the relation between Holocaust and modernity, namely the formation of a
cosmopolitan memory, see Levy & Sznaider (2002)
14 Browning (1992) provides a critique of this specific point in Bauman’s thesis, arguing that many Holocaust
perpetrators were in fact not distanced from their victims: “The shooters were gruesomely besmirched with blood,
brains and splinters. It hung on their clothing” (Browning 1992:63). In this way, it can be argued that Bauman
perhaps presents a sanitized view of the Holocaust, discounting the irrational elements of the event.
15 Hinton likewise points to the dangers inherent in bureaucracy: “While bureaucracy is not inherently genocidal […]
it has the potential to facilitate lethal projects of social engineering, particularly when other moral safeguards break
down” (Hinton 2002:7).
13
8
In order for bureaucracy to contribute to Holocaust, it needed to intersect with another key component of
modernity, a racist ideology (Bauman 1989:139).
The origins of ‘race’ as a scientific concept is a modern phenomenon created in nineteenth century Europe
as Darwinian evolutionary thought was applied to account for differences in human societies. Racism as an
ideology is thus unthinkable without modern science and its underlying idea of progress16. But modernity
not only facilitated racism, it also needed racism – as all other differences used to draw boundaries between
groups had vanished (Bauman 1989:88). With the emergence of Enlightenment ideals of equality, race
became a new scientific way of differentiating people and creating hierarchies (Hinton 2002:6).
The need for categorizing into ‘us’ and ‘them’ is probably an inherent feature of human nature (Hinton
2002:9). Man has always feared the unknown ‘other’ and the existence of this ‘other’ has always provided a
sort of moral glue binding the members of a given group together and creating a sense of ‘us’. Racism is, as
Bauman has shown, a particular version of such categorization. But at the same time, racism is not just a
new name for the generic concept of heterophobia17 – it is something distinctively modern18. Racism is
different from common heterophobia in that it is an ideology or praxis that aims at the creation of an
artificial social order by eliminating those elements that do not fit in and are not adaptable to this order
(Bauman 1989:91). Racism declares a group of people immune to improvement, leaving annihilation of
these people the only rational way to improve society (Bauman 1989:92).
Racism is compatible with modernity especially as regards modernity’s belief in nature and science; and the
modern understanding of the relationship with nature as engineering (Bauman 1989:95). With modernity,
nature was legitimized as the only orthodox cult, and scientists as its priests and prophets. Science was
characterized by its attempts to determine man’s precise place in nature through observation, measures and
comparisons among groups of people and animals. Phrenology (the art of determining a person’s character
by measuring his skull) and physiognomy (the art of reading facial characteristics) are telling examples of
this faith in science as the objective truth. Differences between Europeans and Africans were described
with the same terminology and precision as when describing plants or fish (Bauman 1989:96). But this
classification was not done with the purpose of just classifying. Science was a tool to be used for the
improvement of the world towards perfection; it was a tool to classify elements into useful and not useful,
healthy and sick. Gardening and medicine are archetypes of this understanding of science as engineering
with nature (Bauman 1989:98). Likewise, racism is an example of science as social engineering. It is man’s
attempt to exterminate the cancer and the weed from human society.
Thus, in Bauman’s view, racism was the substance of Holocaust; bureaucracy was the means to carry it out.
Having said that, it is important to once again underline that this relation between modernity and
Holocaust does not in any way mean that modernity was the only necessary precondition for the realization
With the conversion of the Western world from a religious order to a rational and scientific one, anti-Semitism
became less a religious quarrel than a racist one. And whereas one could, arguably, convert from one religion to
another, one could not possibly convert from one's natural, genetic, racial identity. ”Man is before he acts,” Bauman
explains, ”nothing he does may change what he is. That is, roughly, the philosophical essence of racism” (Bauman
1989:92).
17 Heterophobia in Bauman’s terminology is a common human feeling of diffuse, emotional fear of the unknown and
of lack of control.
