Travesty and manipulation of the reality about Rwanda

After the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, some people continue to ignore the demographic reality, cultural, social and political life of pre-colonial Rwanda, wrongly looking at the country through the ethnic prism. Indeed, for some time, the travesty of the reality and the history of Rwanda, especially the simplistic presentation of Rwandan reality by various categories of people are still, somehow, negatively influencing the image that some people have of Rwanda. It should be noted that in Rwanda all components of the population share the same language, the same culture, indiscriminately occupy the country, etc. About the population, it is well known that the early writings that were published (note that before contact with Westerners, Rwandan society transmitted knowledge through oral tradition) were mainly based on European explorers’ publications of the late 19th century, in search of the Nile source. The explorers had recorded in their logbooks their impressions of the people they encountered. In the Great Lakes region of Africa, particularly in Rwanda and Burundi, the explorers had focused on the physical differences they observed within these populations. While ignoring the history and composition of the various clans that indiscriminately included Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, they preferred to consider, wrongly, these three social groups as different ethnic groups. Authors who wrote the history of Rwanda in the early 20th century remained in the same vein, trying however to show the ‘‘scientific’’ character of these differences. Although science has never been able to convince us that Hutu, Tutsi and Twa constitute three different ethnic groups, still the colonial administration and the post-colonial Rwandan authorities (first and second republics) always affirmed and taken the three components of the population of Rwanda as three different distinct ethnic groups. As time accentuation and exploitation, for political purposes, real or imaginary differences between Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, created or reinforced antagonisms that were potentially able to lead to devastating situations.In pre-colonial Rwanda, appellations of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa existed. The Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were not perceived as different ethnic groups or races, but as social groups or social categories. In some cases, someone could also move from one group to another. Before Europeans arrived in Rwanda, and so before the knowledge of writing and the establishment of modern schools, Rwandan society had legends, stored and transmitted by oral tradition. Some legends agree on a common ancestor to the various clans of the country, putting together Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, in varying proportions. What is absolutely certain (researchers are unanimous on this) is that, for several centuries before colonisation, the Banyarwanda (inhabitants of Rwanda and speaking the same language Kinyarwanda) included three groups, namely Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, being indiscriminately in the same clans. At that time, before colonisation (1312-1896, from King Ruganzu I Bwimba to King Kigeri IV Rwabugiri), Rwanda was a real and coherent nation. It should be recalled that when the Europeans arrived in Rwanda they found a sophisticated political and social organisation which was a surprise to them– that an African society could implement such a system. So they imagined a so-called theory of “Hamitic descent” for Tutsi, (whom the Europeans wrongly thought they were the only leaders of the country) and the “Bantou theory” for the Hutu. Around 1934-1935, a general population census was conducted by the Belgian colonial power. It was attributed to all Rwandans identity booklets (kind of identity card) in which included, among other references, the ethnic group, namely Hutu, Tutsi, Twa. At first sight, this information had nothing sinister, but the basic criterion that determined Rwandans belonging to a particular ethnic group, was not objective and could later exacerbate the division between Hutu and Tutsi. About these “identity cards” someone should justly say that Rwandans were classified and labeled differently without scientific, verifiable and objective criteria. The construction and establishment of ethnic, regional and other sectarian aspects by political powers and the internalisation of those discriminative aspects (especially through education, taken in its broad sense) by the Rwandan population became, at least for some Rwandans, a palpable reality. For ‘political reasons’, manipulation of this population by the political regimes of the ‘‘independent’’ Rwanda made possible the provocation of ethnic conflicts, or presented as such, at anytime. In 1994, the Genocide against the Tutsi that claimed over a million people can, unfortunately, confirm this division and this deadly antagonism of the Rwandan population created by divisive and discriminator politics. The writer is a lecturer at INATEK (Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Education of Kibungo)

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Travesty and manipulation of the reality about Rwanda