Colonialism

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) a psychiatrist and philosopher from Martinique asserted that colonialism was violence in three ways: First as physical violence. Throughout colonial history physical violence has been perpetrated by the colonizer to “pacify” the colonized and to force them to accept the laws and order of the colonizer. Second as structural violence which refers to the social injustice that one sees in colonized societies through the economic exploitation of the colonized. Third as psychological violence, the injury or harm done to the human psyche of the colonized decreased their sense of self-worth and integrity. In the colonial context the imposition of the colonizers language on the colonized is a form of psychological violence.⁵⁹ Besides these forms of violence, “colonialism completely destroyed what remained of the political, economic and socio-cultural achievements of Africa and left in its place „nothing of compensatory value‟.

Colonialism is „violence in its natural state.”⁶⁰

The post-colonial civil violence observed in Africa as the genocide in Rwanda, political rebellions, and interethnic conflicts are a common legacy of colonialism, for example in Eastern DRC at the boarder of Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, where an arbitrary partition of the region was made by European powers without taking into consideration the population. This created the unsolved question of identity and citizenship of Banyarwanda and Banyamulenge which generated violence in the Great Lakes region of Africa.⁶¹ After the decolonization process, this influence continues to permeate the social and cultural identities of the populations formerly involved in the colonial experience, still deeply affecting inter and intra group dynamics.⁶²

59 Nessa, Colonialism as violence in its natural state, in Cure curious,

<http://curecurious.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/franz-fanon-describes-colonialism-as-%E2%80%98violence-in-its- natural-state%E2%80%99/>, 10th August 2014.

60 Ibid.

61 Sabelo, Ndlvou Gatsheni, <http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ferguson-centre/working-papers/working-paper-2.doc>, 10th August 2014.

62 Chiara Volpato, Introduction: Collective Memories of colonial violence, International Journal of conflict and violence, vol.4(1) 2010, pp.4-10, <www.ijcv.org/index.php/ijcv/article/download/61/201>, 11th August 2014.

1.2.1. German colonization⁶³

The Berlin Conference held between December 1884 and February 1885 “sliced Africa into Portuguese Africa, British Africa, German Africa, Italian Africa, Spanish Africa, French Africa and Belgian Africa.” ⁶⁴ Both Rwanda and Burundi formed the territory called „Ruanda-Urundi‟, the Berlin conference “assigned it to Germany and marks the beginning of the colonial era.”⁶⁵ It was then united with the German territory of Tanganyika to form German East Africa. Explorer Gustav Adolf von Götzen (1866-1910), who later became Governor of German East Africa, was the first European to significantly explore Rwanda in 1894; he crossed from the south-east to Lake Kivu and met the King Rwabugiri at Kageyo in Ngororero District in Western Province.

Germany appointed Richard Kant as the first Resident governor for Rwanda in 1907, and German missionaries and military personnel began to arrive in the country shortly thereafter.

One of the differences between German and Belgian colonization is that:

The Germans did not significantly alter the societal structure of the country, but exerted influence by supporting the king and the existing hierarchy and placing advisers at the courts of local chiefs. They also observed and perpetuated the ethnic divisions of the country; they favored the Tutsis as the ruling class and aided the monarchy in putting down rebellions of Hutus who did not submit to Tutsi control.⁶⁶

63 History of Musanze, <http://www.musanze.com/history-of-musanze/>, 24th April 2013.

64 Motsoko Pheko, Effects of colonialism on Africa‟s past and present,< http://www.pambazuka.org/global- south/effects-colonialism-africas-past-and-present>, 14th July 2016.

65 Rwanda: Key historical and constitutional developments,<http://www.kituochakatiba.org/sites/default/files/legal- resources/Rwanda%20Key%20Historical%20and%20Constitutional%20Developments.pdf> , 14th July 2016.

66 History-Research Africa,< http://www.afran.info/modules/publisher/item.php?itemid=425>, 14th July 2016.

1.2.2. Belgian colonization

“When Germany invades Belgium, at the start World War I, Belgian troops move east from the Belgian Congo to occupy Ruanda- Urundi in 1916.”⁶⁷ After defeating German troops, “on 31^st Belgian colonizers replaced Germans. “They portrayed Tutsi as natural rulers, with superior intelligence and morals.”⁷⁰ White Fathers and Belgian administrators “reinforced many of the ideas of strict ethnic separation and Tutsi political dominance.”⁷¹ At the same time, they allowed the King to govern indirectly as stated by Timothy Longman:

The policy of indirect rule implemented by both the Germans and Belgians left the Rwandan monarchy in place, using the existing political structures to administer colonial policies. The system lost much of its complexity, as power became increasingly centralized. Since indirect rule required identifying indigenous authorities, the Belgian administration registered all of the population in the 1930s and issued identity cards that designated each person's ethnicity.⁷²

This classification into ethnic groups intensified the ethnic division between the Tutsis and Hutus With the institution of national ID cards in 1933, “the Tutsis went from being the naturally superior race, to being the marginalized minority. Rwandan leaders used the ID cards to

67 History of Rwanda, <http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad24>, 05th March 2016.

68 The league of Nations grant Belgium the right to govern Rwanda, < http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated- event/league-nations-grant-belgium-right-govern-rwanda>, 05th March 2016.

69 South African History, <http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/league-nations-grant-belgium-right-govern- rwanda>, 05th March 2016.

70 Timothy Longman, Christian Churches and Genocide in Rwanda, quoted Leroy Vail, Introduction: Ethnicity in Southern African History, in The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, edited by Leroy Vail, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989, pp1-19,

<http://faculty.vassar.edu/tilongma/Church&Genocide.html>, 05th March 2016.

71 Timothy Longman, Christian Churches and Genocide in Rwanda, ,

<http://faculty.vassar.edu/tilongma/Church&Genocide.html>, 05th March 2016.

72 Ibid

construct two separate races, thus their usage by colonial and postcolonial governments nevertheless helped to transform the manner in which Rwandans regarded identity.”⁷³

On that new identification system,

Words: "Tutsi", "Hutu" and "Twa" were indicated on identity cards. However, because of the existence of many wealthy Hutu who shared the financial (if not physical) stature of the Tutsi, the Belgians used an expedient method of classification based on the number of cattle a person owned. Anyone with ten or more cattle was considered a member of the Tutsi class. The Roman Catholic Church, the primary educators in the country, subscribed to and reinforced the differences between Hutu and Tutsi. They developed separate educational systems for each, although throughout the 1940s and 1950s the vast majority of students were Tutsi.⁷⁴

In 1960, the Belgian government agreed to hold democratic municipal elections in Ruanda-Urundi. The Hutu majority elected Hutu representatives. Such changes ended the Tutsi monarchy, which had existed for centuries. A Belgian effort to create an independent Ruanda-Urundi with Tutsi-Hutu power sharing failed, largely due to escalating violence. At the urging of the United Nations, the Belgian government divided Ruanda-Urundi into two separate countries, Rwanda and Burundi.⁷⁵