The Rwandan Genocide: A Nation Before Nations (Part 1)

Exploring Rwanda's societal evolution reveals a complex history, where identities were fluid before colonial influences hardened them into rigid racial categories. This intricate tapestry of relationships transformed into one of violence and division that culminated in unimaginable tragedy; it's a poignant warning of how easily societies can be manipulated.


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Chapters

• 0:01 Rwanda's History
• 9:16 Rwanda's Complex Social Structure

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Season 2, episode 4.1 of Double Helix Blueprint of Nations. Before we begin our journey through Rwanda's history, I need to speak plainly about where this story is going to lead. What you're about to hear over the next eight episodes is not just history. It's a warning about humanity's capacity for both unimaginable cruelty and remarkable resilience. In 1994, rwanda, a land of a thousand hills and ancient traditions, became the site of one of humanity's darkest chapters. In just 100 days, a mere season, over 1 million people were systematically murdered. The speed and intensity of the killing defied comprehension. If this genocide had continued at the same pace as the Holocaust, it would have dwarfed every mass killing in human history. The world had sworn never again after the Holocaust. We built monuments, created international laws, we even established the United Nations, all to prevent another genocide. And yet when Rwanda began its descent into hell, the world didn't just fail to act, it actively chose to look away. This is not a story that will be easy to hear. The events we'll cover may shake your fate in humanity. You'll learn how neighbors turned against neighbors, how teachers murdered their students, how priests betrayed their congregants. You'll hear how the Nyavarongo River became so choked with bodies that they formed dams in Uganda. Some of you may need to step away at times, and that's okay. This history should be difficult to bear, but we must bear it, because genocides don't explode into being without warning. They're built methodically, piece by piece, choice by choice, over generations. Understanding how Rwanda's social fabric was deliberately torn apart over decades isn't just an academic exercise. It's crucial to recognizing how societies can be manipulated towards unspeakable violence. This is also ultimately a story of hope how a nation can emerge from unimaginable tragedy and attempt to rebuild, to heal, to find a way forward. But before we can understand that healing, we need to understand the wounds. So let's begin at the beginning, centuries before the machetes and the massacre on a hilltop in central Rwanda.

Speaker 1: 2:48

Imagine yourself on a hilltop in central Rwanda, not in 1994, but centuries before. The air is clear and cool, we're nearly a mile above sea level. Below you, valleys and hills stretch towards the horizon like waves on a green ocean. Mist clings to the valleys in the early morning light and the sound of cattle bells drifts up from below. It is dawn, somewhere around 1750, and the world is slowly coming alive. A group of herders moves their cattle through the valley, their silhouettes dark against the rising sun. From another direction comes the rhythmic sound of wooden hoes working on the earth, farmers beginning their day's labor In the distance. Smoke rises from scattered homesteads where women are kindling the morning's first fires.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Walk with me to the edge of this hill. See that pattern in the valleys below. Those aren't random settlements. This is a carefully organized landscape. Each hill is its own small world, what Rwandans call Umusosi, a community bound together by complex relationships of obligation and loyalty. The cattle paths connecting them are like veins in a living organism, carrying not just people and goods, but information, power and culture.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Listen, those drums you hear aren't just making music, they're speaking. This is Ngoma, the royal drum language of Rwanda. Right now they're announcing that a local chief is holding court, settling disputes and reinforcing the social bonds that hold this society together. This isn't just beautiful scenery. This landscape shapes everything about the society that would grow here.

Speaker 1: 4:46

I want you to forget everything you think you know about Rwanda. Forget the images that dominated television screens in 1994. Forget the simplified stories of ancient tribal hatreds. Instead, let me show you something remarkable A complex African kingdom that European colonizers would later try to reduce to simple racial categories, with devastating consequences. A society where identity was more like a flowing river than a solid wall, where a poor man could become rich, where a farmer could become a noble, where the categories of Hutu and Tutsi were more about what you did than who you were. But to understand how this fluid society became rigid enough to shatter, we need to walk through its paths and, like many great stories, this one begins with cows, kings and the power of a good origin story.

