Aporte Generado Por el Monitoreo Integrado del Activo

The post-genocide government rapidly developed a dominant narrative of history that covered the pre-colonial through post-genocide period (Eltringham 2004; Lemarchand 2009:99-108; Newbury & Newbury 1999; Pottier 2002; 2005; Reyntjens 2005; Vidal 2001). This narrative drove national policy and even international involvement in Rwanda. In this chapter, I examine the dominant version of history the government used from 2004 through 2008. It warrants careful attention because this version allowed little contestation, while there was “ample evidence that the regime continue[d] to manipulate the historical record for the sake of an official memory” (Lemarchand 2009:105),

providing “disinformation” about both the distant past and the period from 1990 through the present (Pottier 2002; Reyntjens 2009:57-58).

Analyzing what the narrative selectively emphasized versus what it excluded

denaturalizes the government’s assumptions about belonging and legitimacy of authority, and illuminates how the narrative justified ongoing configurations of power, connections, and exclusion. First, by emphasizing ethnicity as the key source of division in the past, the dominant narrative overshadowed other markers of difference, such as class, region, or gender, that were forms of stratification in the past, and remained so in the present (Pottier 2005). It replaced one primordial identity (ethnicity) with another (nationality). Second, by placing blame on outsiders for creating ethnic divisions and allowing

genocide, it absolved current Rwandan leaders of guilt and elevated their moral authority to govern and to implement controversial reconstruction policies such as gacaca courts

(Lemarchand 2009:95, Reyntjens 2005:32). Further, by establishing a monopoly of suffering on the part of Tutsi, it silenced a wide range of Hutu experiences of the violence, and suggested collective guilt on all Hutu, justifying their political and economic exclusion (Burnet 2009; Lemarchand 2009:99-108; Vidal 2001).

I begin with a brief discussion of the production and contestation of history in

Rwanda, using the concept of narratives. In the following sections, I present the dominant narrative of Rwandan history from pre-colonial times through the present, alongside a summary of the extensive scholarship on Rwandan history during these periods. I close the chapter with a brief summary of how the government’s narrative, with its clear inclusions and omissions, justified ongoing patterns of economic and political power, belonging, and exclusion.

Production and Contestation of Historical Narratives in Rwanda

The government narrative of history dominated the public sphere from 2004 through 2008, intended equally for re-socializing Rwandans and for the benefit of the

international community. It was propagated in pro-government newspapers, radio, and government documents, was taught in schools, and was at the core of genocide

memorialization and ingando “solidarity camps” attended by released prisoners, returning refugees, and students (Clark 2010:106,135).

There are two dimensions that make denaturalizing the Rwandan government’s use of history particularly important. First, political elites in Rwanda have long controlled and centralized the production of history to justify their own rule, while obscuring their role in doing so (Newbury 2009; Vansina 2004). Historian Jan Vansina has argued that the

royal court in Rwanda used “historical remembrance” as the “ultimate legitimation” of their rule as far back as 1780, and by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the royal court was an “institution in charge of controlling the production of history and its representation. . .an institution of such a wide reach and such a degree of subtlety,” that researchers and Rwandans alike became “caught in its cognitive glue” (2004:5,90-95). A decade after the genocide, many outsiders and Rwandans similarly found themselves caught in the “cognitive glue” of the regime’s version of history (Des Forges 1995; Pottier 2002; Reyntjens 2005).

Second, history in Rwanda is notoriously contested, as political leaders used competing interpretations of the past as a central tool in solidifying, polarizing, and mobilizing group identities towards violent conflict. Many aspects of Rwanda’s pre- colonial and recent history have been vigorously disputed, as I demonstrate below, with implications for collective belonging and citizenship.

I use the concept of “narratives of history” to remind us of several aspects of how historical narratives work. It underscores how the dominant version is but one

interpretation, which highlights certain events and glosses over or omits others, and which draws power not from objective accuracy but from social functions. It emphasizes how the “plot” silences certain events and attributes causal relationships between others, evaluating them in order to draw moral lessons, to make the past meaningful, and to provide legitimization for present and future action (Lemarchand 2009; Ross 2002; Trouillot 1995:26). I prefer the term “narrative” over “myth,” which Rene Lemarchand has used in analyzing historical interpretations in Rwanda (2009:49-68), because I want to stress how these stories are intimately tied up with, and presented as, history, rather

than risk dismissing them by over-emphasizing their imaginary or invented nature. I underscore how the production of historical narratives is always implicated with power, and shapes what is thinkable.

