Machete Season Chapter Summary

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In 1994, Rwanda was gripped with murderous fervor as Hutus across the country took up machetes against their Tutsi neighbors in what became 100 days of genocide that left 800,000 dead. Does the history of Rwanda provide any evidence of the implementation of the ten steps of genocide? How did Belgian imperialism influence the relationship between Hutus and Tutsis? What ultimately made the average Hutu decide to murder their Tutsi neighbors? In this paper I will investigate how the ten steps of genocide was used in Rwanda, the effects of imperialism on Rwandan culture and gain insight into why Hutus decided to kill Tutsis through the analysis of the book Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld.
Book Review
I believe Machete Season revealed two major themes. The first is that societal factors can influence the normalization of violence. The second is people can rationalize killing others if they believe it is their duty or their mission given by an authority figure. There were many ethical issues that were raised from the responses that the prisoners gave. However, I will provide insights on two of those ethical …show more content…

Should orders to kill civilians be followed? In Syria, helicopters and jets bomb cities and have learned to target Syrian volunteer White Helmets on second bombing runs. The Syrian government has on several occasions gassed its own people with chemical weapons. These orders from authority figures continue to easily influence violent action against the innocent and unarmed countrymen. Just as the pilots have a choice to be inaccurate with their payloads as to minimize casualties, the Hutu did have a choice to not kill. Rwanda is a landlocked country with a handful of countries to travel to in order to escape from rhetoric preparing the society to kill another group of people. What happens after people have been labeled as ‘other’? Are they dispensable

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