Context for Rwandan Genocide

Scholars offer varying analyses of the factors that combined to create the conditions for the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. Our primary guide was Mahmood Mamdani’s book, When Victims Become Killers, which carefully and traces how various political regimes perpetuated racial hierarchies, violence, and refugee patterns before and after the genocide, and examines how political systems in the modern era fostered persistent divisions among Hutu and Tutsi. We also read accounts of the genocide and its aftermath by well-known journalists like Jean Hatzfeld and Philip Gourevitch. Parents and potential seminar students are encouraged to begin with some of the resources below.

• Overview of the Genocide, from BBC website
• Reflections from the New York Times at the 25th Anniversary
• Reflections from Zach Bouchamp in 2014, Vox Magazine
• PBS documentary, Ghosts of Rwanda