Question about Rwanda Genocide (ancient, war, greatest, economic)

[ironpony]

I saw the movie Hotel Rwanda and didn't really know much about this incident as I would have been a little kid back then, and didn't hear much about it afterwards.

The movie tells a lot of it from the protagonist's point of view of things, and that is where I am a little fuzzy on what caused the Hutus to want to commit genocide towards the Tutsis.

Now the Belgian government had colonized the country at the time and they gave the Hutus all the power and gave them all the good jobs. So this caused the Tutsis to become very angry about that, as understandably so, at least from how the movie portrayed it.

However, why did the Hutus decide to destroy the Tutsis, when it was Belgium's fault? Why didn't the Hutus storm the Belgian government buildings and go after them. Instead they decide to go after the Tutsis, who are really just the "middle man" so to speak?

Since it was the Belgians fault, it seems to make much more sense to go after the Belgians and drive them out of the land. My guess is, is that they wanted to kill of the Tutsis, because they felt than the Belgians might then give them all the good jobs, and have the good life waiting for them, if they kill off the race, that the Belgian's deemed superior.

But this seems like a reach, because why did the Hutus think that Belgian would respond so positively, if their superior race was killed off? Wouldn't this cause the Belgians to dislike the Tutsis even more as a people? Or would this cause the Belgians to say screw it, give them all the good jobs, cause there are no Hutus left?

But again, it seems more unlikely to rely on the Belgians to give them their blessing after the genocide, and it seems to make more sense to go after the Belgians, cause since they are the ones who started the problem, destroying them, would destroy the problem. So why did they feel that killing the Tutsis would solve everything?

[banjomike]

The Belgians were long gone before the genocide began. The Belgian empire was abandoned after World War I.

Even if the Belgians still controlled the government, the genocide would still have been neighbor against neighbor. Those who are far removed from people's lives aren't usually the objects of hatred that's so fierce as to be murderous. It's the more mundane, day to day events and attitudes that give rise to the desire for bloody vengeance when there are one group who have all the advantages and another that has very few.

Both tribes had lived side by side for many decades in peace, but it's hard for the West to understand the depths of African tribalism. Most of the greatest violence in the continent has come from from ancient tribal quarrels that can go back very far in time.

But the Belgians were the model for the brutality. They enslaved the Rwandan population, and forced them to work in the Belgian-owned mines. Amputation was a common punishment for petty crime.

I've always thought that was one of the reasons why the Hutus chose the machete to kill their neighbors over the gun. Even when they carried a gun, they still preferred to chop the Tutsis to death than to shoot them. The movie couldn't portray the slaughter as it really was because it would have simply been too horrifying.

[ironpony]

Okay thanks. But if the Belgians were long gone by then, how come in the movie, the main character kept calling Belgium for help then?

Plus I think the movie could have portrayed it that way if the filmmakers wished to. I thought the reason why they used machetes is because they are cheaper than guns.

But if Belgian was long gone why did the movie portray them as still having stakes in it?

[Aredhel]

The Belgian government had nothing at stake, but the Belgian-owned hotel company did.

[mensaguy]

Thread moved from True Crime to History.

[ironpony]

Originally Posted by Aredhel

The Belgian government had nothing at stake, but the Belgian-owned hotel company did.

Oh okay. They just made it like it was the Belgian's fault cause they also said earlier in the movie, that the Belgians decided that the Hutus would get the superior jobs, and they judged them as superior by measuring the width of their noses. So it seems the movie made Belgians's the judge of the Hutus getting the superior jobs and life, and didn't really say much about Belgium being long gone afterwards.

If they were long gone, how come the Hutus were still superior in careers and lifestyles for so long, without a Belgian government to control it?

[Aredhel]

It was the other way around: it was the Tutsis (numerically a minority) who held most of the political and economic power in Rwanda. Naturally this caused resentment amount the numerically superior but politically and economically weaker Hutu. It was that resentment that the Hutu extremists tapped into to trigger the genocide.

As for how the Tutsi held onto power once the Belgian colonists left: surely you’ve heard of the Golden Rule (as in “He who has the gold, rules”)? Economic and political power, once obtained, tends to be self-perpetuating.

[ironpony]

Oh yes right, the Tutsis, sorry I got the two mixed up. But wasn't there more than power that got the Hutus that snapped?

I mean for example, there are plenty of countries around the world, where there is a higher social class of people, but you never see the second classes trying to wipe the entire upper class of people off the Earth. Wouldn't there have to be more to this to make a whole group of people snap like that, other than being second class?

[theoldnorthstate]

Tribal hatred and warfare. Exterminate the enemy or lesser tribe and take their assets which grows your own. Guess you could add revenge as well

Happened everywhere in the world at one time or another

[mtl1]

The Tutsi and Hutu had issues with each other going back centuries after migrating into the area. The Tutsi were gaining socioeconomic advantage over the Hutu before Germans and Belgians were in the picture. As someone else mentioned the Belgians left many decades before the genocide happened, and are mostly just a convenient scapegoat.