Nazi's Xenophobia over the Jews and the Tutsis over the Hutus in Rwanda - Essay Example

Thesis Racial superiority has traditionally been an issue for various countries at one point or another in their history, but none worse than that displayed by the Nazis over the Jews and by the Tutsis over the Hutus in Rwanda. ‘There is no continent without ethnic conflict and no community where there is not distrust.’ says the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida (undated) There are both similarities and differences between the events of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide which took place between April and June 1994. During this tragic period of 3 months some 800,000 Rwandans died. The majority of these were ethnically Tutsis murdered by their rival countrymen the Hutus. ( The History Place 1999) However, unlike the Holocaust which built up gradually from Fascist ideas developed by Hitler and his followers in the years after the First World War, and what was seen as the humiliation of the German people, ( The Israeli- American Co-operative 2011) it could be argued that one incident sparked the Rwandan atrocities. The Hutu uprising against their countrymen was triggered when Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, and at that time the Rwandan president, was killed when he was in a plane which was shot down during a rocket attack near Kigali airport on 6th April 1994. The blame was placed firmly on the shoulders of Tutsi leader Paul Kagame, who is now the current Rwandan President, but then leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), (BBC News and Le Monde 2004). This was denied by Kagame who blamed the attack on Hutu extremists. Nevertheless, within a few hours of the attack, violence broke out all over the country; and such violence would not wane until three months after the assassination of Habyarimana. By then nearly a million Rwandans would lose their lives. The persecution of the Jews began in the early 1930’s. when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933. The persecution he engendered continued and built up into and through World War II., finally ceasing in 1945 when war in Europe finally ended. .It is believed that some 6 million Jews died , as well as members of other minorities such as Gypsies. Others were tortured or suffered in other ways and some 5000 Jewish communities were totally destroyed. ( Nazi Germany 1933-1941) The deaths did not begin as soon as the Fascists came to power. Time was spent first in spreading propaganda across Germany against those seen by the government as the enemies of the Aryan race, a the same time making life very difficult for the minority group. The aim was to encourage Jews to leave the country and to some extent this succeeded, but Hitler could not wait and in 1938 came Kristallnacht - state sanctioned riots aimed at the Jewish population. ( Kristallnacht , undated ) After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, its both territory and its military force were reduced. Also the country was forced to pay reparations to the Allied powers, something a proud people would obviously found difficult. They were brought to a very low ebb, and Hitler was the man who was accepted as the strong leader needed at such a difficult time. The Nazi party was relatively easily able to trigger clashes with the communists, and with the Weimar government, while at the same time blaming the Jews for the problems of Germany. Some similarities can be seen in the events leading up to the Holocaust and Rwandan genocide. Both countries had been under German control, with Rwanda passing to Belgian control at the end of World War I ( Magnarella, 2002) until 1962, when the country was virtually abandoned by the colonists. The writer goes on to describe how both countries used Tutsi rulers to control the people so it was the Hutu’s who would have felt themselves to be the underdogs. It seems then that xenophobia can be about more than feeling other people are different , or even inferior, but can also be about poor self image and the resentment the success of others produces. These two events showed how xenophobia can lead to huge changes in human life and the world. Many people died on both sides as a result. Scapegoating is the practice of blaming an individual or group for a real or perceived failure of others and including the justifying of negative actions. Minority groups of all kinds tend to gather together in order to preserve their culture – a modern day example would be the Bengalis of Brick Lane in London ( Alexander 2011) This isolation of a group means that these people are relatively easily targeted. Also, again because they are socially isolated they do not always mix with the majority group , which means that the latter can be easily swayed into seeing only negative aspects of the minority with whom they have little contact. . The result is that the smaller group become blamed for some social ill. The result can too often be violence, persecution, and genocide directed against minorities. “The Hutu extremists argued before and during the genocide that the Tutsi were to be blamed for the economic crises. The Tutsi were blamed for over-population, as well Hutu poverty and environmental crises according to the Historical Security Council ( 1993) .The Tutsis were portrayed as the scapegoats for every crisis, just as the Jews were in the