Bookreport on"an Ordinary Man" Essay

At the end of World War I, Belgium accepted the League of Nations authorization to govern the Ruanda-Urundi territory. Which later became Rwanda and Burundi. Two separate territories. Prior to Belgian rule, the African native people coexisted amongst each other and lived in peace under the same religion and spoke the same language. That was until the Belgian caused division amongst the people.They divided the people based on physical features. The Belgium announced that the Tutsis were more superior due to their visible features which included those with longer pointier noses, lighter skin, those who were taller, and had more elegance. The Hutus were the opposite. They were; dark, short and strong. They weren’t exactly sophisticated. Government

In a certain way comparing to the Nazi genocide of World War II, the well-organized and well trained leaders were able to create a mass appeal of fear and hatred that had the result of controlling the common people. It also controlled members of the educated elite like doctors, priests, teachers, human rights activists to commit horrible deeds against friends, colleagues, and neighbors, as well as strangers. Towards the end of the genocide, Tutsis fled to places that were thought to be safe like hospitals, churches, and schools—but such shelter only made it easier for the Hutus to find and kill them. In fact, ordinary Hutu citizens represented the strongest Hutu killing force in the country. Pressured by the Interahamwe and RTLM, and supported by the country’s history of unpunished violence against Tutsis,

Residual ideals from Belgian and German colonialism of Rwanda laid the groundwork for ethnic tension by further instigating a social divide amongst Hutu and Tutsi populations. Class and clan had always been apart of the cultural identification within Rwanda

In 1962 when Belgium left the hutu majority took power. They started to discriminate against the tutsis which turn the population against the minority tutsis which became brutal. When the violence began thousands of tutis left Rwanda but some tutsis remain in Rwanda. The tutsis were restricted to what kind of jobs they can hold, they were also excluded from higher educational and politics.

The first known inhabitants of Rwanda were the Twa that were eventually displaced by the Hutu peoples living in the Congo River basin during the tenth century. About five hundred years later, the Tutsi arrived from the north, conquered the Hutu, and ruled them through an elaborate feudal system – Tutsi kings, or mwamis, governed the elite who, in turn, governed the Hutu serfs. This system remained intact for hundreds of years and reached its peak in the middle to late 19th century (“Rwanda”). Until 1880, Rwanda was governed mainly by Tutsi monarchs, but the Rwandan people did not consider themselves separate races at this point. Tutsis simply held more status and wealth and, therefore, took on leadership roles. The Hutu were farmers and the Tutsi were traditionally herdsmen, and together they shared the business of faming for survival. For 600 years, the Tutsi and the Hutu shared a language, a

Rwanda Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungo stated, “We have the same language, the same religions. There is no song or dance or drum-beat that is peculiar to one or the other of our people. We had disputed before the colonial period over things like land-ownership, and sometimes there were little fights, but the chiefs dealt with it in the traditional way and never did we suffer destruction like we have just experienced” (1). The racist theories of earlier colonizers tried to differentiate the two groups based on physical appearances. Belgians considered Tutsi to be more European and were given educational advantages. Hutu were excluded from all levels of power and left as a minority position. These disadvantages along with the nations poverty, over population from refugees, land pressures, and ecological degradation would rage the extremists and fuel their hatred. Rebels (interahamwe) and Hutu extremists hunted Tutsi. The propaganda was fed through the Radio stations giving Hutu ideas of how to find, capture, and kill Tutsi. Hutu rebels called the Tutsi minority cockroaches and felt it was

The Tutsi people had joined the Rwanda population during the 1300’s. Before the colonial era, Tutsis typically occupied the higher status in the social system and the Hutus the lower. However, mobility on the social hierarchy

The Hutus and Tutsis are descended from ancestors sharing a common language, who settled the Rwanda-Burundi area of east-central Africa . Among these people, two forms of subsistence developed: One group relied on cultivation and farming and the other relied on cattle raising¹. Farmers were Hutus and pastoralists were Tutsis¹. The terms Hutu and Tutsi became class markers, and the Tutsis were the wealthier members of the society¹.The Hutu has always been the majority population².The Tutsi have always been the minority population and they believe in a hierarchical system, with the king being at the top .

