Ruse goes on to talk about his best friend. Gerard (Ruse's best friend) was kicked out of school because the government felt the need to punish the Tutsis for the amount of Hutus that had been savagely massacred. They used the slaughter of a few Tutsis to compensate for the horrors of what was done to the Hutus, for the sake of showing sympathy. This is what Ruse sites as his first encounter with the discrimination that tore his country apart. This shows his audience that though there was turmoil in his country, the children of the country had no knowledge of the boundaries that their history dared them not to cross. In Rwanda, ethnicity is passed along the father's blood line. This separated Gerard and Ruse because Gerards father was a Tutsi and Ruse's father was a Hutu.
"I cannot tell you how much I loathed myself that day for having been lucky. It was the first time I became aware of myself not as "Paul" but as a "Hutu." I suppose this is an dark epiphany is an essential rite of pssage for anyone who grew up in my country..."
This section of the chapter shows the reader the similarities between the horrors of Rwanda and something, which in comparison seems much more light, such as rascism in America in the 60's. In both cases, children see nothing different between themselves and the people they surround themselves with. And again in both cases, the adult influences in their lives are the ones to poison their minds with ideas of "ethnic superiority."
The next chunk of this chapter talks about the Berlin Conference and its affects on Rwanda. Rwanda, at first was given to Germany, but because it was not on a coastline, and had little natural resource, Germany had little or no interest in persuing their rule in Rwanda. Rule was left up to the royalty of the Tutsis. It wasn't until Belgium gained control after World War 1 that Rwanda saw change. The Belgians, Ruse goes on to explain, wanted the most profit with the least amount of work. So, they used the royalty of the Tutsis to separate "the haves from the have-nots." Scientists were sent down to decipher a solid way of differenciating the two groups, and discovered that the nose lengths in the two groups was on average, 2 and a half millimeters different. Ruse explains that in 1933, each person was given a book which served as an i.d, and a death certificate for many. The separation of the Hutus and the Tutsis was bashed into the minds of citizens in every area of their lives, as well as in the work force. Hutus were seen as only fitting to work in the fields, while Tutsis could do as they pleased for work.
This "false" separation of the two races goes to show that the masses will believe as they are told, and that as time goes on, what is said will be taken at face value and not questioned.
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I agree with you that children are oblivious to differences in people until pointed out by others. Society and the environment one lives in largely influences how a person develops and ultimately thinks about others and the world.
At the same time, I am confused about some points. I don’t understand who was in charge of the government—the Hutus or the Tutsis. At first I thought it was the Hutus since you said that Paul was one and this stopped him from being killed. But in your first paragraph, you mention that the government “slaughters a few Tutsis to compensate for the horrors of what was done to the Hutus.” Did the two groups alternate power? If so, how?
Also, I was confused about the difference between the nose lengths. Was this the only difference between the two groups and the only research the scientist conducted? What resulted from doing this?
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