When Victims Become Killers by Mamdani Mahmood

Author:Mamdani, Mahmood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The Civil War and the Genocide

IF RWANDA was the genocide that happened, then South Africa was the genocide that didn’t. The contrast was marked by two defining events in the first half of 1994: just as a tidal wave of genocidal violence engulfed Rwanda, South Africa held elections marking the transition to a postapartheid era. More than any other, these twin developments marked the end of innocence for the African intelligentsia. For if some seer had told us in the late 1980s that there would be a genocide in one of these two places, I wonder how many among us would have managed to identify correctly its location. Yet, this failure would also be testimony to the creative—and not just the destructive—side of politics.

To historicize the Rwandan genocide from this vantage point is to begin by identifying key differences between South Africa and Rwanda. From the standpoint of post-1994 Africa, I find one difference telling: if South Africa has millions of beneficiaries and few perpetrators, Rwanda has perpetrators at least in the hundreds of thousands and few beneficiaries. The difference highlights a salient political fact: that the genocide was carried out by subaltern masses, even if organized by state functionaries. I will reflect on this morally troublesome fact in this chapter, and return to think through its significance for postgenocide Rwanda in the conclusion.

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