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Abstract
This paper explores intersections of ethnicity, gender and age in Rwanda during and following the 1994 genocide. It firstly considers how these intersections affected the specific dynamics and nature of the violence during the genocide. It then examines how these intersections have shifted following the genocide in the context of a nation-building project, which has rejected ethnicity, yet embraced the pursuit of gender equality. Drawing on ethnographic research with young Rwandans in Kigali from 2004 to 2011, it identifies three disquieting continuities in the intersections of ethnicity, gender and age in contemporary Rwanda: (i) the ongoing ethnicisation of sexual politics among young Rwandans; (ii) the reproduction of ‘ethno-gendered’ stereotypes of Tutsi women that were central to the genocide propaganda; and (iii) the continued marginalisation of large numbers of Hutu young men, a factor which contributed to the participation of some young men in the 1994 genocide.
Notes
1 Quotes here indicate that there is a debate about the extent to which the term ‘ethnic’ can be applied to the groups Hutu, Tutu and Twa (see McLean-Hilker Citation2009).
2 This was the category of ‘youth’ as defined by the Rwandan Government in this period.
3 Almost all the young Rwandan ‘returnees’ I interviewed were born outside Rwanda and had never been to Rwanda until their families returned after July 1994.
4 At Independence, a Hutu party (MDR-Parmehutu) won the elections and the ‘Hutu Republic’ was created. Although there was a change in the ruling party in 1975 (MRND), Rwanda was effectively a single party state ruled by a Hutu party from 1962 until the genocide in 1994.
5 As Tutsis officially constituted 9% of the population, there could be no more than 9% Tutsi students in schools, 9% Tutsi clerks in the civil service or 9% Tutsis in any sector of employment (Prunier Citation1995, 60, note 35).
6 In 1985, there were no women in the national Government or local administration (prefecture or commune levels), women constituted only 12% of MPs and 2% of the diplomatic service (Women for Women Citation2004, 1).
7 Sommers (Citation2006, 144) points out that although the Government developed the CERAI (Centres d'enseignement rural et artisanal intègres) vocational education system as an alternative to secondary education, the results were poor for both men and women.
8 A survey conducted by Clay, Kampayana, and Kayitsinga (Citation1997, 109) found that in 1989, 85% of young men and women ‘believe[d] that they will not inherit enough land for the subsistence needs of their families’ (in Sommers Citation2006, 145).
9 Young men made up the majority of the killers in 1994, but Sommers (Citation2006, 155) is careful to stress that young Rwandan men were no more violent than any other young men, but engaged in violence only when their desperation and vulnerability was exploited.
10 The term ‘Interahamwe’ – the name of the militias organised to conduct much of the killing – was previously used to refer to communal work parties in the 1970s and 1980s.
11 Taylor (Citation1999) cites the examples of the Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who was executed by Rwandan soldiers hours after the genocide started (163–164) and Emilita, a prosperous female taxi driver killed in 1993 (158–161).
12 There is debate over exactly whether and when the organisers of the genocide gave an order to target Tutsi women and children. Tutsi men were certainly the primary targets in the first weeks and then from mid-May the number of Tutsi women targeted increased (see Nowrojee Citation1996, 41).
13 A pseudo-scientific-religious theory dating to early European explorers, which posited separate geographical and biogenetic origins of Rwanda's social groups, alleging that the ‘Tutsi’ were ‘Hamites’, a Caucasoid race with superior moral and cultural characteristics who conquered the less intelligent ‘Hutu’ and ‘Twa’ – ‘Bantu’ peoples of the region (Taylor Citation1999, 55–97).
14 The UN's Special Rapporteur on Rwanda estimated that there were 250,000–500,000 rapes during the genocide. Rape was used as a form of torture and genocide and many Tutsi women were taken as ‘wives’ or slaves of Hutu genocidaires (Nowrojee Citation1996, 24).
15 In July 1994, the RPF installed the Government of National Unity, which it dominated until it won the 2003 parliamentary and presidential elections.
16 Republic of Rwanda, Law 47/2001 of 18/12/2001 instituting punishment for offences of discrimination and sectarianism.
17 Now called the Ministry of Gender and Women in Development (MIGEPROFE)
18 Republic of Rwanda (2003), The Constitution of the Republic of Rwanda.
19 I took part in initial discussions about a National Youth Policy in 2004, which led to the publication of a policy in 2005. However, despite the existence of a Ministry of Youth, there has in particular been fairly limited government attention to the situation of marginalized rural youth, as discussed later.
20 See http://www.girleffect.org/why-girls/#&panel1–1. See also criticisms of this campaign by, for example Koffman and Gill (Citation2013).
21 This Kinyarwanda term apparently translates as ‘a girl who is beautiful inside and out and makes good decisions’.
22 Following the end of the genocide in 1994, it is estimated that over a million (mostly Tutsi) Rwandans returned from exile – mostly in Uganda, Burundi and Zaïre – where they had fled as a result of earlier waves of violence in the early 1960s and 1973.
23 There is a longstanding fear of poisoning in Rwandan culture. See for example Taylor (Citation1999, 115–116).
24 Sommers' also examines the consequences of failed masculinity for young women. The inability of young men to complete a house leads to marriage delays, also leaving young women ‘stuck’ and exposed to risks such as informal marriage, transactional sex, bearing ‘illegitimate’ children or being labelled as ‘old ladies’ if unmarried by their mid-20s.
25 He argues that his focus is more on class relations, says that ethnicity was not raised as an issue by interviewees or interviewers and that he had concerns about endangering participants in a context where talking about ethnicity was a taboo.