The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

Western ideology: Ideology must here be understood to encompass all
new ideas introduced by Westerners during the colonial conquest of
Rwanda. To appreciate the importance of Western ideology, two factors
must be taken into account: the structure of personal identity and the
prestige of the Western intruder in Africa generally, and specifically in
Rwanda. The personal identity of each individual consists of what he or
she is in their own eyes, in the eyes of others, and of what he or she
real ly is. The Western view, which ignored what the Rwandans were
for themselves, and told them what they were for the West, resulted in
a fission of Rwandan identity. In effect, what the Westerner said to the
Rwandans was:
that they were of different races: which they rejected;
that one race was superior to the other two, which they rejected,
since they still only had, at most, a hierarchy of three brothers;
that they were of different origins and had arrived in Rwanda at
different times, successively, the Twa, then the Hutu and finally
the Tutsi.
But the Westerner who said that was equipped with an immense prestige
of knowledge and power; Rwandans believed them and did not,
more over, doubt that it would one day be of consequence. Consequences
there would be, and they would be significant:
The Tutsi obtained, without their knowledge, three poisoned gifts:
racial difference, racial superiority (which earned them a monopoly
on power) and alien status.
The Hutu were relegated to the margins in terms of political power,
a marginalization which would lead to resentment, then to conflict –
when the Hutu Manifesto, published in 1957, challenged the Tutsi
monopoly of power – and finally to the conflict of 1959 that led to
the genocide of 1994: “The path does not notify the traveller”
(inzira ntibwira umugenzi).
The Rwandan nation would experience a collapse, which would lead
to the first attempt at Hutu-Tutsi separation.
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