Some scholars have focused on the social dynamics that may in the long run be argued to have contributed to the outbreak of genocide. One such example would be Adam Jones, who has chosen to look specifically into gender and sexuality in relation to the genocidal atrocities. 10 Jones discusses the difference between women belonging to the Hutus and those of Tutsi descent, claiming that the Batutsi women were considered more desirable to both Hutu and Tutsi men. This argument can be used to explain why so many more Tutsi men were slaughtered during the massacre, as compared to women. Furthermore, Jones addresses sexual jealousies amongst women, emphasising that Batutsi women suffered tremendously at the hands of both Hutu men and women. Jones notes that “the added element of Hutu women’s “subordination” to Tutsi women was doubtless a powerful motivation for the atrocities these Hutu women would inflict on other women.” This argument shows that underlying social and sexual frictions between the two tribes can be viewed as a contributing factor to the genocide. However, it is important to note, that once again, the tensions that exist, exist between the two ethnic groups: Hutu against Tutsi. Prunier, in his influential book The Rwanda Crisis, describes a Rwanda before colonialism, painting an image of harmony, when stating that “they shared the same Bantu language, lived side by side with each other without any ‘Hutuland’ or ‘Tutsiland’ and often intermarried.” 11 Prunier further notes that Rwanda used not to witness conflict between ‘Hutu’ and ‘Tutsi’, but instead between centre and periphery. The inhabitants of Rwanda were once defined by their geographical location, not their ethnic types. 12 The reason this changed, as will be argued later on, can be attributed to the legacies of colonialism. It was colonialism, therefore, that indirectly led to the division between Hutus and Tutsis, the idolising of the Tutsi woman and the jealousies experienced by their Hutu counterpart. Another factor widely discussed in the study of the 1994 genocide is the state of the economy, with Helen Hintjens stating that “economic recession was clearly a major facilitating factor in bringing latent competition and vague murderous intentions to such organised fruition.” 13 With increasingly less land available for the members of a rapidly growing population, the economic crisis peaked when the international market for important export goods collapsed in the late 1980s. 14 Arguably the most important of these export crops was coffee. Isaac A. Kamola in his article ‘The Global Coffee Economy and the Production of Genocide in Rwanda’ directly links the dynamics of the coffee industry to the
10 Adam Jones, ‘Gender and Genocide in Rwanda’, Journal of Genocide Research, 4.1 (2002), 65-94. 11 Gerard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, 1959-94: History of a Genocide (London: Hurst, 1995), p. 5. 12 Ibid., p. 21. 13 Helen M. Hintjens, ‘Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 37.2 (1999), 241-286, p. 242. 14 Van der Veen, What went wrong with Africa, p. 98.
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