18 See Hirschman (2003) for a detailed account of the history of the concept of race
16
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of Holocaust, nor the only relevant factor to focus on. The mere possibility of a Holocaust might have had
its roots in certain universal characteristics of modernity, but its realization, on the other hand, had to do
with specific and local relations (Bauman 1989:11). Furthermore, it is important to underline that Bauman
only discusses the relation between modernity and Holocaust – not modernity and genocide in general.
Thus, before we continue with a discussion of modernity and the Rwandan genocide, we will have to ask
whether there might be any other aspects of modernity – not considered by Bauman – that could possibly
play a role in modern genocides. Here it would seem that colonization would be a relevant aspect to
consider19. As Mirsepassi has pointed out (2000) colonization was, and continues to be, a crucial aspect of
modernity as it was experienced by the Third World. Colonization was, in other words, modernity’s first
expression in the Third World. At the same time, and as mentioned above, colonization plays an important
role in the modern creation of difference through the ideology and practice of classification (Hutchinson &
Smith 1994:225)20.
Now, the question is whether this relation between modernity and Holocaust has any relevance to the study
of other genocides, more specifically, to the Rwandan genocide. In other words, did any of the above
mentioned factors – bureaucracy, racism, and colonization21 – play a role in the Rwandan genocide? In
order to answer this question, we will have to take a closer look at the history leading to the Rwandan
genocide.
Another obvious aspect to consider would be the creation of the nationstate. Kershaw argues that the underlying
driving force behind ethnic cleansing and genocide is the modern quest for a unitary and organic nation-state
(Kershaw, in Bartov & Mack 2001:375). Due to the limited scope and length of the present paper, I will not go into
detail with this aspect.
20 Confronted with a diverse set of colonial subjects, the state initiated the task of classifying them. In the words of
Apthorpe, often “the colonial regimes administratively created tribes” (cf. Hutchinson & Smith 1994:226). This does
not mean, however, that the colonial state was engaged in a conscious process of fabricating ethnic groups
(Hutchinson & Smith 1994:226).
21 Adding to these four general aspects – bureaucracy, racism, the nation-state and colonization – Cushman 2003
identifies a range of more specific, but related, modern phenomena that might facilitate genocide. These include the
tendency of modern governments to rule by realpolitik and the persistence of state sovereignty (Cushman 2003:22);
the faith in negotiation with genocidaires, based on the Enlightenment belief in ‘perpetual peace’ (Cushman 2003:24);
diffusion and entrenchment of bureaucracy as a means toward solving social problems (Cushman 2003:25); the
culture of indifference in modern, capitalist, consumer societies (Cushman 2003:26); modern mass media as agents of
propaganda; and the availability of experts to question the reality of genocide (Cushman 2003:28)
19
10
The Rwandan genocide
Most scholars agree that Rwanda before colonization was a monarchy ruled by a Tutsi king22. The Tutsi
had arrived in Rwanda during the 15. and 16. centuries and most lived from cattle-rearing, whereas the
Hutu, who had migrated to the area some centuries before, were agriculturalists. The Twa, the smallest, but
oldest, grouping in Rwanda, mainly engaged in pottery and hunting. Although of different names, the three
groupings were to a large extent very similar: they practiced the same religion, spoke the same language,
married each other and lived side by side (Uvin 1997:92). With colonization – first by the Germans, then
the Belgians – a rigid system of ethnic classification was introduced (Melvern 1997:334). This classification
of ethnic groups23 turned out to be an advantage for most Tutsi whom the colonizers saw as more
intelligent, hard-working and reliable than the Hutu (Uvin 1997:95): “Hence, under indirect rule, social
relations in Rwanda changed greatly: they became more uniform, rigid, unequal and exploitative, with a
clear hierarchy from […] Tutsi to Hutu to Twa” (Uvin 1997:96)24.
