Ethnicity in Genocide Studies

In examining the causes of genocide, many scholars have turned towards ethnicity to gain a better understanding Typical explanations have drawn from deep ethnic hatreds and elite manipulation of ethnicity, among others Nevertheless, how useful is “ethnicity” to the understanding of genocide? I will argue that contrary to public discourse, ethnicity is of little use to the study of genocide because it cannot anticipate the onset of genocide, nor does it always explain the cause of violence from below. However, ethnicity can tell us how it can be employed by the state to instigate violence from above I will focus on the case study of the United Nations-recognized Rwandan genocide which involved the organized murder of Tutsis with the intent to destroy this group I will focus on Rwanda because the genocide occurred relatively recently, and there is ample research and testimony on this topic

This essay will proceed as follows First, I will provide a working definition of genocide and ethnicity based on research by experts in the field. Second, I will elaborate on how ethnicity does not reveal the onset of genocide Third, I will analyze how ethnicity does not always explain why violence begins from the bottom up Fourth, I will explore how the state can employ ethnicity to incite violence Lastly, I will discuss my paper’s limitations while proposing new research areas Overall, I aim to add new dimensions to the often-assumed one-way causal relationship between ethnicity and genocide.

Drawing from experts in the field, I will define genocide as an organized attempt supporting the extermination of any targeted group. Such groups can be formed along ethnic, racial, religious, socioeconomic and/or political lines However, this list is not exhaustive. I define a group as any collectivity with more than one individual where members share at least one trait and/or have a unifying relationship I constructed this working definition of genocide by combining the existing definitions used by authors I have cited in this paper to account for the different meanings of the term My sources include but are not limited to organizations such as the United Nations and scholars like Scott Straus, Lee Ann Fujii, Barbara Harff, Peter Uvin and Aliza Luft

Kanchan Chandra provides a useful framework for understanding the term “ethnicity” Chandra describes descent-based attributes as characteristics associated with or thought to be associated with descent such as traits inherited genetically, through culture or history, and throughout one’s lifetime (Chandra 2006, 400). Ethnicity is a subset of these descent-based attributes that is further defined by the following, a) it is impersonal as it is an imagined community, b) it constitutes a section of the population instead of the entire nation, c) it is shared with siblings and d) it is transmitted either through birth or genetically (Chandra 2006, 400). I defined ethnicity as such for a practical reason: while this definition does not include all of the categories political scientists in the literature identify as ethnic, it captures the majority (Chandra 2006, 402) Thus, Chandra clarifies the term “ethnicity” and its cognates, providing a foundation for evaluating ethnicity’s role in genocide.

Ethnicity is of little use to the study of genocide since it does not reveal the outbreak of violence. The primordial school of thought emphasizes the “ancient hatreds” argument, which posits that centuries-old differences between ethnic groups drive violence (Jean 2006, 2). In this view, the Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which 800,000 Tutsi were murdered across three months (Human Rights Watch, 2006), was caused by deep-seated hatreds between the Hutu and Tutsi However, if the genocide took place due to these so-called ethnic hatreds, which stemmed from the colonial era, why did it take place precisely in April of 1994? Why not earlier or later? Therefore, ethnicity alone does not determine when genocidal violence will unfold. While Harff argues that ethnic and religious cleavages can increase the likelihood of genocide, this is only true when an ethnic minority is in power (2003, 67) This was not the case in Rwanda since, in the years preceding the genocide, a Hutu elite ruled a country with a Hutu majority. If such cleavages did increase the likelihood of genocide, Harff’s findings still do not reveal when violence will begin Thus, ethnicity, if used as the only lens through which genocide is examined, risks disregarding several other factors at play

Instead, as some scholars suggest, we must consider the role of elements other than ethnicity in the onset of violence Using data from 145 communes in Rwanda, Omar McDoom argues that two significant factors that determine when and where violence will take place are elite control and social segregation (2014, 34) The outbreak of violence will be delayed or wholly averted in areas where extremist elite control is weak and social integration of ethnic groups is high (McDoom 2014, 34) While some may argue that the social integration of ethnic groups is inherently related to ethnicity and thus the latter determines the onset of violence, ethnicity alone does not dictate when violence will take place. In other words, McDoom finds that strong connections across members of different ethnicities delayed violence, not that ethnicity itself was a contributing factor. As such, ethnicity is of limited use to those who wish to understand when genocidal violence will erupt

Further, ethnicity does not always explain violence on the ground In Rwanda, low-level perpetrators did not cite ethnicity as a reason for participating in the genocide After interviewing these perpetrators, Scott Straus found little evidence that ethnic hatreds were widespread amongst the population (2006, 122). For instance, 98 9% of Hutu respondents admitted that before 1994, they would have allowed their children to marry a Tutsi (Straus 2006, 128), 86.5% said they had positive relations with their Tutsi neighbours and 94 1% did not believe Rwanda was a country only for Hutus (Straus 2006, 129; 130). Instead, Straus finds that the perpetrators partook in the genocide due to two significant factors: intra-Hutu coercion, and anger and fear (2006, 122) Other motivations included obedience, material gain, and copying other perpetrators (Straus 2006, 136) Thus, these findings counter the claims that ethnic hatreds drove the masses to participate in the killing of Tutsis.

