Machete Season Chapter Summary

Rwanda gained its independence from Belgium on 1st July 1962. Prior to its this colonisation, there were two ethnicities living in Rwanda, ‘the Hutus’ and ‘the Tutsis’. The Hutus were mainly farmers made up most of the population, the Tutsis made up between 15-18% and were mainly involved with cattle rearing. During the period of European colonisation, Belgium took over Rwanda and, on doing so, succeeded in creating a massive divide among these people. The Belgians introduced a European class system of hierarchy to Rwanda – the Tutsis who were already “prominently in the royalty” (however still peasants) were favored by the Belgians (History of the Genocide in Rwanda). Before this simplification of the power structure by Belgium, there had

Nowadays, European countries such as England, France, Germany, Belgium, and many other countries possess a colossal clout throughout the world. It is an impeccable fact that such countries, indeed, have served as a rudiment pivot and step for the world to be advanced to the point where we are since the Industrial Revolution. Such countries, because of it, without a doubt, have a crucial status globally and become the superpower and commercial hub on our planet. On the back side of their gleaming growth, however, there is an invisible part left behind their luminous development: the Imperialism. The term “Imperialism” refers to a policy of extending a country’s authority and political clout by using its military forces and diplomacy. As Frantz Facon once stated that “imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land by from our minds as well”, one can assert without much exertion that such European powers, in the course of Imperialism, indeed, brought about an array of irreversible impairments such as ethnic tensions, slavery, increased local warfare, and many others. Rwanda, for instance, is a country that is rife with the presence of such an irretrievable deficiency. Rwanda, indeed, has shown a startling economic growth and become an emergent leader country in Central Africa. The World Bank has recently eulogized Rwanda’s recent remarkable development success, which it

No, the shooting down of President Habyarimana’s plane did not initiate the genocide but rather, the genocide was affected by the deep rooted tensions between two groups who inhabited Rwanda, the Hutu’s and the Tutsi’s. These two groups had gone through a long period of power struggles which will be explored throughout this essay. Showing that the genocide did not occur as a result of one assassination. “It is buried too deep in grudges, under an accumulation of misunderstandings...’ . Although it is argued that the plane crash did indeed initiate the genocide and that the genocide was merely a reaction to the plane crash.

In the book “An Ordinary man: An Autobiography” by Paul Rusesabagina, the author faces many bad problems and experiences distasteful moments throughout the whole novel. The author uses quotes the explain the significance of the 1994 Genocide in his own eyes. Near the middle of the story, as Paul explains the harsh treatment and taunting of RTLM against them, he tells us about a teacher who brainwashed her students into hating the “Hutus.” “It always bothers me when I hear Rwanda’s Genocide being described as the product of ‘ancient tribal hatred.’ I think this is a easy way for westerners to dismiss the whole thing as a regrettable but pointless bloodbath that happens to primitive brown people (Rusesabagina Chp.4 Pg.53).” The significance of the quote from Rusesabagina is that they are being mocked by outsiders that think they are a “Primitive brown people.” Another one is that the outsiders think of the difference their country is compared to Rwanda’s more like “Musket gun vs.

The United States often have an had interest in the political, social and civil crises of other countries in order to benefit themselves. American senior officials hid the truth of the Rwanda Genocide to avoid public moral obligation. The government did not give any financial or political support to the country because Rwanda did not offer minerals or political advantages and stability; the US ' government did not want to be involved in another conflict, even though it has helped other countries in the past.1 But what is truly deeper hidden, are the stories of people like Immacule, a young girl, who, unlike thousands of others, survived the catastrophic genocide in Rwanda.

U.S. soldiers are trained to follow orders, which is exactly what they did as hundreds of villagers were indiscriminately killed in the My Lai Massacre. Even if the soldiers were acting under confusing orders, that is a failure of the chain of command, and even if the killings were orchestrated by a few incompetent officers, those officers never should have been placed in leadership roles. The real tragedy of My Lai represents an entire system of willful negligence and lack of accountability on the part of the military. Thus the responsibility for the massacre lies with the men involved, but also with the military chain of command that gave the order and then tried to cover it up.

“ The 20th century has been, witness to countless acts of inhumanity in the name of ‘nation’. Nationalism has given voice and self-determination to many oppressed peoples but it has also given rise to racism and genocide. How do we weight the positives against the magnitude of the negative? Nationalism has a evil side and it should be the responsibility of all humanity to insure it does not rear its ugly head.”