By the end of the 1950s, the situation changed again, partly because of the decolonization of the country
and partly because of the so-called social revolution – the Hutu overthrow of the Tutsi oligarchy and its
replacement with a presidential republic in 1959. One important event preceding this change was the
colonial rulers’ sudden shift of position in favor of the Hutu during the last years of colonial rule25. This
meant that the leaders of the social revolution found themselves if not outright supported by the former
colonizers, then at least free to carry out whatever actions in the name of the Hutu liberation (Peskin
2002:2). Thus, up to 30,000 Tutsis were killed during the following years without any intervention from
neither Belgium, Germany nor France (Uvin 1997:96). An estimated 200,000 Tutsis had to flee, the
majority finding exile in Uganda and Burundi (Charny 1999:509). Furthermore, various discriminatory
policies aiming at the exclusion of the Tutsi were implemented, such as a quota system for the regulation of
the number of Tutsis working in the State (Uvin 1997:10)
The 1963 invasion of a group of Tutsi refugees lead to harsh retaliations by the government. 10,000 Tutsi
were killed and all Tutsi politicians were expelled from the country (Fein, in Riemer 1999:51). Furthermore,
the 1972 Burundi genocide of between 100,000 and 150,000 Hutus provided an important legitimization of
the continued discrimination for Hutu politicians (Charny 1999:510)
From the beginning of the 1990s, the government was increasingly pressured. Many poor Hutus were
discontent with the political elite’s corrupt regime; the invasion of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF)
consisting in refugee-warriors from Uganda, created a permanent threat to stability; and the international
community pressured for democratization of the regime (Uvin 1997:108). Thus, the powers were
threatened from various points and it became increasingly difficult to maintain control. Constant
However, some scholars argue that peripheral areas of what is now Rwanda were ruled by Hutu kings (de
Lespinay, in Bartov & Mack 2001:164).
23 The Twa, Hutu and Tutsi were characterized as respectively aboriginal Pygmies, Bantu peasants and Nilo-Hamitic
aristocrats (de Waal 1994:1).
24 This process of creating a Tutsi rule to administer the colonial state has similarities to the process in Zanzibar,
where the British established an Arab sultanate to administer the native population (Castells 1998:109).
25 The Catholic Church also backed the revolution substantially (Lemarchand, in Charny 1999:509). See Longman in
Bartov & Mack (2001) for a detailed account of the role of the Catholic Church in the ethnic conflicts in Rwanda.
22
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accusations of dictator-like conditions in Rwanda by the RPF together with international pressure forced
President Habyalimana to allow for democratization (Charny 1999:511). Certain political parties26 were
conceived as potential RPF-supporters and a threat to the ruling Mouvement Républicain National pour la
Démocratie et le Development (MRNDD). Thus, to counter these threats, MRNDD initiated a campaign of
recruitment and training of Hutu militias – the so-called interahamwe (Charny 1999:511).
On April 7 1994, the first genocidal activities took place following the shooting down of Habyarimana’s
plane, as he returned from the peace negotiations in Arusha27. The violence started in Kigali moments after
the plane crash, organized by a known group of individuals associated with two extremist political parties,
the MRNDD and the CDR28. The mobilization of the militias was their primary strategy, while a
supplementary strategy was the use of the civil administration to encourage ordinary people to participate
in the killings (de Waal 1994:1)29.
The three month long genocide resulted in the death of more than 800.000 people, of which one third were
children (Uvin1997:91). Hundreds of thousands took part in the killing, looting and destruction30.
In particular the Parti Libéral (PL), Parti Social Démocrate (PSD), and the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR).
The Tutsi opposition was blamed for the plane crash. However, several scholars point to the possibility of the
Hutu radicals having arranged the crash as a way of getting rid of the moderate president as well as creating a perfect
legitimization for the violence against the Tutsi (Longman, in Bartov & Mack 2001:155).