Additional research in this field supports Straus’ findings. Other scholars have cited looting and fitting in with the crowd as motivators for low-level perpetrators (Hatzfeld 2005, 218; McDoom 2020, 132) Regular Rwandan citizens did not partake in the genocide because they hated Tutsis or believed that Tutsis did not belong to Rwanda While it is true that interviewees may have attempted to minimize their responsibility by citing coercion and fear, Straus accounts for this He expects that those claiming coercion were the least violent (2006, 140) Conversely, he predicts that those who cited warrelated fear exhibited the most violence (Straus 2006, 140) Via regression analysis, Straus finds this to be true (2006, 141).

Although this does not completely eliminate fabrication, this finding suggests that the narratives are consistent As such, we can be confident in them to a large degree.

In everyday Rwandan life, ethnicity was fluid instead of an unchanging monolith For instance, Straus finds that 68 8% of low-level perpetrators reported having a Tutsi family member. While many Joiners – defined as lowest level participants – did indeed murder Tutsi, many also chose to save Tutsi family members and even strangers (Fujii 2009, 126) Olivier – an active Joiner – admits to having pointed a Tutsi boy towards safety when the former was alone (Fujii 2008, 594). Olivier’s ethnicity was fluid since he stopped being a militant Hutu, even if this was only momentarily While there is a possibility that group dynamics had an effect, Olivier – a Hutu – still consciously decided to save a Tutsi Supposing that ethnic hatred drove violence amongst low-level perpetrators, why would some of them choose to spare or even save Tutsi lives? Additionally, moderate Hutus who refused to participate in the killings or were discovered hiding Tutsis were murdered (Luft 2015, 55). The persecution of Hutus by fellow Hutus questions the validity of the argument that ethnic hatreds explained violence on the ground. Thus, the fluid nature of ethnicity shows that ethnicity does not tell us why violence occurs from below

By no means am I implying that ethnicity serves no purpose in the study of genocide Instead, ethnicity helps us understand genocide in specific ways: Ethnicity can tell us how it can be used by the state to instigate violence from above Lee Ann Fujii explains the concept of “state-sponsored ethnicities,” which, instead of tapping into individuals’ deep-seated ethnic hatreds, acted as a script for violence (2009, 104) As their name suggests, state-sponsored ethnicities refer to an idea of ethnicity that the extremist Hutu-led government pushed (2009, 104) This idea entailed thinking of the Tutsi as the enemy that had to be destroyed (Des Forges 1999, 141) To follow this script, perpetrators made claims about their identities and employed violence to act on such claims (Fujii 2009, 123) However, similar to an actor in a play, individuals were not required to believe the script to enact it (Fujii 2009, 104).

For instance, part of the performance could have entailed killers celebrating murder By applying Rogers Brubaker’s idea of how members of a group often act in ways they expect the group to behave (2002, 176), this could be interpreted as perpetrators pretending to celebrate the murders because they believed it was expected of them. This corroborates Fujii’s claims on how state-sponsored ethnicities functioned as a script

The idea of state-sponsored ethnicities suggests that the government manipulated ethnicity to advance its interests This is evident from the long history of the struggle for power between Hutu elites and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Years before the genocide, Hutu elites believed their power and privileges were threatened due to increasing domestic political opposition since the 1980s, the RPF invasion in 1990 and the ensuing civil war, alongside the internationally-backed power-sharing agreement with the RPF of 1993 (Uvin 2001, 81). Fearing the RPF’s increased power, Hutu elites manipulated ethnic divisions for political gain They portrayed all Tutsis as the enemy and painted them as infiltrators from the RPF to eliminate those perceived as potential political opponents (Des Forges 1999, 5) This suggests that ethnicity was manipulated by elites to achieve their goals, complicating the relationship between ethnicity and genocide

Violence was highly organized and actively facilitated by the state For instance, government buses and military trucks often brought members of the Interahamwe – the Hutu paramilitary – to sites where they murdered Tutsi victims (Totten and Ubaldo 2011, 119). As well, survivors recall military personnel accompanying the Interahamwe (Totten and Ubaldo 2011, 121) It is clear that elites first manipulated ethnicity and subsequently facilitated the killings as a strategy to maintain power. In other words, Hutu elites framed the conflict along ethnic lines when in reality, the reason for the violence was to eliminate political opposition. Some may argue that the ideas of statesponsored ethnicities and the manipulation by elites clash with responsibility at the individual level However, such is not always the case since, even if influenced, perpetrators ultimately choose to participate in the violence Thus, individuals can have agency while still being influenced by the state. Therefore, the state can employ ethnicity to instigate violence from above

On the whole, this paper does have some limitations when applied to other case studies I initially argued that ethnicity does not always explain violence from below. Nils B. Weidmann posits an ethnic competition logic when examining violence during the Bosnian Civil War from a micro perspective or “from below” (2011, 1184). Weidmann explains that ethnic groups compete for power and resources (2011, 1184) Consequently, they fear being disadvantaged by other groups, making people more likely to be mobilized by political entrepreneurs (Weidmann 2011, 1184) However, Weidmann finds that this microexplanation only applies to 15% of municipalities (2011, 1188) Thus, my assertions are still applicable to most municipalities in Bosnia

