The Rwandan Genocide: A Book Critique

Paper Summary:

The chilling title of Phillip Gourevitch's book, "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" (1998), is a reference to a group letter from members of the Tutsi clergy to an Adventist church leader, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, pleading for his protection from the Hutu majority in Rwanda. Gourevitch's book concerns the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994 in which the Hutu majority systematically massacred the minority Tutsi population. As a result of this effort at ethnic cleansing, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi were killed over the course of a 100-day period from April to July 1994. In fact, during the height of the massacre, Gourevitch reports that members of the Tutsi tribe were being massacred three times as fast as the Jews had been during the Nazi Holocaust. To better understand the events that contributed to this horrific slaughter in modern times, this paper provides a critical review of Gourevitch's book, including a discussion of how the religious, national, racial, and ethnic groupings in Rwanda were used as tools for the genocide. A discussion of how European colonialism, Rwandan politics, and the role of different aid organizations also contributed to the genocide is followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion.

From the Paper:

"In this book, Gourevitch paints a grim picture about the events that led to the 1994 genocide in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were massacred to the point where the Hutus almost succeeded in completely eliminating the Tutsi segment of the Rwandan population, as well as countless members of the Hutus themselves who opposed the slaughter in the first place. The systematic and institutionalized method by which this slaughter took place was not unique to Rwanda, of course, but Gourevitch suggests that a combination of a cultural acceptance of violence, the nefarious roles played by NGOs, Rwandan governmental agencies and the nation's churches, all contributed to the genocide that took place during those terrible months of 1994."

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