28 Coalition of the Defense of the Republic
29 For a discussion of the role of the West in the Rwandan genocide, see Melvern (2001) and Power (2001)
30 More than 2,000 people have been accused within the so-called category 1 under the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda. This category is reserved for the main architects of the genocide together with the people
having committed sexual torture such as rape (Cobban 2002:10). For further information on post-genocide Rwanda
and a discussion of the different legal mechanisms and instruments applied, see Ball (1999) and Drumbl (2000)
26
27
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The Rwandan genocide and modernity
In the discussion of the Rwandan genocide, most scholars agree to a range of factors playing an important
role in the building up to and facilitating the genocide31. To these belong the lack of resources and the
extreme poverty32; unequal ethnic relations – especially the state implemented ethnic discrimination; the
Burundi genocide; the RPF invasion from Uganda; and finally the pressure for democratization33. Common
to most explanations, thus, is a focus on what Cushman calls endogenous factors – that is, factors internal
to Rwanda and not related to more universal processes such as modernity. Such internal factors are,
naturally, crucial bricks in the analysis of the genocide – no event happens on a universal and abstract
plane, it is always embedded in a particular and local constellation34. That said, genocide is a universal
phenomenon and as such we might expect that certain traits of the Rwandan genocide have some relation
to the universal condition of modernity as well as to modernity as it has occurred in Rwanda.
According to Uvin, the explanations and analyses of the genocide in Rwanda can be divided into three overall
categories. One kind of explanation focuses on the political elite. The genocide is thus interpreted as a way for the
elite to maintain its grip on power despite the various political and economic factors threatening its position.
Although the elite did surely play a significant role planning, facilitating and encouraging the genocide, this kind of
explanation is limited by its exclusive focus on a small group of people” (Uvin 2001:80). Furthermore, the focus on
individual guilt, easier to handle than the guilt of a societal structure, distorts attention from the structures enabling
the actions of these individuals. Another explanation finds the reasons for genocide in ecological resource scarcity.
This thesis holds that overpopulation and land scarcity will inevitably lead to social conflict or will at least contribute
to this. The generality of the thesis makes it almost indisputable; however it seems highly unlikely that ecological
resource scarcity should be the sole factor contributing to genocide. Finally, some explain the Rwandan genocide as a
consequence of certain socio-psychological features of the perpetrators. Thus, within Rwandan culture are certain
traits, such as obedience and violence, which facilitate genocide. As Uvin points out, this kind of explanation most
often ends in an essentialized understanding of Rwandan culture: “This explanation treats obedience as a fixed
property of Rwandan culture” (Uvin 2001:84).
32 Rwanda is with 65% of its population living in extreme poverty one of the poorest countries in the world
(www.um.dk)
33 Fein argues that partly free states with some democratic forms are more likely to practice gross violations than
unfree states: “This seems to be best explained by the fact that some freedom enables deprived classes and groups to
challenge elites, provoking threatened elites to retaliate violently in order to repress opposition” (Fein, in Riemer
1999:45). Likewise, McCullum notes that “[i]n Africa, multi-party democracy is promoted – some would say imposed
– by Western proponents of globalization. But it often breaks down along ethnic lines and quickly undermines
already fragile nation states” (McCullum xx:77)
34 These local aspects do not only have to do with political, social or economic factors but can be seen in the specific
form of the genocide as well. As Christopher Taylor argues, the reasons for perpetrating violence in certain ways are
to be found in local culture and history. He argues that the specific forms of violence encountered during the
Rwanda genocide (severing of Achilles tendons, genital mutilations, breast oblation, road blocks as execution sites
etc) was deeply symbolic and embodied a cultural pattern, more specifically, a Rwandan understanding of flows and
blockages (Hinton 2002b:15). In Hutu discourse, Tutsis were often portrayed as the ultimate blocking beings,
obstructing the social flows of the Hutu nation (Hinton 2002b:15). Furthermore, “thousands of ‘obstructing’ Tutsis
were dumped in rivers – a signifier of flow in Rwandan cosmology – and thereby expunged from the body politic’s
symbolic organs of elimination” (Hinton 2002b:15)
31
13
In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the abovementioned aspects of modernity in relation to the
Rwandan genocide. Thus, what role – if any – did bureaucracy, racism, and colonization play in the
facilitation of the Rwandan genocide?
Modern bureaucracy with its specialized procedures and routines was, according to Bauman, one of the main
factors facilitating the Holocaust. Bureaucracy excludes moral responsibility and distances the perpetrator
from the victim, thus making it easier to commit atrocities. As is well-known, however, the Rwandan
genocide was not characterized by a distantiation between killer and victim. On the contrary, the killings
were committed by ordinary people who very often knew their victims. Furthermore, the means of
destruction were not gas chambers, but machetes and guns – requiring a high degree of proximity between
killer and victim. Thus, it seems that this feature of bureaucracy does not have particular relevance in the
understanding of the Rwandan genocide.
