A Brief History of Rwanda and Burundi

Before I begin my promised reporting on Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire’s book Shake Hands with the Devil I would like to contextualize the genocides by writing a little bit about Rwanda and Burundi’s histories. This will be part one, tomorrow I’ll have part two, and sometime later I’ll write about Dallaire’s book. Many people assume that twentieth-century Hutus and Tutsis are merely carrying on the tribal warfare they have engaged in since time immemorial. In fact, the designations of Hutu and Tutsi had much less significance in the past than they do today. The categories did exist, but they were based on class distinctions more than ethnicity. The Hutu were cultivators while the Tutsi were cattle-herders. A rich Hutu could purchase a number of cows and become a Tutsi and a Tutsi who fell on hard times would become a Hutu farmer. There was some degree of movement up and down the political hierarchy. While it is fair to say that the Tutsis were the dominant aristocrats/warriors it is misleading to claim they were oppressive feudal lords. Evidence points to a more mutually acceptable nature of society as there is no sign of large-scale ethnic killings. In fact, the wars that did occur were against rival kingdoms, some of which were Hutu-controlled. These were not ethnic wars but pitted tribally-mixed militias and armies against each other, and it was not unusual for these militias and armies to be led by Hutu generals. In addition to being important economic and social forces, these armies and militias were strong cultural forces, engaging in poetry, dance, and song. Interestingly enough, the Tutsi and Hutu still share these cultural traits (as well as their language.)

When the colonizers began entering Rwanda and Burundi at the beginning of the twentieth century, the designations of Hutu and Tutsi took on a drastic change. First the Germans and then the Belgians entered the mountainous region of East-Central Africa. Both European nations had firm convictions about racial hierarchy and the superiority of the white race. Now, it was too simple for the Belgians to relegate all Africans to inferior status, they had to create an African hierarchy. The Tutsis, who tend to be taller and slimmer, thoroughly impressed the Belgians as descendants of a long-lost Caucasian tribe. This had much to do with the reluctance of Europeans at this time to credit black Africa with having any sort of civilization: clearly, the highly centralized states of Rwanda and Burundi were an aberration and could only be explained away by pointing to the role of some sort of Caucasian migration from Ethiopia’s rich civilization (This resulted in such ridiculous names as AfricanAryans and Black Caucasians.) It is important to note that Tutsis and Hutus had mixed quite a bit of their blood by this time and although certain differences were apparent, there were many Tutsis and Hutus who did not meet their stereotyped physical attributes. (In fact, Europeans who visited a village in Rwanda recently only guessed two out of seven Rwandan tribal identities correctly.) The Belgians looked at the supposed European-like features of Tutsis and considered them born rulers.

The Belgians did not like the idea of Tutsis and Hutus constantly switching tribes and, in 1926, they made certain that no more tribal movement would occur by issuing identity cards which included an entry for tribe. With this, all the benefits and hopes of the Hutus were lost as they could no longer advance socially and all the little power and authority they had previously was stripped away from them. Later, after World War II, the tactics of the Belgians changed. Belgian Marxists who thought in terms of class struggle encouraged the Hutu “proletariats” to resist the Tutsi “bourgeoisie.” Towards the end of colonization the hierarchy was reversed and the Hutu became favoured while the Tutsi fell into disfavour. Roman Catholic priests armed with the new Catholic social justice teachings of the Young Christian workers readily favoured the Hutu over the Tutsi. Some scholars convincingly argue that the switch in support by the Belgians had as much to do with their changing perspectives as it did with their desire to destabilize those they wished to control.