almost absent-mindedly manufactured throughout the peaceful years of abazungu (white) domination.” 29 One of the types of ‘administrative decisions’ Prunier may be referring to here regards education. In this field, under foreign instruction, the Tutsis were given priority. 30 Starting from the 1930s, the missions were given control over education in Rwanda. This resulted in large numbers of Hutu children being refused admission to secondary schools and where they were welcomed, they unmistakeably received inferior treatment. 31 Whilst Batutsi children were taught in French, Hutus were only offered an education in Kiswahili. After independence, when Hutus regained some of the power they had lost during colonial rule, quotas in education were introduced as part of an affirmative action program. 32 Undoubtedly, this resulted in further tensions between Hutus and Tutsis, making the conditions for genocide ever more rife. French political scientist Jean-François Bayart argues that ethnic identities may guide how a political conflict is expressed, yet he emphasises that they cannot be the root cause of violence 33 . Nevertheless, in examining the Rwandan case, we can see that the problem of ethnic identity has often been the foundation of further issues. The idea that Tutsis were of different origin and of a superior nature was, as Mamdani points out, a European idea. 34 A ‘constructed political difference’, Mamdani goes on to argue, was sought to be naturalised as a ‘legislated racial difference’. Thereby, the colonisers had ‘frozen’ these ethnic identities. 35 We can see, therefore, that the ‘racialisation of ethnic distinctions’ 36 has come to have much greater consequences than the colonisers realised at the time of implementation. Indeed, ‘ideas and myths’ as Prunier has put it, ‘can kill’. 37 The ‘time bomb had been set. It was only a question of when it would go off.’ 38
29 Ibid., p. 9. 30 Ibid, p. 33. 31 Mamdani, When Victims become Killers, p. 89. 32 Kuperman, ‘Provoking Genocide’, p. 64. 33 Hintjens, ‘Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda’, p. 251. 34 Mamdani, When Victims become Killers, p. 80.
35 Ibid., p. 101. 36 Ibid., p. 99. 37 Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis , p. 40. 38 Ibid. p. 39.
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