A Lecture on Rwanda

Many things lead to the problems in Rwanda. “A Lecture on Rwanda” is about Africa from 1959 – 1994. Rwanda is a very small country in central Africa. It starts off talking about how Rwanda is covered in mountains and the tribe. The one group in Rwanda is called the Banyarwanda. Their 3 sub groups; the Hutus, the Tutsis, and the twa. The Hutus are farmers, the Tutsis are cattle owners, and the Twas are servants and laborers. The Germans originally owned the country but after world war two they had to give it to the Belgians. The Belgians favoured the Tutsis but when they demanded independence they switched sides to the Hutus. When the cattle would ruin the farmland, there would be an argument between those two tribes. There would be constant battle the two tribes, but when the plane that carried the Hutu president was shot down the genocide started. The Hutus slaughtered the Tutsis. Between half a million and one million people were killed. Next I will be talking about the rituals and way of life of the Rwandans and how it is interesting.

The rituals and way of life the Rwandans practice is very interesting. The ceremony the Tutsis have when the cattle kick up a dust cloud is cool. The Leader of the Tutsis has the most cattle. The more cattle you have the more important you are. When the cattle’s walk and kick up a cloud the goal is to get the biggest cloud ever and to make it last the longest. The bigger it is and the longer it lasts gives even better luck. I learned that there was also another tribe named the twa. They are only 1% of the population and they are pigmies. The Tutsis have 14% of the population, yet for a while they were in power because they were preferred over the Hutus by the Belgians. I was very surprised that the Hutus did not try to take over the power much earlier because they had a significant amount of more people than the Tutsis did. I am also surprised that when the Tutsis kept taking more land for the Hutus that they wouldn’t stand up to it. Next I will be discussing two quotes from the book that are interesting.

These quotes are entertaining and show how Africa and Rwanda are very unique. The first quote is about how Rwanda has tons of mountains and that it is a big problem because the country is small and there is not too much flat land. “High yet gentle peaks stretch before you into infinity.” (170) It is a bad sign that if you cannot see the end of the mountains and you are surrounded in them that you will not have much flat land in such a small country. That is why space in Rwanda was fought for over by the Hutus and the Tutsis. “The officially orchestrated massacre of the defenseless population lasts three months, until the day the RPF troops seize control of the country, forcing adversary to flee.” (181) This quote is about the genocide against the Tutsis after the president who was Hutu was killed and it was blamed on the Tutsis.