Ethnic Hutu extremists in the government of Rwanda in 1994 carried out an organized genocide, giving

Ethnic Hutu extremists in the government of Rwanda in 1994
carried out an organized genocide, giving orders throughout the country to kill
ethnic Tutsis and those Hutus who had opposed the government. In short, about
500 000 men, women and children were massacred, mostly by machete, and their
bodies dumped into rivers; thousands at a time washed up on lakeshores in
neighbouring Uganda. What theories could help explain this event?

Hutu hatred toward Tutsis might reflect the concrete
interests and experiences of the two groups, especially since the minority
Tutsis had earlier held power
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Ethnic Hutu extremists in the government of Rwanda in 1994
carried out an organized genocide, giving orders throughout the country to kill
ethnic Tutsis and those Hutus who had opposed the government. In short, about
500 000 men, women and children were massacred, mostly by machete, and their
bodies dumped into rivers; thousands at a time washed up on lakeshores in
neighbouring Uganda. What theories could help explain this event?

Hutu hatred toward Tutsis might reflect the concrete
interests and experiences of the two groups, especially since the minority
Tutsis had earlier held power over the Hutu, and Belgian colonialism had
exploited local rivalries. Realists might try to explain how the interests of
Hutu extremists were served by exterminating their rivals for power. This
explanation is undermined, however, by the outcome: the Hutu extremists lost
power as a result of the episode.

We might instead view Hutu–Tutsi hatred as part of a pattern
of age-old ethnic hatreds in the post–Cold War era, especially in so-called
backward areas such as Africa. This “age-old-hatreds” theory was often
articulated by Western politicians in the case of Bosnia, portraying the
Balkans, like Africans, as “backward” and conflictprone. However, this theory
is even weaker than the realist explanation, since one of the world’s most
civilized, “advanced” states, Germany, exterminated Jews even more efficiently
than Rwanda did Tutsis—the difference being simply that the “advanced” society
could kill with industrial chemicals instead of at knifepoint.

Social psychology theories would view the Rwandan genocide
as pathological—a deviation from rationality and social norms. In-group biases
based on fairly arbitrary group characteristics are amplified by a perceived
threat from an out-group, exaggerated by history, myth and propaganda
(including schooling). Such feelings can be exploited by politicians pursuing
their own power. A key threshold is crossed when the out-group is dehumanized,
and norms of social interaction, such as not slitting children’s throats, can
then be disregarded.

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