BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES: The aim of colonialism is to exploit the physical, human, and economic resources of an area to benefit the colonising nation. Between the 1870s and 1900 Africa resisted European imperialist aggression, the attempt to colonise by foreign domination until finally Europeans imposed their formal rule of law on African countries.. In 1884, leaders from 14 colonial powers, including the United States, Great Britain, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Holland, Italy and Spain, held the Berlin Conference where they divided the continent of Africa into 50 countries and claimed them for themselves. No African representatives were invited.
Today most of Africa’s 53 so called ‘independent sovereign countries’ retain the borders drawn by this agreement.These European nations redefined territories, drawing borders to protect their own interests from other colonial powers. In doing so they altered forever the local balance of power, creating ethnic divides which had previously not existed. Social groups who once lived side by side now became isolated while buffer zones separating traditional enemies disappeared. An example is the Congo River, once providing a geographic boundary with groups who shared a language and culture, living on both sides until France and Belgium redefined the boundaries.The destruction of culture and tradition is a deliberate strategy of colonisation, altering language, ways of life and weakening political structure by replacing authority figures in the community. Africans lost control of their land and their future.
The Karma of genocide: The Berlin Conference granted the region that became the country of Rwanda to Germany. German colonists arrived in Rwanda in the 1890s and found a centrally governed and efficiently run country made up of people who shared a common culture, language and religious beliefs. Over centuries two ethnic groups Hutus and Tutsis had merged into one culture with intermarriage, and cultural practices erasing the former culture divide. ‘Hutu’ originally referred to the agricultural-based Bantu-speaking peoples who moved into present day Rwanda and Burundi from the West. ‘Tutsi’ referred to North eastern cattle-based peoples who later migrated into the region. The terms did not define racial ancestry but a person’s current economic class. Individuals who owned roughly 10 or more cattle were considered Tutsi, and those with fewer were considered Hutu.
At the end of WWI, Belgium accepted the League of Nations Mandate of 1916 to govern Rwanda. In order to create greater control, the Belgian colonists divided Rwanda’s unified population into three distinct groups: Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. Both the Belgians and the Germans, influenced by racist ideas, thought that the Tutsi were a superior group because they were more “white” looking. Christian missionaries were seeking converts in Africa and the Catholic church favoured the Tutsi due to a greater willingness to convert to catholicism.
The colonists created a strict system of racial classification, the size of the nose was measured and the color of the eyes and skin were factors used to determine whether a person was classified as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. Identity cards based on this philosophy conferred power and privilege. The colonists believed that the Tutsi were natural rulers, so they put only Tutsis into positions of authority and discriminated against Hutus and Twa. The Hutus, who make up about 85% of Rwanda’s population, were denied higher education, land ownership and positions in government. By the 1950s, resentment towards the colonial rulers and the Tutsis erupted resulting in the mass slaughter of the Tutsi by the Hutu. Check points and barricades were set up and the racist National Identity cards were used to identify and systematically kill Tutsi. In a 100 day period an estimated 500,000 – 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed, 70% of the Tutsi and 20% of the Rwandan population as a whole.
“The most devastating legacy of European control of Rwanda was the transformation of social distinctions into so-called ‘races’. We were classified and dissected, and whatever differences existed were magnified according to a framework invented elsewhere’
Paul Kagame President of Rwanda