The genocide was, however, influenced by other aspects of bureaucracy. The events in Rwanda are often
characterized as chaotic and anarchic. This may be true – but underlying this apparent chaos lie careful
planning and organization: “[T]hese massacres […] have never been the result of chance or spontaneous
popular movements […] There seems to be a central hand, or a number of hands, that master the genesis
and the unfolding of these events” (Commission Internationale, cf. Uvin 1997:111). Likewise, Cobban
notes that the actions were “so routine, so sustained, that the perpetrators simply called it ‘work’. It was so
well-organized and so efficient that the killing rate was three to five times the rate at which […] Hitler’s
industrialized killing system was able to dispatch its victims” (Cobban 2002:3)35. This routinized work was
made possible through a systematized and bureaucratic way of dealing efficiently with such absurd tasks as
killing: “The lists of victims, written on index cards, had been neatly stored in wooden boxes on metal
library shelves” (Melvern 1997:338). To this end, the ethnic identity cards also played an indispensable role
in identifying the people to kill (Drumbl 2000:1245). On a more technical level, other distinctly modern
features clearly played a role. The infamous Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines radio is one such
example36. The printing press was another means used to disseminate hate propaganda in an effective and
organized way (Cobban 2002:3).
Thus, bureaucracy and technology did no doubt play important roles in the Rwandan genocide as in the
Holocaust. However, one of the main differences from Holocaust was the more public nature of the
Rwandan killings – not as sanitized and secret as the Holocaust (Cobban 2002:4). Nonetheless, although
there was no physical distantiation between killer and victim, it can be argued that the racist legitimization
of the violence (Uvin 1997:111) created another kind of distantiation – a mental distantiation.
In order to understand the role racism played in the Rwandan genocide37, it is necessary to take a step back
and look in more detail at the colonization of Rwanda, as the colonizers were the ones introducing the
Power also notes the efficiency of it all: “It was the fastest, most efficient killing spree of the twentieth century”
(Power 2001:84). Likewise, Hinton says that “when the genocide began, it did not irrationally ‘erupt’ but proceeded in
a fairly organized manner with direction from above” (Hinton 2002:13).
36 As McCullum notes, ”The radio station played perhaps the most critical role in fomenting and sustaining tension
between the two communities by describing the best ways of killing with guns, grenades, pangas, clubs, stones,
spears, bows and arrows” (McCullum xx:17)
37 It is important to note that this racist ideology can not solely be explained as the wicked elite’s conscious
manipulation with an entire population: “It builds on long-standing myths and beliefs, expressed in stories,
35
14
racist ideology. Many scholars agree that ethnic distinctions between Tutsi and Hutu in pre-colonial times
were in effect without significance38. Rwanda, before colonization, had never experienced any war or
greater conflict between Tutsi and Hutu: “([Hutu and Tutsi] lived in relative harmony side by side with each
other for centuries before the advent of the colonial rule” (Lemarchand, cf. Castells 1998:109)39. But when
and why did these diffuse ethnic categories change into the fixed and essentialized racial categories that the
genocide built upon?40
A common explanation of the ethnic divides is that these were created by the colonizers to facilitate control
of the colonized. However, according to a range of scholars41, Hutu and Tutsi do have different historical
origins and the colonizers did not invent the categories from nothing (Uvin 2001:78). But as Young points
out: “The [colonizers] made of these concepts much more systematic and extensive classifications of the
subject populace“ (Young, cf. Hutchinson & Smith 1994:227). Thus, while the colonizers did not invent
ethnic categories in Rwanda, they did rigidify the existing ethnic categorization through racist ideology,
using this as a tool for power42. In other words, rather than culturally established and rooted in decades of
tradition, the ethnic identities were politically established (Drumbl 2000:1294).