Europe of the early 20th century.. Generally, the scapegoating theory explains xenophobia in terms of broad social and economic factors. Scapegoating been created because for ongoing deprivation and poverty. The anger caused by deprivation lead to mass crime that targets the minority group, which are seen as being different and therefore as being against the rights and benefits of the majority. The result is blame, justified or otherwise , and bubbling resentment which in both cases cited exploded into genocide. In Germany’s case the media played an important part in promoting Nazi ideas as well as being anti-Semitic with Jews being presented as barely human, The aim was to incite hate . ( Nazi Propaganda, undated) In the Rwanda case radio was used extensively in a country where “radio has become the voice of God” ( Kimani as quoted by Temple-Raston, 2002) Cotton , ( 2002) , although she mention s that blame has been placed at many doors, felt that at least some of it was because of broadcasts by the Rwandan media, and in particular Radio-Télévision Libre des Milles Collines, which was supported by extremist Hutus. Using the media in whatever form serves to some extent to dehumaize the target group, by degrading and stigmatising them. The most trivial crimes against the larger group would be exagerated so that the whole target group become the enemy. .Then there is a move to more systematic propaganda , to state sponsored hate an dso on towards public support for mass crimes and to genocide as being the only way forward. In Germany and the territories it conquered those who opposed th eregime were dehumanised by being sent to concentration camps where they became mere numbers to be tortured or eliminated. They were seen as contaminating the purity of Aryanism, for being both cowardly and evil, whereas all that was good was portrayed as being Aryan. .The resentment in Rwanda was primarily directed against the Tutsis who were labeled by their Belgian overloads as being a race which was superior to the Hutus. When the Belgians took charge in 1916 they classified the resident peoples and issued identification cards. The Tutsi’s were willing collaborators and so were seen as being of higher caste in what was a virtual apartheid system. (Africa: Belgian Colonies , 2002) This supposed ‘superiority’ worked out as having better educational and employment prospects for Tutsis which caused much resentment on the part of the Hutu majority. There were riots in 1959 which resulted in the deaths of some 20, 000 Tutsis people according to the New World Encyclopedia ( 2002) and in the Hutu’s taking charge of the country. .Resentment against the Tutsis continued , and just as the Germans felt the rights of Jews should be curtailed , so the Hutus felt about the Tutsis. Conclusion As can be seen although there are differences between the causes of the two sets of genocide, there are also differences. Both however are concerned with power struggles and the rights of both groups seen as superior and those perceived as being of lesser worth. It is this trigger of feeling that people are less than human which is the true trigger , which people use to justify their actions, as much as resentments and perceived insults and crimes on the part of the ’inferior’ group. Unfortunately within human society inconsistencies persist, so such atrocities continue to occur. Works Cited Africa: Belgian Colonies, History of Belgian Colonization ,undated , 3rd August 2011http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5918/Africa-Belgian-Colonies.html, Alexander, Claire, Making Bengali Brick Lane: Claiming and Contesting Space in East London, British Journal of Sociology, 62 ( 2) pages 201 -22, 2011, 3rd August 2011 http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/37106/, Cotton, Cassandra., Where radio is king: Rwanda’s hate radio and the lessons learned, ATLIS, 2002, 3rd August 2011 http://atlismta.org/online-journals/0607-journal-gender-environment-and-human-rights/where-radio-is-king/, Historical Security Council, The Situation in Rwanda, 1993, 3RDAugust 2011, http://www.amun.org/uploads/Handbooks/2010/07_Chapter_Three_-_The_Historical_Security_Council.pdf, Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida, undated, 3rd August 2011 http://www.holocaustedu.org/, Israeli- American Co-operative, , History of the Holocaust - An Introduction, Jewish Virtual Library, 2011, 3rd August 2011 http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/history.html, Kagame accused over plane attack, BBC News and Le Monde, 10th March 2004,, 3rd August 2011 available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3497688.stm, Kimani, M., as quoted in Dina Temple-Raston, “Journalism and genocide,” Columbia Journalism Review 41 no. 3 (2002):18. Kristallnacht, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, undated, 3rd August 2011 http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/kristallnacht/ , Magnarella, Paul., Explaining Rwanda’s 1994 Genocide, Human Rights and Human Welfare 2002, 3rd August 2011 http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/volumes/2002/2-1/magnarella2-1.pdf, Nazi Propaganda , (Undated) 3rd August 2011, http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/ww2/german/naziprop.htm The Rwandan Genocide, The History Place, 1999, 3rd August 2011http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/rwanda.htm, Read More