Narratives of history play an important role in explaining, justifying, and solidifying group identity such as ethnicity or nationality, by framing and legitimizing group

identities and socio-political dynamics in particular ways, and justifying certain

approaches to the future. Specifically in contexts of political violence, narratives can be powerful forces towards bringing communities together or fueling division and conflict . Scholars of Rwanda and the Great Lakes region of Africa more broadly have shown how these “mental maps of history” (Newbury 1998a:7) or “mythico-histories” (Malkki 1995) order and reorder social and political categories, and thus can create imagined

communities of fear and hatred (Lemarchand 2009:57,70).

The official Hutu-power narrative, propagated by the architects of the genocide to mobilize people and justify the violence, contended that the history of Rwanda was one of conquest by “foreign” Tutsi cattle herders who, through economic and military means, gradually imposed centuries of oppression and exploitation on the Hutu (Eltringham 2004; Malkki 1995; Rutembesa 2002; Semujanga 2003a; Twagilimana 2003). In the 1959 social revolution, this narrative continued, the Hutu reversed this feudal situation and acquired their rightful place. They continued to defend their right to majority rule against domineering, power-hungry Tutsi who wished to reestablish hegemony and oppression, evidenced by continued Tutsi-led violent incursions into Rwanda.

The official post-genocide narrative was a renegotiation of the Hutu-power narrative, with altered evaluations and different implications for future action. It stated that the

Abanyarwanda (inhabitants of Rwanda) were a single ethnic group, with the differences between the Hutu and Tutsi originally reflecting no more than socioeconomic divisions. The European colonizers were responsible for creating the Hutu-Tutsi divide and the rigid socioeconomic inequalities between them. This version contended that the violence of 1959, when Hutu came to power, marked the beginning of the genocide. Having lived side-by-side with Hutu for centuries in a relationship of mutual respect and even

friendship, Tutsi then were oppressed and persecuted for decades building up to 1994. In 1994, according to this narrative, the current government, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), reversed this trend by defeating the genocidal regime and restoring order, including implementing policies such as abolishing ethnicity and promoting national unity.

In the following sections, I move through three historical periods in turn: pre-colonial and colonial history (seventeenth century through 1950s), Independence and the first two Republics (1959 through 1994), and then the 1994 genocide through the present. For each period, I first provide a brief chronology and introduce the main contested points of interpretation. I then show how the government’s dominant narrative framed that period, by using excerpts from a speech President Kagame gave at the ten-year anniversary of the genocide, on April 7, 2004, in Kigali,20 along with other documents that capture the master narrative, such as school curricula and genocide memorial texts. I demonstrate the points of scholarly agreement and disagreement with the narrative.Overall, the pre- colonial period provided the basis for the government’s claims about unity and

belonging. The period of Independence through the lead-up to genocide was crucial for

establishing Tutsi victimhood and discrediting Hutu leadership and attempts at democracy. The genocide period solidified Tutsi victimhood as a basis for the RPF’s moral authority to govern. I compare the dominant narrative with the academic history of Rwanda to show the elements that scholarship supported and the points of disagreement.

Pre-Colonial and Colonial Periods

Pre-colonial Rwanda is most simply understood as a monarchy, ruled by Tutsi kings and chiefs. Lineages and patron-client ties figured heavily in social and political

organization. For hundreds of years, ancestors of the people who came to be called Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda lived side by side. They spoke the same language (Kinyarwanda), shared the same religion both prior to the colonial period (traditional) and since

(Christianity), participated in the same economic networks, and inter-married to varying degrees.

The nature of social harmony, stratification, and power has been heavily debated, characterized by the Hutu-power narrative as feudal exploitation and by the post- genocide government as harmonious. Similarly, the peopling of Rwanda—when the peoples referred to as Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa arrived in the territory now called Rwanda— has been long contested. The dominant view was that Tutsi arrived in the region centuries after Hutu, but the details and implications of this view remained contentious. Did it mean Tutsi were destined to rule, or that they were foreigners who should not be allowed to do so? Did it mean Hutu were autochthonous and therefore had rights to govern?

The first German colonial officer arrived in 1897. Two decades of German rule influenced primarily the royal court without interfering substantially in internal affairs.

