Collapse Of Rwanda

THE COLLAPSE OF RWANDA


The Concise Oxford dictionary describes collapse as a sudden failure of a plan, undertaking. Jared Diamond defines collapse as a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economical/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time. In reference to the collapse of societies, Diamond’s definition is more accurate although the basic idea of collapse in general is present in both descriptions.

A very unique society in central Africa was Rwanda, where three ethnic groups lived peacefully, shared the same language and culture unlike other parts where the different groups were constantly fighting. These three groups consisted of the Twa, the original inhabitants of the land, the Hutu, farmers, who arrived between the 7th and 10th centuries and the Tutsi, cattle herdsmen and warriors who arrived between the 14th and 15th centuries in much smaller numbers.
In the 15th and 17th centuries, a monarchy was established and the Tutsi gained dominance over the Hutu. When the Germans arrived, they sought to rule indirectly by enforcing this hierarchy and later, the Belgians did too, after they gained control of the country. The Belgians favoured the Tutsi which began the differentiation between the two ethnic groups and in 1994 , Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana was assassinated starting a genocide.


Jared Diamond’s 5 point framework outlined in his book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive” helps categorise and further explain the collapse Rwandan Society. His framework consists of; Environmental damages, Hostile Neighbours, Loss of Friendly Trade Partners, Climate Change and the society’s response to crisis. The main issue in Rwanda was the ethnic violence between the Hutu and Tutsi and their whish can be categorised as Hostile neighbours but really the genocide was caused by the amount of people living in the country and the fact that there was not enough land to support them all.



Environmental Damages
As the Hutu began to expand over Rwanda, they deforested a lot of the land in order to grow crops and robbed the aboriginal Twa of their habitat. This contributed a lot to the decline of the Twa in Rwanda. The Germans forced the Rwandans to grow more tea and coffee crops for export rather than crops for food which caused famine and helped fuel the Hutu-Tutsi dispute over land. Rwanda became the most dense country in Africa with 760 people per square mile, this also contributed to the poverty and fighting over land.


Hostile Neighbours
This is a major point in the collapse of Rwandan society but not as much in the sense of neighbouring countries as neighbouring ethnic groups. The Tutsi- who had cattle, a symbol of wealth, and superior combat skills, gained dominance over the Hutu even though they were vastly outnumbered. A monarchy was established in the central region and in the 1600’s, absolute power was given to a Tutsi king called the Mwami. The Hutu were bound to the Tutsi by having to act as their labourers, tending their cattle and serving in their armies and in exchange they received use of the cattle and land protection from foreign enemies. Although this hierarchy was in place, the Tutsi and Hutu still maintained a fairly peaceful life together.
In 1894 the Germans arrived and decided to indirectly rule the country by enforcing the hierarchy system and forming an alliance with the Tutsi. The Germans also introduced western culture into Rwandan society. The first missions were sent over to convert the people to Christianity and educate the children in the western way thus destroying the majority of the original culture. When the Belgians gained control over the land, they also gained all the political power and favoured the Tutsis for their “European” features. Ethnic violence broke out in 1993 and UN forces were brought in to keep peace although in the 1994 genocide, the UN withdrew 90% of their forces leaving the Tutsi to fend for themselves.


Loss of Friendly Trade Partners
The Rwandans didn’t really loose any trading partners as their coffee and tea industry was thriving and their trade partners didn’t have much to do with the collapse of society.


Climate Change
This wasn’t really an issue as far collapse was concerned as the climate did not really contribute to the problems in Rwanda.


Response to Collapse
The initial collapse began when the Belgians took over and placed the Tutsi in higher regard. The response was the Hutu revolution in 1959, the civil war in 1990 and then the 1994 genocide. The constant ethnic violence over land caused by favour of one group lead this society into collapse more than anything. It was a battle between those who had land, and those who didn’t.

aAnother famous historian, Arnold Toynbee had a different theory on societal collapse. He believed that all societies are faced with a challenge that is either one of technology, or ideas. How the society chooses to respond to this determines whether they will survive or not.
Toynbee believes that the decay of civilisations is caused by the deterioration of the Creative Minority, who come up with ideas and methods for meeting challenges. The ideas generated by the minority are then copied by the majority and he believes that they are the two essential steps in facing a challenge, the generation of ideas and the adoption of those ideas by the majority. If either of these fails, then the society will collapse. When the creative minority looses respect from the majority, they become a dominant minority and force the majority to obey at all costs. He argues that when a civilization breaks down the society splits into three parts; the dominant minority, the internal proletariat ( the working masses that are part of the civilisation) and the external proletariat( the masses who are influenced by the civilization but not controlled by it.) He believes that the ultimate sign that a society has collapsed is when the civilization goes through a time of troubles and then the dominant minority forms a “Universal State” Collapsing civilisations were also characterised by a vulgar mass culture. The proletariat fight back against the dominant minority with fear, hate and violence. Eventually the Universal State deteriorates and then the internal proletariat forms a universal religion and the external proletariat becomes a migration of war-bands.

This fits in with the collapse of Rwanda in that the creative minority were the Tutsi, the majority were the Hutu and after the Tutsi lost respect from the Hutu, they and the Belgians became the dominant minority, the Hutu became the internal proletariat and the refugees who had fled to neighbouring countries were the external proletariat. The time of trouble was when the ethnic violence began and the universal state was when the Belgians and Tutsi ruled. The genocide was when the proletariat fought back and then the Universal State was diminished. A new religion was formed, Christianity; which came from the European missions and a lot of the cultural identity of the Rwandan people was lost.

When comparing the collapse of the Rwandan society to the decline of the Roman Empire a lot of similarities and differences appear. Christianity was brought into both cultures and while a lot of the original culture was lost, it was not the main contributing factor in the decline. The Romans had poor resource management and they damaged their environment by farming crops, like in Rwanda where coffee and tea crops were grown for export and the Rwandans could not grow crops they needed for food. There was also a division between the Romans living in Rome and the new Romans living in other places conquered by Rome and there was a lot of unrest between the roman citizens. There were different ethnicity groups within the Roman Empire that had different values attitudes and beliefs just like the different ethnic groups in the Rwandan society.


Comparing collapsed societies to societies today, people can learn from these past civilizations to ensure that theirs does not collapse. I think that now people are aware of their resource management and will be able to address any challenges regarding that. There is a lot more awareness of problems in societies today so people have more of a chance to not collapse. In Rwanda, the collapse was based on the ethnic battle for rights over land, and while another problem like this may arise somewhere in the future, I believe that the people in that society will have learned from past societies mistakes and will overcome the potential collapse.



Bibliography

Books
Koopmans, (2005) Rwanda, Mason Crest, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Barber,(2005),Central Africa Franklin Watts, London

Internet

Western Involvement in the Rwandan Genocide, (2008)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8189
Arnold Toynbee on Civilizations and Religions, (no date)
http://www.applet-magic.com/toynbee.htm