REVIEW – When victims become killers

When Victims Become Killers : Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda – Mahmood Mamdani
Mamdani deconstructs Rwanda and the colonial agenda in Central Africa, historically, politically, geographically and socially.  If you want to seriously begin to understand the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1993 then Mamdani’s book is an excellent choice.Mamdani is painstaking in his detail and argument and takes us through
the identities of post-colonial Central Africa – Tutsi and Hutu,
Ugandan and Rwanda. He deals with difficult questions like "why so many individuals were able to come together as a collective and spend three months butchering their neighbours in a bloody rampage of horrendous brutality.  Why husbands were able to hack wives and children to death. Why women even nuns joined in the bloodletting.   The author begins with an examination of  the pre-colonial structures of the region and goes on to explain the colonial agenda and the construction of race and ethnicity and how these constructs influenced post-colonial Rwanda and eventually the genocide.