In examining the highly contested genocide against Vietnamese people by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s, some academics argue that the persecution of Vietnamese and mixed-race Vietnamese by the Khmer Rouge only started after the outbreak of war between Cambodia and Vietnam (Thun and Keo 2021, 336) Thus, some may posit that the onset of the genocide was determined, even if partially, by ethnicity However, the consensus in the field is that the war and the genocide of Vietnamese started at approximately the same time (Kiernan 2021, 346) In light of this information, some authors argue that the war was not a cause of the genocide; instead, the war was a part of the genocide (Kiernan 2021, 346). Thus, ethnicity did not determine the onset of the genocide

In conclusion, ethnicity is of limited use to the study of genocide because it does not reveal the onset of genocide, nor does it always explain violence from below. However, ethnicity can tell us how it can be employed by the state to instigate violence from above I ascertained this by focusing on the Rwandan genocide. More specifically, I problematized ethnicity’s potential role when determining the timing of genocide, examined testimony from low-level perpetrators regarding their motivations, and analyzed how elites manipulated ethnicity, so perpetrators followed a script However, scholars should not wholly discard the study of ethnicity to understand genocide more deeply Instead, they must be mindful of how ethnicity truly matters in genocide studies It plays a complicated role, amongst several other factors, which I have attempted to provide insight on

Future avenues of research could examine how ethnicity interacts with other factors often associated with genocidal violence, such as regime type, war, deep social cleavages, and economic crisis. Another aspect involves investigating the applicability of the arguments put forward in this paper with instances of genocide apart from the cases of Rwanda, the Balkans, and Cambodia. Lastly, this paper has mostly drawn from perpetrators’ instead of victims’ perspectives Additional research can be done with survivors’ testimonies, and these findings could further shape our understanding of what ethnicity can or cannot tell us about genocide

Bibliography

Brubaker, Rogers. 2002. “Ethnicity Without Groups.” European Journal of Sociology 43 (2): 163–89

Chandra, Kanchan 2006 “What Is Ethnic Identity and Does It Matter?” Annual Review of Political Science 9 (1): 397–424

Des Forges, Alison Liebhafsky 1999 “Leave None to Tell the Story”: Genocide in Rwanda New York: Human Rights Watch

Fujii, Lee Ann. 2008. “The Power of Local Ties: Popular Participation in the Rwandan Genocide.” Security Studies 17 (3): 568–97.

Fujii, Lee Ann 2009 Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda Ithaca: Cornell University Press

Harff, Barbara. 2003. “No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder Since 1955 ” The American Political Science Review 97 (1):57–73

Hatzfeld, Jean, and Linda Coverdale 2015 Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak: Report Translated by Linda Coverdale New York: Picador

Human Rights Watch 2006 The Rwandan Genocide: How It Was Prepared https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/africa/rwanda0406/rw anda0406 pdf

Jean, Moise 2007 “The Rwandan Genocide: The True Motivations for Mass Killings ” Emory Endeavors in World History 1: 1-11 http://history emory edu/home/documents/endeavors/volume1/ Moises pdf

Kiernan, Ben. 2021. “The Pol Pot Regime’s Simultaneous War Against Vietnam and Genocide of Cambodia’s Ethnic Vietnamese Minority.” Critical Asian Studies 53 (3): 342–58.

Luft, Aliza. 2015. “Toward a Dynamic Theory of Action at the Micro Level of Genocide: Killing, Desistance, and Saving in 1994 Rwanda.” Sociological Theory 33 (2): 148–72.

McDoom, Omar Shahabudin. 2014. “Predicting Violence Within Genocide: A Model of Elite Competition and Ethnic Segregation from Rwanda.” Political Geography 42: 34–45.

McDoom, Omar Shahabudin. 2020. “Radicalization as Cause and Consequence of Violence in Genocides and Mass Killings.” Violence: An International Journal 1 (1): 123–43.

Melson, Robert. 2011. “Critique of Current Genocide Studies.” Genocide Studies and Prevention 6 (3): 279–86.

Thun, Theara, and Duong Keo. 2021. “Ethnic Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge: The Genocide and Race Debate.” Critical Asian Studies 53 (3): 325–41.

Totten, Samuel, and Rafiki Ubaldo. 2011. We Cannot Forget: Interviews with Survivors of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda Piscataway: Rutgers University Press.

Straus, Scott. 2001. “Contested Meanings and Conflicting Imperatives: A Conceptual Analysis of Genocide.” Journal of Genocide Research 3 (3): 349–75.

Straus, Scott. 2006. The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Uvin, Peter. 2001. “Reading the Rwandan Genocide.” International Studies Review 3 (3): 75–99.

Weidmann, Nils B. 2011. “Violence ‘from Above’ or ‘from Below’? The Role of Ethnicity in Bosnia’s Civil War.” The Journal of Politics 73 (4): 1178–90.