Building on anthropological studies, the colonizers based their categorizations on the so-called ‘Hamitic
hypothesis’ according to which Tutsis belonged to the civilized and intelligent race of Hamites, whereas
Hutus, of Bantu origin, were lazy and inefficient43 (Hinton 2002b:12). The ethnic categorizations involved
aphorisms, and proverbs; on decades of political ideology transmitted through speeches, official histories recited in
school books, and exclusionary policies” (Uvin 2001:81). Furthermore, eliminating racism would not mean
eliminating evil. There are, and have always been, other kinds of prejudice. Bauman distinguishes between racism,
heterophobia and contestant enmity (Hinton 2002:6).
38 By the 19.century hundreds of years of cohabitation and intermarriage had produced a so-called integrated society
wherein the ethnic categories were to a large extent based solely on occupation: “whoever acquired a sizeable herd of
cattle was called Tutsi and was highly considered” (Uvin 1997:92).
39 Gourevitch also points to this fact: ”Until […] 1959 there had never been systematic political violence recorded
between Hutus and Tutsis – anywhere” (cf. Drumbl 2000:1244). This argument has, especially before and during the
genocide, often been contested by scientists and the previous Hutu government as part of the genocidal discourse,
which argue that Rwanda was invaded by foreign Tutsis who gradually and illegitimately installed a system of
oppression and exploitation of the Hutus (Uvin 1997:93).
40 Most scholars agree that ethnic divides and racist ideologies played an important role in the Rwandan genocide. As
Lemarchand puts it: “[I]t is the interplay between ethnic realities and their subjective reconstruction (or
manipulation) by political entrepreneurs that lies at the root of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict” (Lemarchand, cf. Castells
1998:108). Many see these divides as created by the colonizers: “a rigid system of tribute and exploitation was
imposed, creating deep grievances that underlie today’s violence” (de Waal 1994:1). The International Panel of
Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda of the OAU, on the other hand, places most
responsibility for this ethnic divide with the Church: “In the colonial era, under German and then Belgian rule,
Roman Catholic missionaries inspired by the overtly racist theories of 19th century Europe concocted a bizarre
ideology of ethnic cleavage and racial rankings” (Caplan 2000:2).
41 See, among others, Danielle de Lame (1996), Catharine Newbury (1988) and Christopher Taylor (1997)
42 As Chabal & Daloz notes: “[ethnic affiliations] were reconstructed during [the colonial period] according to the
vagaries of the interaction between colonial rule and African accommodation” (cf. Drumbl 2000:1293).
43 According to the Hamitic hypothesis, Tutsi were not really African, but a Hamitic group from the Middel East,
descendents of Noahs son Ham, and as such closer in origin to the white ’race’ than the Africans (Longman, in
Bartov & Mack 2001:146). They were ”Caucasians who were black in colour without being Negroid in race”
15
scientific methods such as phrenology as well as the attribution of obligatory ethnic identity papers (Uvin
1997:95), introduced in 1926 (de Waal 1994:2), both distinctively modern phenomena and building on a
racist ideology.
This racist discourse did not vanish with independence, but continued in a reverse form44. The Hutus were
now in power, representing the majority of the country’s population, but nonetheless lacking popular
support. Thus, like their predecessors, they turned to a racist discourse as a means to legitimate their power
(Uvin 1997:98). The argument posed that the Hamitic race were brutal and violent invaders who for years
had exploited and suppressed the Hutu race. As Rwanda’s later president, Kayibanda, put it in his socalled
Bahutu Manifest: “the problem is basically that of the monopoly of one race, the Tutsi” (Uvin 1997:103).
Differences between the two groups were thus still articulated as racial – using the same racial categories as
the colonizers (Uvin 1997:99). In line with this discourse, a policy of systematic discrimination developed.