During the 20th century, approximately 174 million people have been killed by the government only and mostly by the communist governments (Dominic & Abimbola, 39). The figures are quite shocking. This clearly depicts that governments exploits the innocent people and incite them to stand against their brothers and sisters. The same story happened in Rwanda in 1994. According to the UN reports, 75% of the Tutsi population was exterminated in the genocide. It was the President Habyarimania’s government, who planned this genocide, a long time before to retain their political power. The magnitude of the genocide was so intense that on the very first day 30,000 people were massacred in Kigali only, a rate five times faster than the Holocaust. To

Survivor of the Holocaust and author of the well-respected memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel invites humane action with this statement: “Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe” (1). One of the various “center[s] of the universe” presently is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a struggling nation in which thousands of innocent civilians die each month from war-related causes and governmental forces. In the last decade alone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo suffered through two severe wars, one in 1996 and the other in 1998. The first resulted from ethnic tensions and, in particular, perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, who,

Globalization is a massive thing that affects every person on the planet in one way or another. This source raises the argument that globalization is a disease that harms people in more ways then it helps and needs to be stopped before it wipes out the human race. This raises a good point is some ways because globalization does harm humans in many way such as losing jobs due to outsourcing and the people who get the outsourced jobs are put into horrible working conditions and underpaid without benefits. But it also helps in some ways with trade and communication strengthening the relations of countries. I do agree with the source that globalization harms many people but not quite to the extent that the author goes to, I think that we should

In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five, the reader realizes just how much significance every passage has and how much it contributes to the rest of the novel. Slaughterhouse-Five is a novel about World War II experiences and journeys through time of Billy Pilgrim, from his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant, to postwar and early years. During the novel Billy experiences the events of his life in random order, moving from his past as an American prisoner of war in World War II, to his humdrum middle-class life in the present-day, to his future as a zoo curiosity on the planet Tralfamadore. One passage that summarizes one of the main themes in this novel is when Vonnegut says,

Have you ever been picked last in school or treated unfairly? I can tell you that the Tutsis people of Rwanda were. They were killed because they were thought to be different. In 1916 Belgium took over Rwanda from Germany, and they introduced ID cards naming the people by ethnicity. The Belgians thought the Tutsi were a better race, so they gave them better jobs and educational opportunities. The Rwandan genocide was a mass murder of thousands of Tutsi people by the Hutu people, they were viciously killed and scared out of their country, partly due to the rumor that a Tutsi man ordered the death of the Rwandan President.

One cannot fight fire with fire. While massacre reigns in Rwanda and people take betrayal to the extreme, Paul Rusesabagina in his book, An Ordinary Man, proofs how violence is unnecessary while standing against the power of the word. As Rusesabagina states, words are “powerful tools of life”(Rusesabagina, 19). The war between the two different ethnic groups, Hutus and Tutsis, and the death of thousands left a mark Rwanda’s memory; the author says: “It is the darkest bead on our national necklace” (222). Even though a large part of Rwanda’s population is massacred, many are saved by one of Rwanda’s timeless heroes. Paul Rusesabagina, as a humble hotel manager, uses negotiation and dedication to save the life of thousand Rwandans. He sheltered

When the Rwanda genocide began in 1994, its population stood at more that 7 people. Roughly 85% of the population was Hutu, 14% Tutsi, and 1% Twa (un.org). The decades following Rwanda’s independence from Belgium in 1962 saw growing ethnic tensions and periodic violent attacks and reprisals between Rwanda’s Hutu majority and its Tutsi minority.

Rwanda has a history of deep rooted conflict which originates back to when it was once a colony of Germany. Once it became a colony of Belgium after world war one this conflict also came with it, The conflict that exists is thus of two ethnic tribal groups the; Hutus and the Tutsis and their strong hatred of one another. Rwandans myths seems to indicate that Hutu and Tutsi identities did exist before the colonization but the hatred of two predominate ethnic tribal groups of one another only came into existence after colonization. This conflict between them has nothing to with religion, race or language it is to do with territory and the ownership of Rwanda. It is because of the colonies exploitation and classification of the Rwandan people into“an ethnic group” that the conflict seemed to come to a head. It wasn’t until Rwanda got independence in 1962 that this conflict escalated into violence and ultimately genocide.