When Belgians took over Rwanda after World War I, in 1916, they extended their influence such that Belgian rule had much deeper social and economic impacts. Both the Germans and the Belgians, accompanied by the Catholic Church, ruled indirectly through the Tutsi kings and chiefs. Tutsi elites had preferential access to education and to

administrative and church positions.

Government Narrative: Colonialists introduced disunity

In many ways the genocide in Rwanda stems from the colonial period when the colonialists and those who called themselves evangelists sowed the seeds of hate and division.21

Before the arrival of colonialists in Rwanda in 1894, Rwandans were united. . . . [There was] one king for all Rwandans who was considered as a unifying element. . . . Once the king was nominated, he was no longer considered as a Tutsi but rather as the king of the people. The Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa could approach the king without any obstacle related to their social origin, economic or physical characteristics (Rutayisira 2004:32). We had lived in peace for many centuries, but now [with colonial rule] the divide between us had begun… (Kigali Genocide Memorial, April 2004). At the core of the government’s narrative was the idea that pre-colonial Rwandans were unified under a harmonious monarchy, and then colonial authorities introduced ethnic divisions. Ethnicity in pre-colonial Rwanda was primarily socio-economic, was flexible, and was less important than other forms of identity such as lineage or clan. Colonial administrators, missionaries and other Europeans instrumentally created and mobilized ethnicity for their own advantage.

Points of agreement

Overall, scholars agree with three main aspects of this narrative. First, pre-colonial Rwanda was not universally characterized over time by the feudal exploitation of Hutu

by Tutsi as was portrayed in anti-Tutsi propaganda in newspapers, radio, and schools from 1959 through 1994. Second, scholars agree with the government in debunking a racial or otherwise essentializedview of Hutu and Tutsi, linked to the Hamitic myth’s definition of Tutsi as superior. Third, Europeans (colonial administrators, missionaries, explorers, and scientists) had a central role in the construction and transformation of ethnicity in Rwanda. Outsiders profoundly influenced both how ethnicity was defined and perceived, and how it impacted people’s concrete life conditions.

Current scholarship agrees with the dominant narrative, contra the genocidal narrative, that pre-colonial kings were not simply autocrats who ruled as they pleased (Vansina 2004:66,85), and that patron-client institutions did not merely involve exploitation of subordinate Hutu (Newbury 1988:90; Vansina 2004:33). Ubuhake, a controversial form of cattle clientship, was at the center of anti-Tutsi narratives, cast as a historically deep form of domination and exploitation of all Hutu by all Tutsi in the pre- colonial and colonial periods. Ubuhake was a contract between individuals in which the patron (shebuja) gave one or two head of cattle to the client (umugaragu) in usufruct, but maintained ownership of the cattle and assured his client of protection. The client had to help his patron whenever needed, and the relationship was hereditary (Maquet 1961:129- 142; Vansina 2004:47). The institution had a powerful political role in incorporating Rwandans in a dense network of social ties, but resulted in a social integration based on inequality, in which Hutu had access to cattle and protection, while Tutsi maintained ultimate control over cattle, the symbol of political, economic and social power (Maquet 1961; Reyntjens 1987:72-73).

Scholars have shown that ubuhake, particularly as it existed in the colonial period, was not representative of all patron-client institutions across time. Ubuhake changed over the centuries, and clientship took many forms—whether the exchange centered on land or cattle, whether the contract was between individuals or corporate groups, and what degree of power differential existed between patron and client—and the degree of reciprocity and benefit in the clientship relationship varied (Newbury 1988; Vansina 2004). Patrons were not always omnipotent and unrestrained because in time-periods and regions when the central government was still limited, lineage heads were the main political leaders and could limit patrons’ power (Newbury 1988:90). In early clientship and up to the mid-nineteenth century, there were often strong social relations between patrons and clients, as clients derived significant benefits from the relationship, patrons made limited demands, and clients’ negotiating position was fairly strong (Newbury 1988:79-82).

Scholars also agree with the government narrative that the colonial period shaped ethnicity for the worse. For more than a century, Europeans argued that Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa constituted distinctly separate racial or ethnic groups (Codere 1962; 1973; Hiernaux 1963; 1975 [1974]; Mair 1962; Maquet 1961; 1970; Seligman 1930; Speke 1863;

Westermann 1949 [1934]). As I demonstrate briefly below, even as scholars moved away from the blatantly racial science of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which attributed hierarchical views of biological superiority (Tutsi) and inferiority (Hutu) to these groups, they continued to identify differences in both biology and culture, which reinforced a prevailing view of human migration history that Tutsi herders had arrived in Rwanda centuries after Hutu farmers. Thus, colonial-era involvement in Rwanda directly

and indirectly reinforced ethnic division in Rwanda. Colonial administrators and church leaders privileged Tutsi because they believed they were superior, and excluded Hutu. Further, Rwandan political leaders used these outside ideas in their own efforts to articulate agendas and mobilize followers, with divisive consequences.

