Blog 8

Blog 8: Categorizing Political Violence

            Political violence can be divided up into a variety of categories. David J. Samuels, in Comparative Politics, defines political violence as, “the use of force by states or non-state actors to achieve political goals.”[1] He goes on to create subfields of political violence such as terrorism, genocide, revolution, and civil war. After reviewing the many instances of political violence, I have decided to focus on Rwanda and the violence that overtook the country. The Rwandan Genocide best fits the political violence category of genocide that is defined as, “a coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all members of particular ethnic, religious, or national groups, through mass murder.”[2] This definition provided by Samuels can be accurately applied to the specific incidents that occurred in the country of Rwanda.

In order to further support the statement made above, we must review the history of the Rwandan genocide. A rebel group, called the Rwandan Patriotic Front, invaded northern Rwanda in order to defeat the government that was led by the Hutu. This caused an outbreak of civil war to occur throughout the country. The rebel group mainly consisted of Tutsi refugees who had taken up refugee in Uganda. The racial tensions between the Hutu-led government and the Tutsi refugees, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, increased during the civil war. “Hutu Power did…espouse an extremist ideology that depicted the Tutsi as a racial threat; many Hutus saw themselves as victims of history and thus found it easier to turn their enemies into victims.”[3]The Hutu supporters began mass killings of the Tutsi people, and a very large part of the population was killed in a very short amount of time.

Now, the Rwandan Genocide began as a civil war between a rebel group and the functioning government at the time, but it should still be classified as genocide. This is because the Hutus began to target the Tutsi people based upon their ethnic origins. The definition given by Samuels is accurate for this specific event, because there was an ideology presented by the Hutus that helped to coordinate a plan. Also, the Tutsi consisted of a unique and singular ethnic group that was attacked with the goal of eliminating the Tutsi all together. Samuels’ definition is very strong in this case, because the Rwandan Genocide was organized by the Hutu ideology, focused on the Tutsi rebels as a certain racial group, and the Hutus were shockingly efficient at killing of the Tutsi in such a short amount of time.

The Rwandan Genocide can be accurately categorized as genocide according to the definition provided by David J. Samuels in his book, Comparative Politics. A mass killing occurred, targeting a specific race, and was somewhat organized by the ideology produced by the Rwandan government at the time. While there was no specific organization set up to murder anyone of the Tutsi ethnic group, the Hutu ideology greatly influenced the people who supported the government and that ideology is what they used to justify mass murder. All in all, the definition of genocide as a sub-category of political violence is accurate when it comes to the genocide that occurred in Rwanda.

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[1] David J. Samuels, Comparative Politics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1967, pg. 258.

[2] Samuels, 279.

[3] Mark Mazower, “Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century,” The American History Review, Vol. 107, No. 4, 2002, pg. 1161.