Speaker 1: 5:44

Welcome to part one of our series on Rwanda, a nation before nations. You know how they say you can't understand someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. Well, I'd argue, you can't understand a nation until you've walked through its history, not just the highlight reel or the sanitized version you find in textbooks. I mean really getting into its DNA, those defining moments that shaped everything that came after, those moments where paths were chosen, where decisions were made in palaces and backrooms and city streets that changed the course of millions of lives. I'm your host, paul, and this is Double Helix Blueprint of Nations, where we unravel the genetic code of countries through their most transformative moments. Think of it like ancestry testing, but for entire nations. We dig deep into the historical DNA, finding those crucial moments that made countries who they are today.

Speaker 1: 6:57

The Kingdom of Rwanda traces its origins to around 1500, when a series of small chieftains began to consolidate under the Nyinga dynasty. By 1700, the centralized state controlled much of what we now know as central Rwanda. But to understand how this kingdom functioned, we need to look at the deep structures of Rwandan society, structures that existed long before European contact. Let me take you to a specific moment. The year is 1860, and Nwami Kigali, the Fort Wabugiri, has just ascended to the throne. He will become one of Rwanda's most powerful kings, ruling until 1895. His reign represents both the height of the kingdom's power and the beginning of its transformation. Under Rwabgiri, rwanda would expand its territory, centralize its administration and develop the complex political system that European observers would later misinterpret so catastrophically.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Think of Rwanda before colonialism as a sophisticated agricultural society with three main groups Tutsi, traditionally associated with cattle herding. Hutu, primarily farmers. And Tua, who lived by hunting and gathering. But here's what's crucial to understand these weren't racial categories, they were social and economic identities that could change. Let me share a story that comes to us from the 1880s. A farmer named Rapungu began life in what we called a Hutu family Through military service to the Amwami and careful political maneuvering, he accumulated wealth and cattle. By 1890, his children were considered Tutsi. This wasn't unusual. It was how the system worked. The Rwandan language itself tells us something important about this fluidity. In Kinjarwanda, the verb kwi-hutuda to cease being Hutu and kwi-tutsida to become Tutsi describes this process of social mobility. Let me take you to the heart of the ubu haki system, the intricate web of relationships that bound Rwandan society together.

Speaker 1: 9:16

It's about 1875, and we're watching a ceremony that will establish a patron-client relationship. A wealthy cattle owner, in this case a man named Ruagataraka, is about to give a cow to a client. But this isn't just a simple economic transaction. The ceremony begins at dawn. Both families are present. Ruagataraka's client will kneel, cup his hands together and symbolically drink milk from them. The patron then places his hands over the client's, completing the ritual. This moment creates bonds that will last for generations. The client's children will serve the patron's children, but they'll also have to claim to their protection and support. This kind of relationship existed across Rwanda's 18 major clans.

Speaker 1: 10:07

And here's something crucial these clans transcended the Hutu-Tutsi distinction. Crucial these clans transcended the Hutu-Tutsi distinction. The Abangjinginja clan, for instance, included both Tutsi cattle herders and Hutu farmers A Hutu and a Tutsi from the same clan often had more in common with each other than with members of their own social group from different clans. Consider the story of the Abasinga clan, documented in oral histories from the 1870s. Their origin story tells of two brothers, one a herder, one a farmer, who made a pact to support each other's descendants by the late 19th century. The Abasinga included some of Rwanda's most powerful Tutsi chiefs, but also influential Hutu ritual specialists. During important ceremonies, clan identity trumped Hutu-Tutsi distinction.

Speaker 1: 11:00

Let me take you to an evening gathering in 1885, in a compound nestled in one of Rwanda's Thousand Hills, a storyteller, an elder of the Abajiginga clan, is passing down his family's history to the next generation. The children sit transfixed as he explains how the clan came to be one of the 18 major clans of Rwanda. But here's what's fascinating Looking around this fire, you see both Hutu and Tutsi faces all members of the same clan, and Tutsi faces all members of the same clan. Our clan, the elder explains, traces its roots to two brothers who made a pact in the time of our ancestors. It points to the two young boys in the audience, one from a herding family, one from a farming family. Just as those brothers share blood. We share a bond stronger than any category that Muami's court might put us in.

