Literaure circle presentation simeen tabatabai

NCCS

Globalization Literature Circle Spring 2011

Strength in What Remains

by Tracy Kidder

6 hours – Tuesdays

Session #1 – January 25, 2011    3:45-5:15 – SHS Library                    

Session #2 – February 8, 2011    3:15-4:45 – SJHS Library

                            OR                    3:45-5:15 – Southgate Elementary Library

Session #3 – March 1, 2011    3:15-4:45 – SJHS Library                             OR                    3:45-5:15 – Southgate Elementary Library

BURUNDI-Location

The Capital: Bujumbura

The People of The Region

• Tutsis• Hutus• Twa Pygmies

The Hutu

• The Hutu people first settled in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa between five hundred and one thousand BC.

• The Hutu arrived in the region before the Tutsis. • They came from Chad.• Generally speaking, the Hutu were an agricultural people who lived in large

family groups.

Traditional Hutu baskets.

• The Hutu are mostly Roman Catholic and Protestant.

• They speak French and Bantu.

• They number around 11 million and populate Rwanda, Burundi, and portions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• The Hutu share much in common with the Tutsis.

The Tutsi

• The Tutsi were a nomadic people who began arriving in the Great Lakes region from Ethiopia some four hundred years ago.

• Eventually, the Tutsi settled amongst the Hutus - adopting their language, beliefs and customs.

• The Tutsi are mostly Roman Catholic.

• They speak French and Bantu.

• The Tutsi number about 2.5 million and populate Rwanda, Burundi, and portions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

• The Tutsi monarchy existed from the 15th century (when the Tutsi came to the region from Ethiopia) until it was abolished by Belgian colonizers in 1961.

• The Tutsi share much in common with the Hutu.

Baskets such as this are among the most exquisite artworks made by the Tutsi women.

Pre-Colonial Differences

• The longstanding conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi has nothing to do with language or religion -- they speak the same Bantu languages as well as French, and both practice Christianity.

• They inhabit the same areas and follow the same traditions.

• Geneticists have not found marked ethnic differences between the two.

• According to historians, the differences between the two groups were economic, rather than ethnic.

• Despite their small number, when the Tutsi arrived from Ethiopia, they managed to impose a new social and political structure based on a lord-vassal relationship with the Hutu.

• Generally, the Hutu-Tutsi strife stems from class warfare: the Tutsi were perceived to have greater wealth and social status.

• Tutsi cattle ranching was viewed as being superior to the lower-class farming of the Hutus.

• Until the colonial period, the Tutsi Mwami (King) ruled the Tutsi as well as the Hutu

• Not all Tutsis were wealthy and not all Hutus were poor, but in many areas, like Rwanda, the minority Tutsis ruled the Hutus.

• “People used to be Tutsi or Hutu, depending on their proximity to the king. If you were close to the king, you owned wealth, you owned a lot of cattle, you were a Tutsi. If you were far away from the king, you were a cultivator, you didn't own much cattle, you were a Hutu."

Colonization• Under colonial rule, which began in the late 19th Century, the Hutu and the

Tutsi were seen as distinct entities. • While maintaining and using the local political systems to rule, colonial

powers employed the strategy of “divide and rule” (endorsing and promoting one group at the expense of another) in order to make their control of their colonies easier.

• German and Belgian colonizers tried to find differences between the Hutu and Tutsi in order to better categorize native peoples in their censuses and to play them off each other to maintain their own power.

•The Belgians, who ruled what would later become Rwanda and Burundi, forced Hutus and Tutsis to carry ethnic identity cards.

• The Belgians considered the Tutsis as superior to the Hutus.

• The Tutsi exhibited a taller physique and more

supposedly "Caucasoid" facial features (longer noses, shape of jaw etc) which was sufficient to merit them classification in the "Hamitic" category.

• The Hutu were shorter, exhibited more "Negroid" features (wider noses, heavy jaw lines etc) and henceforth were declared racially inferior to the Tutsi.

The Roots of the Modern ConflictAs a process both ideological and institutional, the racialization of the Tutsi was the creation of a joint enterprise between the colonial state and the Catholic Church. Missionaries were "the first ethnologists" of colonial Rwanda. As such, they were the primary ideologues of colonization. For Father Leon Class, the future bishop of Rwanda and the key architect of missionary policy, the Tutsi were already in 1902 "superb humans" combining traits both Aryan and Semitic, just as for Father Francois Menard, writing in 1917, a Tutsi was "a European under a black skin."

Mahmood MamdaniWhen Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism,and the Genocide in Rwanda

2002: Princeton University Press

• The colonial administrators exacerbated existing economic divisions by allowing only Tutsis to attain higher education and hold positions of power.

• For years under the Europeans, the Tutsis enjoyed better jobs and educational opportunities than their neighbors.

The Conflict: Genocide

• The Tutsi monarchy dating back to the 15th century was overthrown at the urging of Belgian colonizers in the early 1960s.

• Rwanda and Burundi got independence in 1962.

• Hutu took power by force in Rwanda.

• In Burundi, a Hutu uprising failed and the Tutsis controlled the country.

• Interference by surrounding African countries, European and American policy interests and local resentments as well the potential availability of rich natural resources has led to a very turbulent post-independence history.

• A series of assassinations and military coups has resulted in years of fighting by militias and genocide of both Hutus and Tutsis.

• In Rwanda, the Hutu majority lashed out at the minority Tutsi - killing thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring Uganda.

• In Burundi, the minority Tutsi maintained their control of the military and government through a campaign of violence against the Hutu.

-

Deogratias Niyizonkiza's incredible odyssey began when he boarded a plane in Bujumbura, Burundi, in 1994, leaving behind a country being ripped apart by genocide and civil war.

“What we need to do is feel compassion, to feel the pain of others. This is what makes us human, and we can all do that.”

Deogratias Niyizonkiza