In 1994, a brutal battle of discrimination and hatred erupted. In the central African country of Rwanda, a long brewing tension broke out in a battle between the Tutsi and Hutu. Lasting approximately 100 days, the conflict forever changed the lives of 40% of the Rwandan population. About 800,000 Tutsi were killed and many refugees fled the country ( “Rwandan Genocide”). It was a grueling fight, based on land and power, that all started with a lopsided hierarchy created by the Belgians that loomed over the heads of the Rwandan people. Belgium’s colonization of Rwanda, served as a catalyst to the genocide between the Tutsi and Hutu by creating the unjust differences and unequal rights between

The early colonization of Rwanda by the Germans and Belgians created the major internal conflict between the Hutu and the Tutsi. At the time of the Europeans arrival, Rwanda was made up of 85% Hutu, who were farmers, 14% Tutsi, who were cattle herders, and 1% Twa, the aboriginal people (Chrétien 69). In 1890, Rwanda first became a colony of Germany, lasting until the end of World War I, when power was transferred to Belgium. Both of these colonies favored the Tutsi population (Staff ¶2), because they believed that the Tutsi were more Caucasian and therefore superior in intelligence to the Hutu (Jones 17). During this time, the Belgians oversaw a land reform process by the Tutsi, which seized control of farmland that had been under the control of the Hutu, without providing them with substantial compensation (Prunier 28). This favoritism planted the seed for the

The Hutu (the ethnic majority of Rwanda) and the Tutsi (the minority making up 14% percent of Rwanda) sometimes looked indistinguishable yet had always been viewed otherwise. Many believe the division between the Hutu and Tutsi first started After World War I (when Belgium gained control over Rwanda.) Some people assumed the Belgians initially caused the division between the two ethnicities since they strongly favored the Tutsi and treated them superior to the Hutu. Belgium had merely enhanced the segregation between the groups: “Belgium [even] instituted apartheid-like identity cards” in order to separate the cultures (Steven, 2006). The disunion of the two tribes really began all the way back to the 14th century, when the Tutsi migrated from the southern Ethiopian highlands into Rwanda. Although the Hutu had continually outnumbered the Tutsi (by 85%) the Tutsi always had the advantage. The Cushite, later known as Tutsi, were originally said to be taller, lighter skinned, and more “cultured” right from the get go. They used their talents such as driving cattle and combat in order to gain economic and political supremacy. (Modern History Project, 2012) In addition to their useful skills, the Tutsi also grasped control of Rwanda when King Ruganzu Ndori inherited the throne after his father, Nsoro (former King) passed away around the 16th

Roughly 85% of Rwanda’s population consists of Hutus and the remaining 15% Tutsi, with a small population of Twa, a Pygmy group who were the original inhabitants of Rwanda [The Rwandan Genocide, 2009]. Though the Tutsis are thought to have migrated into the Rwandan and Burundi area from the southern highlands of Ethiopia and the Hutus are characterized as earlier inhabitants of Rwanda and Burundi. The two ethnic groups now inhabit much

Hutu and Tutsi spoke the same language and practiced similar religions. They also intermarried. “The identity card “ethnicity” of future generations was determined patrilineally; all persons were designated as having the “ethnicity” of their fathers, regardless of the “ethnicity” of their mothers.” (Magnarella, 2002). These practices were carried on until its abolition by the 1994 post-genocide government. Paul Magnarella observes “had the unfortunate consequence of firmly attaching a sub-national identity to all Rwandans and thereby rigidly dividing them into categories, which, for many people, carried a negative history of dominance-subordination, superiority, inferiority, and exploitation-suffering.” (Magnarella, 2002). Hutu and Tutsi lived together relatively peacefully following in the 19th century. However, Magnarella states “time when their total population was comparatively low (probably less than two million, versus over seven million in 1993) and land supply for both Hutu farmers and Tutsi cattle grazers was ample. With rapid population growth in the twentieth century, the situation changed. Rwanda was faced with a critical food-people-land imbalance.” Things continued to change and it suddenly became a competition for both Hutu and Tutsi. Fearon and Laitin argues “the notion that identities are socially constructed is indisputable in social psychology and political science studies. It is the most basic criteria for

On the lines of many movies subjected on ethnic discrimination and massacre, Hotel Rwanda focuses on Paul Rusesabagina and his family in Rwanda during the genocide of the Tutsis by the ruling Hutu tribe in 1994. The movie incorporates many aspects its subject in a thrilling and sentimental fashion. New York Times critic Stephan Holding’s problem is that the portrayal of violence and sentiments are not accurate. Considering the fact that this movie is meant cover a wide range of audience and its subject, the proportions of violence and sentiment are not balanced for the purpose of creating the most impact and arouse its viewers to the

Southeastern Europe has been a conflict-ridden corner of the world since as early as 400 A.D. From the split of the Roman empire to the rule by the Ottoman empire to the World Wars and most recently, the breakdown of Yugoslavia, this region has not had a boring moment in history. Such a long history of conflict has impacted the people of this region in ways that still matter today, such as ethnic identity and religion.