Ethnicity and Rwanda Politics

The role of ethnicity in Rwanda is something that is often misunderstood, it is often assumed that the laws ban any mention of ethnicity. This is false, people are free to have their personal identity but it only becomes an issue when it is used in a political context. In the home and social settings, people are free to associate and define themselves, it is only if you publically seek to divide or separate people that it becomes an issue. Politicians like Victoire Ingabire often say that people are denied their identity by the government, the government is in a precarious situation of balancing personal identity and social reconciliation.


There are two schools of thought on this, one is that we must acknowledge our differences then unite. The other, which the government follows, is that acknowledging differences will not lead to cohesion, that we should instead seek to emphasise what we have in common and forget our differences. What we have in common is a common language, a common history, a common culture, a love of the same country, and even on many levels a love of each other. No nation has ever been united by their differences. In fact, these differences are a short cut to power but also a shortcut to genocide.


People always try to point to the Burundi model, where strict quotas are set out for every tribal bloc. They say that Burundians are capable of talking about their tribal differences openly. One should also note that the two main sides live in separate areas, drink in separate bars, pray in separate churches, learn in separate schools and live separate lives. Rwanda has never been like that even in the worst times of genocide. There are places in Burundi where a Tutsi would be instantly killed just for going there, that is not the case in Rwanda where anyone is free to roam wherever they like.


In Burundi, there were some 300,000 victims on both sides in a 15 year war, that means some 20,000 died a year, but in Rwanda that was only 2 days of killings as 10,000 died a day. Rwanda and Burundi have many similarities but they should not be freely compared, yes they have the same ethnic composition and similar cultures but they are very different. The Burundi situation is what would have happened had the Arusha accords defined Rwanda, if strict ethnic quotas were enforced. One wonders where the million people of mixed-ethnicity would fit in, how can you play fractions and percentages with people’s lives?


Burundi has seen the fragmentation of people, first on tribal grounds, then inter-regional grounds and newer fault-lines are appearing. The Rwanda model is to do away with ethnicity, they managed to do this in Europe. When William the Conqueror ascended to the throne in 1066, he could not afford to have tribal division because they acted as powerbases, so he abolished them. After some uproar, the English were united and ironically under a French King. One day Rwandans will all appreciate the decision to abolish tribes.