CHAPTER 2: BEFORE THE GENOCIDE
2.6. Identities internalized
outside observers. These instances of violence, whether stemming from the RPF or staged by the Rwandan government, brought fear amongst many Rwandans that the RPF were a cruel and bloodthirsty military movement that was seeking control of the country. Kinzer describes how even Tutsi living in Rwanda would flee before the RPF (2008, 98). “’You want power?’ a Tutsi who lived in Ruhengeri asked one of the inkotanyi who raided the town in 1991. ‘You will get it. But here we will all die. Is it worth it to you?’” (Kinzer, 2008, 99). It was this violence taking place in certain parts of Rwanda, particularly between the border of Uganda and northern Rwanda that, amongst other things, has been said to have precipitated the genocide.
Jenkins speaks of internal and external identification and that these two are in dialogue with one another. This distinction highlights the internal-external dialectic of identification (2003, 58). Our sense of who we are is developed through habits, routines, and the normal, everyday life we are socialized into. This sense of self develops as external significant others tell us who we are and what we must and must not do. There is a dialogue between ‘the demands of self’ and the
‘expectations of others’; the internal-external dialectic. This primary socialization includes an ethnic component (2003, 58). Jenkins writes that “She will learn not only that she is an ‘X’, ‘but also what this means in terms of her esteem and worth in her own eyes and in the eyes of others; in terms of appropriate and
inappropriate behaviour; and in terms of what it means not to be an ‘X’, what it means to be a ‘Y’ or a ‘Z’ perhaps” (2003, 59).
When speaking with Rwandans, this dialectic is quickly apparent. During childhood, although not always aware of ethnic identities or what they signified, there was nevertheless an awareness of ‘the other’ and who they were and who I am not. This other was either seen as weaker in some way and less than, or privileged and more than. Into an early developing sense of identity was being built a sense of superiority and pride or inferiority and shame. Even though Hutus were in power and in the majority, in terms of the internal-external dialectic the message was still clearly one of inferiority.
According to Jenkins, our self image is constantly being reassessed in
accordance with public image (and public/external feedback). Jenkins gives a lengthy illustration of this describing how our education and employment systems lead people to adjust their identities in line with what opportunities are or are not available to them (for example, someone who cannot meet the educational demands required for a high level occupation begins to adjust their identity and their expectations to a lower level job). He also speaks of how (often negative) external labeling can begin to shape identity. The effects of this latter point can be devastating in the case of ethnic minorities, or ethnically stigmatized groups who then fail to secure certain niches in society or occupational mobility, and this may result in exclusion and a vicious downward spiral (2003, 60). The Hamitic
hypothesis is an example of external labeling affecting behaviour, attitudes and the very identity of people, and the affects have indeed been devastating.
Who has the power to exclude and include? Ethnic groups become institutions;
they become part of patterns of social practice, part of the ‘way things are done’
(Jenkins, 2003, 61). The colonial racial identities became part of the social order, and decided for people who could be educated, who could be in leadership, and who could not. It has been argued that many stereotypes have become reality through this ‘institutionalization’. For example, during the colonial period, Tutsi were educated and Hutu were not. After the revolution, many of the Tutsi who fled went to other countries where they received an education far more advanced than that available to the average person living in Rwanda. Even those Tutsi who remained in the country, especially in Kigali, could often more easily secure employment with international NGOs and organizations (as access to government controlled employment was limited for them) and through the interaction with internationals, again, their educational level and knowledge of the greater world out there was perhaps more advanced than the average Rwandan. After the genocide, with the return of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi from the diaspora, one of the comments to be heard was that Tutsi were more intelligent because they were all more educated and more capable than the average Hutu. Yet it was political and sociological circumstances that allowed Tutsi greater educational exposure than the average Hutu. Thus these external factors influence internal and external definitions of self and other, reaffirming stereotypes2.
A clear example of the internalization of external definition is the Hamitic hypothesis, which strongly influenced the atmosphere and ideology that
contributed to the instability and extreme violence that erupted in the 1990s. The tremendous inferiority-superiority complex was reiterated again and again in pre- genocide propaganda, as will be explored in section 3.4.1
The affects of the Hamitic hypothesis were felt in every home, from the youngest to the oldest Rwandan. Although on the one hand Rwandans may well have been living in harmony, on another level the inferiority-superiority complex remained, as the following two stories, one from a Hutu and the other from a Tutsi, illustrate.
Jean Paul, a Hutu student, recalled an incident from his youth that made him
2 Of course, even this stereotype is no more than that. Statistically, it is most likely that as many Hutu are educated as are Tutsi, and often the reasons for it appearing otherwise may be due to the masking of other factors.
aware of his ethnic identity, although at that stage it still wasn’t a clear concept (Personal interview, Durban, December, 2007). His sister was sitting at the table with other children who later became their friends. The older brother of these children, on seeing Jean Paul’s sister at the table, said, “I don’t want to share food with this ikipingo.” He flatly refused to eat with the others and went to eat his food elsewhere. Later, Jean Paul and this boy became good friends and they would often share food at each others’ homes. At one meal, when some strangers came to eat with them, Jean Paul’s sister suddenly said, thinking that the term meant
‘stranger’, that she was going to eat elsewhere because she didn’t want to eat with these ikipingo’s. The older brother was there and was terribly ashamed for ever having said something like that. Apparently, ikipingo did not refer to a stranger, as Jean Paul’s sister had assumed it did, but was rather a derogatory term for a Hutu.
Later, in a conversation with Terese, a Tutsi, I asked her about the meaning of ikipingo and she said it meant ‘disagreeable’, in that it was disagreeable for Hutu to be there; for Tutsi to have to share their space with Hutu (Personal interview, Pietermaritzburg, December, 2007). She also describes how when growing up, adults around her would often speak derogatively of Hutu. If one of the children were greedy, unpleasant or dirty the adults would say, “Stop acting like a Hutu.”
But as a child, Terese says she didn’t know that there were actually people that were Hutus. She thought it was just a word. In her community in Tanzania, most Rwandan refugees were Tutsi and were very proud of being Tutsi. In the vicinity were also Burundian Hutu, who, according to her, were quite unpleasant, stealing and behaving badly. At this point she didn’t know there were Rwandan Hutus. She thought Hutus were only these unpleasant Burundians.
So although Hutu and Tutsi may have been living inside Rwanda relatively
harmoniously, nevertheless, in language usage, stories shared around the dinner table, in the stereotyping and deeply internalised understandings of identity, the Hamitic hypothesis continued to have life. It was relatively easy for political leaders with political agendas to use this deeply entrenched identity complex in their propaganda campaign.