Speaker 1: 11:56

This clan system was like a complicated web laid over Rwanda's hill, creating connections that defied simple categorization. Think of it like one of those friendship bracelets where all the threads weave together. Gotta pull one string out and the whole pattern falls apart. Now let me take you to a market day in 1887. The sun has barely risen, but the hillside is already busy. A Tutsi herder is bargaining with a Hutu farmer over cattle, while nearby their wives who might be from entirely different social categories than their husbands, wives who might be from entirely different social categories than their husbands are trading pots and baskets. A Tuat craftsman displays his pottery, his wares, sought after by both Hutu and Tutsi customers. These markets weren't just places of commerce. They were Rwanda's social DNA, expressed itself in daily life. Marriage arrangements were discussed, political alliances were formed and information was shared. And yes, while certain people had more power than others, the boundaries between groups were as permeable as the morning mist that clung to Rwanda's hills.

Speaker 1: 13:05

Take the story of Rukata Rabi Shingwe, a famous figure from the 1880s. Born to a Hutu family, his skill in battle and political acumen earned him not just cattle and status, but a complete transformation of his social position. His children would be considered Tutsi and his grandchildren would have no memory of ever being anything else. It was as if social status was written not in permanent ink but in pencil, always subject to revision. But this kind of social mobility wasn't just reserved for exceptional cases. The ubu haki system, that complex web of cattle-based relationships we discussed earlier, created thousands of smaller opportunities for status change. A successful farmer might gain cattle through service to a patron, gradually shifting his family status over generations. It wasn't democracy as we know it, but it was far from the rigid racial hierarchy that Europeans would later imagine they found here.

Speaker 1: 14:07

The military system tells us even more about this complexity. System tells us even more about this complexity. By 1880, rwanda maintained a standing army of around 15,000 men organized into companies called intore. These units mixed Hutu and Tutsi soldiers united under a common military structure. The historian David Lee Schombrand found records of Hutu commanders leading predominantly Tutsi troops and vice versa. But this wasn't just military organization. It was a school of culture and refinement. Young men in the Intore learned poetry, dance and rhetoric alongside military skills. A French visitor in 1892 described watching an Intore performance. They move as one body, reciting ancient poems with perfect precision. The distinction between herder and farmer seems to vanish in these moments.

Speaker 1: 15:02

The role of women in traditional Rwandan society adds another layer of complexity. While men dominated political power, women, particularly the queen mother, the Umu Gabikasi, wielded significant influence. The queen mother maintained her own court, controlled vast estates and often acted as kingmaker. Between 1850 and 1890, three queen mothers effectively ruled Rwanda as regents for their young kings. Take the case of Inyirahuyi IV Inyiramungi, queen mother from 1867 to 1894. She managed to extend her influence well beyond her son's minority, creating a network of allies that included both Hutu and Tutsi chiefs. Her court became a center of political power, with the old categories matter less than personal loyalty and ability. The kingdom's economic foundations were equally sophisticated. Rwanda's farmers didn't just grow food. They managed a complex agricultural system that combined multiple crops with livestock management. By 1890, the hills around Nianza supported one of the highest rural population densities in Africa, testament to the sophistication of these farming methods.

Speaker 1: 16:19

But perhaps nothing illustrates the complexity of pre-colonial Rwanda better than its spiritual and ritual life. The royal court maintained a group of ritual specialists called the Abiru, who preserved centuries of knowledge through elaborate oral traditions. These weren't just stories. They were the kingdom's living constitution, detailing everything from succession rules to agricultural ceremonies. The ritual specialists of Rwanda weren't just preserving history, they were keeping alive an entire worldview. In 1891, a ritual practitioner named Inida Ruhengeri described to a court historian how each new moon requires specific ceremonies to maintain the kingdom's harmony. The Abiru will gather at dawn, she explained, to perform ceremonies that connected the living king to his ancestors, the farmers to their land and the cattle to perform ceremonies that connected the living king to his ancestors, the farmers to their land and the cattle to their keepers.

Speaker 1: 17:20

But by the late 1880s, this intricate social fabric was beginning to fray. Mwami Rabugiri's military campaigns, while expanding Rwanda's territory, were straining the traditional system of obligation and loyalty, were straining the traditional system of obligation and loyalty. A court historian named Kagami would later describe this period as the time when the old ways began to bend like grass in a strong wind. Let me show you what this meant on the ground. In 1885, a local chief in what is now eastern Rwanda wrote to the Nwami complaining that the traditional balance between land chiefs and cattle chiefs was breaking down. Where, once these roles had checked each other's power, now ambitious administrators were combining both positions, creating new forms of exploitation.