Tutsi access to higher education and state jobs was regulated through a quota system; the ethnic identity
cards introduced by the Belgians were maintained; and Tutsi refugees wishing to return to Rwanda were
excluded from the country: “Anti-Tutsi racism served as a deliberately maintained strategy of legitimization
of the powers-that-be, and was kept alive in Rwanda through a systematic public structure of discrimination
and education, in which the different and problematic identity of all Tutsi was constantly being referred to”
(Uvin 1997:112)
Thus, while the tradition for efficient organization and planning within the Rwandan administrative
structures facilitated the practical aspects of genocide, a racist ideology, introduced with colonization and
strengthened through years of social conflicts, contributed to creating a mental distantiation between victim
and killer thus eradicating moral responsibility. Furthermore, this ideology, combined with a modern idea
of progress and improvement, contributed to the creation of a shared social norm: “The government, and
an astounding number of its subjects, imagined that by exterminating the Tutsi people they could make the
world a better place” (Gourevitch, cf. Drumbl 2000:1245).
(Mamdani 2001:79). The underlying assumption of this hypothesis was that people of African ’race’ would not be
able to create a political system as complex and efficient as the Rwandan one.
44 Mamdani points to the logic of the revolutionaries using the same tools as their former masters: “Ethnicity thus
came to be simultaneously the form of control over natives and the form of revolt against it” (Mamdani, cf. Uvin
1997:105).
16
Conclusion
When Prudence Bushnell, at the time Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Bureau of African
Affairs, suggested jamming the RTLM radio in an attempt to at least minimize the killings, one Pentagon
official told her: “[R]adios don’t kill people. People kill people” (Power 2001:101). Likewise, modernity
doesn’t commit genocide, people do. Thus, the objective of this analysis has not been to blame modernity
for the Rwandan – or any other – genocide. Genocide has always occurred and will probably always occur
– regardless of modernity. However, modern genocides are shaped by their time and looking at this relation
is a necessary precondition for understanding both the generic and the specific aspects of the phenomenon.
The foregoing analysis has shown that studying genocide as a phenomenon related to certain aspects of
modernity makes sense – at least in the case of the Rwandan genocide. But such a perspective is not only
relevant because it points towards aspects that might otherwise be overlooked because we perceive them as
integrated parts of our everyday life, so regular and normal that we barely notice them anymore. It is
relevant also because it forces us to ask whether modern structures may be part of the problem rather than
the solution45. And with this question inevitably follows the possibility of our own involvement as
something else than mere observers to genocide. As Cushman expresses it: “this idea is rather radical and
provocative, for the logical conclusion of arguing that it is modernity itself which creates the perpetuation
of the conditions for the continuation of genocide is that we must invariably ask ourselves about our own
role in facilitating that which we despise” (Cushman 2003:22).
This does not mean that in order to prevent genocide, we should turn our backs on modernity and seek a
return to a pre-modern and peaceful tradition. Life before modernity was certainly no less brutal than
modern life. But it does mean, however, that we have to let go of an uncritical belief in certain modern
ideas. In other words, the reconceptualization of genocide from some kind of aberration in modernity to a
somewhat more normal part of modernity (Cushman 2003:30) necessarily implies a reconceptualization of
modernity from something primarily positive to a more ambivalent phenomenon.
At the same time, it is important to remember that modernity might be about distantiation and
dehumanization in the name of science and progress, but modernity is also about tolerance and empathy:
“The value-change from brutality to humanitarianism is both a precondition for constructing genocide as
an object of analysis and also an element in its explanation” (Freeman 1995:214). Thus, modernity and its
emphasis on tolerance and on the individual’s right also encourage the moral judgment of genocide. And it
is values such as these that we must seek to bring with us into the age of postmodernity46.
Contrary to this view, most genocide theorists argue that the solution to genocide is to be found within modern
structures – such as a more powerful UN or the establishment of the International Criminal Court (Cushman
2003:21)
46 The inevitable question to ask here is, naturally, what consequences postmodernity will have for genocide? Ahmed
argues that certain features of late modernity further encourage ethnic cleansing and genocide. The nation-state is
weakening and ‘traditional’ identities are resurging as a response to global uncertainties, as some sort of haven in an
increasingly unsafe world. Problems arise when these identities are essentialized and certain ethnic identities become
scapegoats in particular social conflicts – just like race identities have been in modern conflicts (Hinton 2002:11).
45
17
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