Living the transition: inside Rwanda's conflict cycle at the grassroots

Abstract

Political1 transitions are predominantly analysed from the top down and focus on a narrow range of political institutions and processes. Critical rethinking of the “transition paradigm” now incorporates structural factors, such as historical legacies and ethnic composition(s) when analysing their trajectory(s). In this paper, we intend to complement top-down approaches by offering a bottom up perspective; revealing what it means for an “ordinary” person to live through a transition. We use the Rwandan transition as a case-study. An analysis of over 400 life histories of Rwandan peasants, and their subjective ranking exercises over time on a “ladder of life”, portrays the path of the Rwandan transition as perceived from below. The ethnicity of the respondents sheds light on the structural factor underlying the Rwandan transition: the Hutu–Tutsi ethnic bi-polarity. Their life stories and the results of the subjective ranking exercise reveal the (perceived) interrelation of power and identity that have structured and continue to structure the Rwandan socio-political landscape and everyday life, despite the fact that ethnicity has been “officially” banned from public life.

Keywords:

• Rwanda
• political transition
• conflict
• ethnicity
• life stories

Acknowledgements

The author would especially like to thank An Ansoms, Tom De Herdt, Danielle de Lame, Ben D'Exelle, François Kabuya Kalala, Stefaan Marijsse, Wim Marivoet, Marina Rafti, Filip Reyntjens, Jos Vaessen, Bjorn Vancampenhout and Stef Vandeginste for their comments on earlier versions of (parts) of this text. The reviewers provided insightful comments. My Rwandan collaborators should be recognized for their continued perseverance and motivation to conduct fieldwork in often difficult circumstances. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

1. Previous versions of this paper were presented at AEGIS European Conference on African Studies, July 11–14 2007, Leiden, the Netherlands and at the conference: “Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented Society,” 19–21 September 2007, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa and during a master class with Michael Woolcock (The World Bank), Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, September 26, 2007.

2. Huntington, The Third Wave.

3. Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm.”

4. Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm.” 10.

5. Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm.” 16.

6. On the Rwandan transition between 1990–94, see: F. Reyntjens, L'Afrique des Grands Lacs en Crise; Prunier, The Rwandan Crisis; Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques au Burundi et au Rwanda; and Lemarchand, Managing Transition Anarchies. On (mainly) the second phase of the transition, see Reyntjens, “La Transition Politique Au Rwanda,” Reyntjens, “Rwanda,” Nifosi, “A New Conceptual Framework on Political Transitions,” and Rafti, A Perilous Path to Democracy.

7. Newbury and Newbury, “Bringing Peasants Back In,” 874.

8. Our discussion of “structure” and “agency” is based primarily on Narayan, Empowerment and Poverty Reduction, xvii–xxiii; Narayan, “Conceptual Framework and Methodological Challenges,” 3–38; and Long, Development Sociology.

9. Long states, “The notion of agency attributes to the individual actor the capacity to process social experiences and to devise ways of coping with life, even under the most extreme forms of coercion. Within the limits of information, uncertainty and other constraints (e.g. physical, normative or politico-economic) that exist, social actors are ‘knowledge-able’ and ‘capable’. They attempt to solve problems, learn how to intervene in the flow of social events around them, and monitor continuously their own actions, observing how others react to their behaviour and taking note of various contingent circumstances.” Long, Development Sociology, 16.

10. Long, “Agency and Constraint, Perceptions and Practice,” 3–4.

11. For an overview of the difficulties understanding Rwanda, see Ingelaere, Do We Understand Life After Genocide? The theme of knowledge construction in Rwanda was extensively explored in Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda.

12. Republic of Rwanda, Genocide Ideology. Footnote 5 to 7 in the report (p. 17) give concrete examples of “genocide ideology” and reveal its wide-ranging scope.

13. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance.

14. The Kinyarwandan word “Kwibwizira” entails this idea of auto-censorship. It expresses the image that “common” people, without coercion, do what authorities want them to do without the latter asking them to do so.

15. More detailed information on research design and methodology is explained in Ingelaere, Living the Transition, 7–20.

16. Apart from the life story interviews and subjective rankings we present in this paper, we also employed several other research strategies: survey interviews; semi-structured interviews; focus group discussions on a number of themes; archival research; and observations of daily life, political organization and Gacaca activities. In total, we spoke with over 1400 ordinary Rwandan peasants and resided for more than 20 months in 10 selected Rwandan villages.

17. The above-mentioned elements can be considered as the dimensions of life that matter for ordinary people. They are also reflected in the findings from large-scale research that aimed to establish the different dimensions of “well-being” and the “good life.” Those identified included: material, physical and social well-being; security; and freedom of choice and action (see the World Bank study by Narayan, Voices of the Poor). They refer equally to the different dimensions of the concept of “human security” that shifted the attention from the territorial security of nation-states towards the security of people. The main characteristics of “human security” were summarized in the 1994 World Development Report as economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security. UNDP, World Development Report, 22–46.

18. Inspired by Cantril, The Pattern of Human Concerns.

19. See Ingelaere, Living the Transition, 17–19.

20. See Ingelaere, Living the Transition, 10–13.

21. See Ingelaere, Living the Transition, 19–21. A procedure modelled on the works of, for example, Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life and Gibson and Woolcock, Empowerment.

