Global Encounter Africa 2007

Part II:  The Land and People of Rwanda

Rwanda is one of those amazing places where geography, history, and culture merge to create a unique setting.  In the case of Rwanda, this setting has turned out to be beautiful, tragic, and in the end I believe, hopeful.

Roughly the size of the State of Vermont, Rwanda is located in the Great Lakes district of East Africa bordered by Uganda to the North, Tanzania to the East, Burundi to the South, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the West.  Within this tiny country reside between 8 million and 9 million people, making it the most densely populated country in Africa.  Rwanda is called “the county of a thousand hills” because everywhere one looks one sees beautiful hills and valleys covered in green.  A famous movie was made once called “Gorillas In the Mist” that dramatized the life and work of biologist Dian Fossey and her work with the gorillas of these Rwandan hills.  Unfortunately, these beautiful hills also hide extreme poverty and destitution.  Eighty percent of Rwandans are engaged in subsistence farming on small plots of land on the side of these hills that have been abused by poor land management techniques and erosion.  The remaining twenty percent are made up of city dwellers living in urban blight, refugees of The Genocide who have been sent back to Rwanda for re-settlement, and a very few rich whose presence in very close quarters with the poor only highlights the extremes of Rwandan society.

Rwanda was first ‘discovered’ by Europeans who were seeking the source of the Nile River.  Germany was the first country to claim Rwanda, along with Tanzania and Burundi, as its colonial territory in the mid 1880s, however, the German governor did not meet with the Rwandan king until 1894.  Rwandan society at this time was made up of two peoples – those indigenous to the area, called the Twa, and peoples who had migrated over the centuries from other parts of Africa.  By far, it was the non-indigenous Africans who dominated the Twa by the late 19th century.

Many of us have heard of the Hutu and the Tutsi in Rwanda, and of the genocide of 1994 that saw Hutus slaughter 800,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi and Tutsi sympathizers in just 100 days.  Often that horrific time is written off as more African tribal violence.  Nothing could be further from the truth (in fact, based on my experience in Rwanda, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that almost none of the warfare we hear about in Africa can be written off as ‘tribal violence,’ including the most recent violence to make the news from Kenya).

Before European influence in the region, all Rwandans – Tutsi and Hutu – shared a common language, religion and culture, and they all lived under the rule of one king.  Hutu made up the majority of the population, about 85%.  They were the working class.  They farmed land for their own use and paid taxes to the government.  The Tutsi were the wealthy cattle owners.  Because of their wealth, they usually had greater influence with the government.  Hutu who worked hard could eventually purchase cattle and come to be known as Tutsi.  Tutsi whose cattle died of disease or starvation quickly found themselves as working class Hutu.

It wasn’t until after WWI when Belgium was given Rwanda as a spoil of war that Tutsi and Hutu became ethnic categories based on physical descriptors – a kind of ‘divide and conquer’ strategy employed by the Belgians.  Under the Belgian system, those who exhibited the most Caucasian characteristics (tall thin stature, wavy hair, long nose, thin lips), about 15 % of the population, were deemed Tutsi, and given education and government jobs.  Those who exhibited ‘African’ characteristics (short in stature, curly hair, wide nose, thick lips), about 85% of the population, were deemed Hutu, denied education and made the workers of the society.  Belgians thought they were simply employing the ethnic science popular at the time (think Aryanism in Nazi Germany).  Not surprisingly, such racist policies led directly to one of the worst mass murders of human history – The Rwandan Genocide – of which I will speak in the next article.