WE EXPOSE THE OTHER

For years European people and institutions where under the impression that they had the authority to construct narratives about non-western people. According to Hodan Warsame, socialist and activist, the power to know and name is fundamental to the colonial rule of non-Western people. Those who know, who have the knowledge, place themselves above the people they are claiming to know. This results in representations that are often one-dimensional, by definition incomplete and create a monolithic image of people that in reality have a complex history and high degree of cultural diversity (Warsame, 2018). This has brought me to a point of wanting to urge the interrogation of the words used to define and frame African narratives. “European institutions need to realize that the words they use often carry a colonial narrative. Only by doing so you can make sure those narratives don’t get reproduced” (Warsame, 2018, pg. 85).

When applying this to the colonial created Hutu and Tutsi divisions in Burundi, we can start to understand how European constructed narratives have created a life of their own and are still present in todays society. I will be illustrating how the European colonial framework is not innocent, as I want to argue the importance of contesting these narratives. Discussing the colonial created Hutu and Tutsi divisions is relevant for cultural diversity as it questions the framing and othering of groups of people within society, relevant to both African and European nations. Whose perspective of what it means to be African, specifically Hutu or Tutsi, counts?

To critically look at the framing of the division between Hutu and Tutsi’s we first need to understand the history of the republic. Both Germany and Belgium ruled Burundi with Rwanda and created the European colony called Ruanda-Urundi. Rwanda and Burundi are small neighboring countries that share the same, now ethic, composition: approximately 85-90 percent Hutu, 10-14 percent Tutsi, and 1 percent Twa. Their climate, topography, population density, predominantly agrarian economy, religion, language, and history are also very similar. Both countries have also been through years of civil war between their main colonial created ethic groups: the Hutu and the Tutsi (Uvin,1999).
Prior to being colonized, Burundi was an independent kingdom where the Twa, Hutu and Tutsi civilians lived and intermarried. Although distinctions were made between Hutu and Tutsi’s, they were made based on a socio-economic system not an ethnically based system. The system was fluid, based on ancestry and economic status including the ownership of cattle. The Tutsi minority were politically and economically dominant. Hutus were mainly cultivators and known as the masses where Tutsis who were predominantly pastoralist, were considered the ‘elite’. It was possible for someone considered Hutu to accumulate his wealth, climb the social ladder and become a Tutsi pastoralist. Despite these distinctions their relation was relatively comfortable. (Shillington, 2012).
Often it is pointed out that the Tutsi are tall and the Hutu short, and the conventional explanation for this is that the Tutsi are a genetically distinct group who invaded the country in the sixteenth century from northern Kenya or Ethiopia, and thus represent a distinct 'tribe' of 'Hamitic' origin, compared to the 'Bantu' Hutu. This historical thesis associated particularly with colonial writings, and supported by anthropometric work of dubious methodology, has not gone uncontested. As documenting myths about Tutsi’s distant origin, was a colonial tactic used to divide and conquer. (Shillington, 2012).

Academic Francis Loft illustrates why the official ideology of the Burundian government, as well as other critical writers dismiss the whole idea of separate origins, as there are various simple points against it. Many Burundians do not conform to the physical stereotypes, as Hutu and Tutsi’s intermarried throughout history. The both groups speak the same language, Kirundi, and there is nothing in the language to suggest separate origins for the two groups. (Loft,1988)

Tension between the Burundians started to arise with the arrival of German colonizers, starting to create strict distinctions between the Hutu and Tutsi’s. Belgium’s regime served to add to this problem. The Belgians considered Tutsi’s to be more like themselves. Tutsi’s seemed taller, lighter and therefore framed them to be superior to Hutu’s. Tutsi’s under the wing of Belgians were educated and brought up as the upper class of society. In the 1930s Belgium instituted identity cards that distinguished Hutu from Tutsi, thus requiring everyone to be classified according to their ethnicity and making these categories official. The worst contribution was racial science. The Belgians further increased the divide between the Hutus and Tutsis through the use of the eugenics. Skull measurements showing larger brain size, greater height, and lighter skin tones all reaffirmed the Tutsis’ superiority over the Hutus, by providing proof of their apparent greater purity and supposed ancestry to Europeans. (Shillington, 2012).

“The intellectual history of colonialism is littered with many a willful cause of more recent conflict. One is, quite simply, careless anthropology. The Belgian classification of Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, which reified distinctions that had not existed previously, continues to haunt the region of the African Great Lakes. The self-awareness of these two groups as distinct peoples is traceable clearly and solely to Belgian colonial policy” (Tharoor,2002, pg.2).
The European colonizers preferred and promoted the Tutsis, leading to Hutu rejection of them as alien interlopers favored by foreigners. After years of Belgium colonial rule, these distinctive Hutu and Tutsi identities were widely accepted and entrenched in peoples mind. This led to Hutu and Tutsi civilians seeing each other as ‘the other’, even after Burundi gained independence in 1962, which eventually lead to the genocide of both Tutsi and Hutu civilians. A clear example of the old colonial habit of ‘divide and rule’. (Tharoor,2002)

“Burundi presents a typical example of how discrimination and unequal access to scarce resources lead to violence. As the discrimination took place largely along ethnic lines, the violence and counterviolence became ethnic too. Burundi is a case of superimposition of social cleavages, with fault lines in political power, economic wealth, and ethnicity reinforcing each other (Uvin, 1999, pg. 254).”
Even though Hutu and Tutsi’s may live together, the distrust created during the colonial era and civil war maintains a now highly political division between the groups. The embodied awareness of being Hutu or Tutsi creates that you are put into a side. This not only effects Burundians born in the time of Hutu and Tutsi segregation but also the diaspora and the next generations living with the power struggles due to these divisions.

According to Wayne Modest, professor and researcher, attention to words means that we recognize that the language and narratives we use to frame our history, contributes to making people feel connected to society (Modest, 2018). In this essay I have illustrated how colonial constructed narratives can lead a life of their own. European intuitions therefore need to be more critical of the framing and othering of Africans, as well as the framing of these historically impactful events. With my group work within cultural diversity I want to create awareness about the ways in colonial narratives are still present. This demands a critical attitude towards the European colonial framework. Understanding where words and narratives come from is a step closer to gaining a broader perspective on our colonial history.

References

Loft, F., 1988, Review of African Political Economy. In: Review of African Political Economy. Published by: Taylor & Francis, Oxfordshire, p. 88-93
Modest, W., 2018, Het belang van woorden. In: Woorden doen ertoe. Published by: Tropen Museum, Afrika Museum, Museum Volkenkunde and Wereld Museum, Amsterdam, p. 13-17
Shillington, K., 2012, The history of Africa. Published by: Macmillen Publishers, London
Tharoor, S., 2002, The messy afterlife of colonialism. In: Global Governance. Published by: BRILL, Leiden, p. 1-5
Uvin, P., 1999, Ethnicity and Power in Burundi and Rwanda: Different Paths to Mass Violence. In: Comparative Politics. Published by: Comparative Politics, Ph.D. Programs in Political Science, New York, p. 253-271
Warsame, H. 2018, Mechanismen van koloniale narratieven. In: Woorden doen ertoe. Published by: Tropen Museum, Afrika Museum, Museum Volkenkunde and Wereld Museum, Amsterdam, p. 81-88