22. Republic of Rwanda, Preliminary Poverty Update Report.

23. Some communities did not have old caseload returnees, others did not have released prisoners.

24. Exploring ethnic identities is a sensitive issue in post-genocide Rwanda. However, identifying people according to identity markers such as rescapé, non-rescapé, liberated prisoner, returned refugee or accused in the gacaca courts is possible. These identity markers correspond with ethnic identities. During the actual life story interviews it was possible to verify the actual ethnic identity of the respondent. If the respondent did not belong to the ethnic group expected based on initial identification, he or she was re-categorized. Mutual trust between the respondents, the researcher and the Rwandan research collaborators increased over time because: (1) interviews took place in the respondent's house (a familiar environment), and (2) since 2004 we had spent long periods in their communities before the collection of life stories began in 2007.

25. The graphs and the “ethnic” quotes are the master devices used to portray the experience and perception of “transition.” Even though Rwanda is a bi-polar society with ethnicity as the master cleavage structuring historical events, the danger of reification exists when reducing the complexity of identity to binary ethnic markers and subsuming a variety of experiences under two ethnic categories. Therefore, the master narrative needs to be anchored in other dimensions: (1) rankings across ethnic subgroups; (2) extended life stories; (3) local community (village) histories; and (4) overarching structural features (i.e. the regime's attributes at different moments in time). These interlocking realities are explored further in Ingelaere's Living the Transition (26–57).

26. This theme is further explored in Ingelaere, “Changing Lenses,” 389–414.

27. The expression refers to pre-colonial Rwanda. When someone had been condemned by the king and he had to be handed over to the executioner(s), the expression “Umwami Yamutanze” was used. In the context of the 1994 genocide, it signifies that the State handed over Tutsi to the Hutu to be executed.

28. Hutu often use the word ntambara (war) when referring to the genocide, as they see it as part of a larger/longer period of war.

29. The expression refers to the fact that danger came from two sides. The tongue is caught in the middle between two rows of teeth.

30. Expression referring to pre-colonial Rwanda and indicating that Rwandans are, in general, of the opinion that bad things and practices are not due to the ruling(s) of the highest “chefs” (king or president), but rather the lower “chefs” and people in the entourage of the ruler.

31. Personal capacity or power [ububasha] to achieve something in life is often phrased in terms of having “ideas.” Lack of ideas and intellectual capacity implies the incapacity to move up in life.

32. In several locations local authorities have been replaced by the central administration as the former failed to implement government policies.

33. Apparently, the concept of “Imihigo” refers to the “heroism” of the soldier in Rwandan culture and history. The soldier attempts, through his actions in combat, to show his competence and capability as a “hero.” Recently, performance contracts are also being signed with individual peasants. See The New Times, “Performance Contracts to be Signed at Household Level,” November 19, 2007.

34. This expression means that one doesn't want to sanction someone from one's own family or group. The word stomach means coming from the same womb.

35. For an analysis of the conception, nature and functioning of the Gacaca court system, see Ingelaere, “The Gacaca Courts in Rwanda”; Waldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity”; and Clark, “Hybridity, Holism, and ‘Traditional’ justice.”

36. For a more comprehensive insight into the problematic quest for the truth in the Gacaca process, see Ingelaere, “Does the Truth Pass Across the Fire without Burning?”

37. Signifying that even when you do the impossible one will never restore confidence in the population. An expression with an identical signification is, “niyo wateka ibuye rigashya” – when you cook a stone until it becomes eatable.

38. Signifying that one cannot do anything against a person who feels strong because they are very well represented by the government. It gives the person who feels represented in this way the right to do whatever he or she wants and those who undergo his injustice can't do anything about it.

39. Expression referring to the feudal period when the Hutu worked as servants for Tutsi.

40. The drum refers to the idea of power. Power is symbolized by the drum in Rwandan custom. The expression signifies that no matter how many people try to shout, make noise and do other things to circumvent the will of power, power will always prevail. The one who has power – who has the drum in his hands – will always reach his goal, despite the popular will.

41. Ferme, The Underneath of Things.

42. Gledhill, Power and its Disguises.

43. Uvin, Aiding Violence, 33.

44. An in-depth discussion of the nature of the power structure(s) established through the consolidation of the political transition in Ingelaere, “Peasants, Power and Ethnicity.” The crystallization and the (changing) nature of ethnic identities in Rwanda are of central importance in the work of Catharine Newbury and David Newbury. See: Newbury, The Cohesion; Newbury “Ethnicity in Rwanda”; Newbury and Newbury, “A Catholic Mass in Kigali”; Newbury, “Understanding Genocide.” Both Catharine and David Newbury's writings on ethnicity and the importance of the factor of power were instructive in the understanding of the rankings presented in this paper. See Newbury and Newbury, “A Catholic Mass,” 313: “The paradox is that ethnicity was simultaneously the product of politics and yet, at times, a powerful determinant of the shape of political culture.”

45. Chabal and Daloz, Culture Troubles; and Gledhill, Power and its Disguises. For the Rwandan context, de Lame notes, “Rwandan mentalities are still imbued with a spiraling conception of time, as shown by the pervading ideological recourse to (considerably falsified) history to justify the present (Des Forges 1995). Any important new event harks back to a similar, earlier period, especially when it touches on historical identity. […] being unique, the source of power remains incompatible with shared authority, be it cohabitation with a rival or the republican separation of powers.” de Lame, A Hill Among a Thousand, 482.