Can Hutu and Tutsi become Rwandans? The Construction and Deconstruction of Ethnicity in the Case of Rwanda

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Region: Africa, grade: 1,0, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: The genocide in Rwanda which lasted from April to Juli 1994 with approximately half a million people killed left the Rwandan society deeply uprooted. In many case the victims and their killers knew each other. They were coworkers, neighbors or even members of the same family. What separated them and made one kill the other was their ethnic identity. Extremist 'Hutu' turned against 'Tutsi' and moderate 'Hutu' to rape, rob and kill them regardless of their age, gender or social position with the aim to wipe out all 'Tutsi' of Rwanda. The post-genocide government of Rwanda supsequently saw the division of Rwandans in different ethnic groups as main cause for the genocide and therefore implemented a number of policies and laws which should promote unity and a shared identity of 'Rwandanness' in order to eradicate ethnicity from everyday practices of society. It does so mainly by presenting a narrative of a shared 'Rwandan' descent where in pre-colonial times all 'Rwandans' lived together in harmony without 'divisive' ethnic categories and by prohibiting the use of the ethnic categories 'Hutu', 'Tutsi' and 'Twa' in public discourses. Despite the efforts of the Rwandan government to establish unity among Rwandans based on the rejection of ethnic identities many researchers indicate that the ethnic identities and the discriminations that come along with them are even more evident in post-genocide Rwanda than they were before. Therefore the research question which I will elaborate in my essay is how the ethnic division of Rwandans can be explained and whether Rwandan society can become de-ethnicised?