Speaker 1: 18:07

The pressure was particularly acute in the hill country In 1890,. Population growth and intensive farming had made land increasingly scarce. The Ubu Haki system, once a web of mutual obligation, was in some areas becoming more coercive. A Belgian missionary who visited in 1892 noted the old men speak of ubu haki as a bond of brotherhood, but their sons described it as a chain. This transformation is captured in the story of a farmer named Nsengimana, documented in oral histories from the Byumba region. In 1888, he sought to establish a client relationship with a powerful patron, following the traditional path of social advancement. But unlike the ceremony I described earlier, this one had a different tone. The milk I drank was bitter, he would later tell his children, and the protection promised was like a shadow, always visible but impossible to grasp. The military system too was changing by 1890, the Intore companies were becoming more stratified. Where once they had been schools of culture and refinement for all young men, now wealth increasingly determined access to higher positions. A German visitor in 1894 observed training exercises where the sons of chiefs performed the noble dances while common soldiers watched from the periphery.

Speaker 1: 19:38

This was the Rwanda that Europeans first encountered, a complex society already grappling with internal tensions and transitions. But what happened next would transform these evolving social distinctions into something far more rigid and deadly. Everything changed in 1894, when Count Gustav von Götzen arrived at the royal court with very specific ideas about race and hierarchy. Picture the scene A German count, probably sweating uncomfortably in his formal European clothing, looking out at the complex society before him and deciding he knew better than centuries of Rwandan tradition on how it should be organized. Here's the tragic irony he was witnessing one of Africa's most sophisticated kingdoms, with political and social structures that European observers wouldn't even begin to understand until decades later. But Pongitsin, like so many colonizers of his era, wasn't interested in understanding. He was interested in categorizing or in simplifying and making Rwanda fit European ideas about race and power.

Speaker 1: 20:51

The German interpretation of Rwandan society was a masterpiece of misunderstanding. They looked at the cattle herding Tutsi elite and saw what they wanted to see A superior race of rulers who must have come from somewhere else, perhaps Ethiopia or Egypt. They observed Hutu farmers and classified them as a subordinate race naturally suited to manual labor. You know that feeling when someone completely misinterprets what you're saying and then refuses to let you correct them. Well, imagine that, but with the fate of an entire nation at stake. This wasn't just academic theorizing.

Speaker 1: 21:33

By 1897, german colonial administrators were actively reinforcing what they saw as natural Tutsi superiority. They began appointing only Tutsi chiefs, dismantling the traditional system where Hutu and Tutsi had shared power. A German official wrote in 1899, the Tutsi are born to rule. We shall strengthen their natural supremacy over the lower races.

Speaker 1: 22:00

The German impact on Rwanda wasn't just administrative. It rewrote people's understandings of their own history. Imagine sitting in a village meeting around 1905. A German official is explaining to the assembled chiefs that everything they thought they knew about their past was wrong those fluid social categories that had defined Rwandan societies for centuries. According to the Germans, these were merely confusions about natural racial differences. The German presence in Rwanda would be relatively brief, just 20 years until World War I. But they said, emotion changes that would transform Rwandan society forever. They began supporting Tutsi dominance, not understanding, or perhaps not caring, that the categories they were hardening had once been fluid.

Speaker 1: 22:52

But this was just the prelude. After World War I, the Belgians would arrive with their measuring tapes, their calipers, their pseudoscientific theories and racial obsessions. It would take the German misunderstandings and turn them into a rigid system that would reshape Rwanda's destiny forever. Next time, on Double Helix the weight of identity, we'll see how Belgian colonizers, armed with racial theories and measuring calipers, would transform Rwanda's social categories into racial destinies. We'll witness the creation of the infamous ethnic identity cards and explore how the Catholic Church helped cement these new racial divisions. And we'll meet the Rwandans who began to resist this new racial order, setting the stage for revolution. Until then, I want to thank. Stage for revolution. Until then, I want to thank you for listening. We will see you soon. © transcript Emily Beynon.