The government narrative blamed the ethnic divisions and their devastating effects on Rwanda on the Hamitic Hypothesis, put forth by explorer John Hanning Speke in 1863. Between 2004 and 2008, the Hamitic Hypothesis was mentioned in newspaper articles, narrated by taxi drivers and tour guides, included as part of Rwanda’s official colonial history in the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center (Smith 2004:9), and it was referenced in virtually every academic and popular history of Rwanda (Gourevitch 1998; Lemarchand 2009:49-68; Mamdani 2001; Prunier 1995; Sanders 1969; Semujanga 2003b;

Twagilimana 2003). Speke proposed that a race of tall, sharp-featured people who had Caucasian origins and were superior to the native Negro had introduced the cultures and civilizations of Central Africa. Speke described his view in a section headed “Theory of Conquest of Inferior by Superior Races”:

[I]t appears impossible to believe, judging from the physical appearance of the [Tutsi], that they can be of any other race than the semi-Shem-Hamitic of Ethiopia. The traditions of the imperial government of Abyssinia go as far back as the scriptural age of King David. . . . Junior members of the royal family . . . created separate governments, and, for reasons which cannot be traced, changed their names. . . . [They] cross[ed] the Nile close to its source...where they lost their religion, forgot their language, extracted their lower incisors like the natives, changed their national name. . . . We are thus left only the one very distinguishing mark, the physical appearance of this remarkable race . . . as a certain clue to their Shem- Hamitic origin (Speke 1863:246-250).

Speke’s hypothesis was consistent with prevailing Western understandings of human variation at the time as determined by race, wherein each race had distinct physical,

behavioral and psychological characteristics, and races were hierarchically organized, reflecting different stages of human evolution (Harrison 1985; Winant 2000; Wolpoff & Caspari 1997). His analysis had neither empirical evidence nor explanation for how and why these supposed transformations and loss of identity occurred, yet it served as a “convenient paradigm for others uncritically to follow” (Newbury & Newbury 2000:852) and informed over a century of scholarship on, and administrative rule in, Rwanda and Africa more broadly. Anthropologists converted Speke’s conjectures into scientific truths with regards to African peoples in ensuing years (e.g., Seligman 1930). In a typical example, Westermann wrote in 1934:

The significance of the Hamites in the composition of the African population consists in the fact that as nomads and conquering warriors they have . . . pushed their way into the countries of the Negroes. Owing to their racial superiority they gained leading positions and became the founders of many of the larger states in Africa (Westermann 1949 [1934]:13-14).

Colonial and church leaders in Rwanda seized on Speke’s view because it meshed with what they found—a Tutsi monarchy ruling a primarily Hutu peasantry. They reinforced a view of Hutu and Tutsi as separate groups of people, where Tutsi’s

superiority and capacity for rule was in the bloodline. In a typical example that represents how phenotype was linked with group definition and overlaid with moral attributions, in 1925, Belgian administrators in the Rapport sur l’administration belge du Ruanda-

Urundi used scientific research to show how Hutu had typical Bantu features, while Tutsi were more Caucasian, and superior:

[Bahutu] are generally short and thick set with a big head, a jovial expression, a wide nose and enormous lips. They are extroverts who like to laugh and lead a simple life. . . . The Mututsi of good race has nothing of the negro, apart from his colour. He is usually very tall, 1.80 m at least, often 1.90 m or more. He is very thin. . . . His features are very fine: a high

brow, thin nose and fine lips framing beautiful shining teeth. . . . Gifted with a vivacious intelligence, the Tutsi displays a refinement of feelings which is rare among primitive people. He is a natural-born leader, capable of extreme self-control and of calculated goodwill (Quoted in Harroy 1984:26,28; see also Prunier 1995:6).

Colonial leaders used these views of Tutsi superiority to justify their decision to favor Tutsi, using the Tutsi court and chiefs as intermediaries in their system of indirect rule