The Story of Rwanda and the Tutsi Question...
The views of a fan, from the outside looking in.
Rwanda is a country of around 13 million people. And it’s all of 26 thousand square kilometres, and some change. That’s a little larger than Narok and Nakuru Counties combined in landmass.
But Rwanda remains unavoidable. At the heart of chaos and progress in equal measure. And at the heart of it all is a People. The Tutsis. A people, who just like Jews, have had a rather storied past, and have been efficiently dominant when dominant. Quite difficult to remain indifferent towards them. I find myself positively intrigued… almost a fan.
The story of Rwanda begins and persists with the story of the Tutsis. A story of how a demographic came to be, their dominance and perhaps why it is inevitable.
So where to begin for a crash course, the monarchy. Rwanda was for centuries a monarchy ruled by Tutsis of the Abanyiginya Clan, the Nyiginya Dynasty. It is not known for certain when the Dynasty began, but oral tradition traces the beginning of the Nyiginya Dynasty with King Gahima I, aka Kanyarwanda I. We may not know precisely when the Rwandan monarchy began but we know that it officially ended with King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa on the 28th of January 1961.
Between Gahima I and Kigeli V there is a continuous chain of 38 Kings. 38 Mwamis (as they are appropriately called) across 3 Nyiginya Dynasties.
The story of the Kings of Rwanda and their myths of origin are a little bit of Jumuiya history to be told later but there are a few choice bits that would perhaps be relevant to today.
First, that Gahima I was a descendant of Gihanga, a sort of god-king, part of Rwandan mythology. Gihanga ruled from Buhanga forest in the north of Rwanda, the royal and sacred grounds of the Mwami. It remained forbidden to the public until Kagame opened it to visitors early in his reign. It was said that a fire remained lit from the days of Gihanga until 1932, when the Belgians had King Yuhi V put it off. Buhanga roughly translates to creation, so think of it as a sort of royal garden of Eden.
Another interesting bit for my Kenyan amusement is that virtually all Rwandan kings resided in the Southern district of Nyanza. Nyanza being the Bantu word for a large water body, as Lake Nyasa for example. Nyanza in Kenya being a Nilotic domicile, with a beautiful Bantu name on it is an interesting bit of Jumuiya/Great Lakes history… A story that perhaps explains why Raila repeatedly says he is a son of the Nabongos… A story of the Bacwezi, a story that still goes back to the Tutsis somehow. A story for another day.
Another royal to make a stopover on is the 25th Mwami in the Nyiginya dynastical line. A man by the name Kigeli II Nyamuheshera. He reigned over Rwanda between the years 1576-1609. During his reign, he expanded Rwandan territory to its glorious largest, a height that persisted for quite a while. To the west of his territory, he attacked chiefdoms into modern day Congo, expanding Rwandan territory to modern day Masisi. The thick Congo forest checked his expansion further into Congo. To the north, he led forays into western Uganda around Lake Edward. He stopped at the border with Busongora, the land of the Bacwezi. Custom did not allow them to attack Busongora, which they considered the home of the god Ryangombe.
Speaking of Ng’ombe. The long-horned cow so dearly regarded in Rwanda is said to be descended of Gihanga’s herd. The Bacwezi also claim first rights to the long-horned cows, so dearly regarded as the Ankole breed now. This Bacwezi-Tutsi bond, this nearly spiritual bond lies at the heart of Muhoozi’s nature and disposition, and spirited bursts, I think.
So after centuries of total monarchical power, propped up by Tutsi dominance in a feudal society, the Nyiginya Dynasty would face its end with colonialism, and the end of colonialism.
The story of Hutu awakening and the end of the monarchy was how modern Rwanda was born. But how did we get there?
The first Europeans to establish some colonial interests around the territories of Rwanda were the Germans at the tail end of the 19th century. This was at the beginning of the reign of Yuhi V Musinga, the 36th Mwami of the Nyiginya Dynasty.
Now King Yuhi V had a cocktail of problems. First, questions about his legitimacy. He ascended to the throne through a palace coup organised by his mother. He was also just a teenager at the time he took the throne. And just as his reign begins, the Germans arrive. The Germans and their extra force and resources helped Yuhi maintain his tenuous control over his territory with the Germans preferring the cheaper indirect control over the territory.
So when the Belgians were given control over Rwanda after WWI, they found a monarchy and a feudal system. A feudal system which had the Tutsis occupying the upper wrung of society.
Allow me to explain my understanding of the Tutsi, Hutu dichotomy (and Twa). The Rwandan people are grouped into clans. By some count, there are 18 of them. As with most nations in Jumuiya, Rwandan clans are made up of families that have a shared familial heritage…depending on when you start counting.
For example, the Abanyiginya is a clan, and the royal family is a family within the Abanyiginya clan.
The Abanyiginya clan has Tutsis, Hutus and Twa people. So the differentiation between Tutsis and Hutus wasn’t particularly one of blood or ethnicity by the time the Europeans come knocking. It is simply a feudal society. One of social standing. Class diferentiation. If I were to be clumsy, a caste system mixed with the hustler-dynasty dichotomy. As Ndii would put it, Upperdeck and others.
For illustration, all clans have a mix of Tutsis and Hutus among them. In 1970, for example of all clans, only the Abanyiginya, Abega and Abashombo clans were Tutsi majority.
Of the 4 biggest clans in Rwanda in 1970, this were the social distributions within the clan:
Abasinga - 56% Hutu, 44% Tutsi
Abasindi - 74% Hutu, 26% Tutsi
Abagesera - 65% Hutu, 35% Tutsi
Abazigaba - 75% Hutu, 25% Tutsi
The Abanyiginya clan who produced the royal family and most Tutsis had a 20% Hutu composition in 1970. This is crucial to understand, that the distinction is truly not ethnic, these are clanmates it doesn’t get more ethnic than this. And, yes Akayesu and the whole ICTR closed this chapter, but they were not separate ethnicities.
So back to the 1920s and the Belgians seek to be more involved in the administration of Rwanda compared to the Germans.
The Belgian resident in Rwanda, Georges Mortehan, began a raft of Reforms that would reshape Rwanda… the Mortehan Reforms of 1926 to early 1930s. A big part of these Reforms were instituted at the insistence of the Catholic Church in Rwanda (The White Fathers). This can best be encapsulated in Bishop Leon’s prescription, “If we want to be practical and if we look for the real interest of the country, we have to rely on the Tutsi youth…”
The objective was to train young Tutsis who they already found to have natural leadership disposition due to the centuries of Tutsi superiority in Rwanda. This also had the added European theories of Ham, claiming the Tutsis had to be descendants of Ham. This was partly in their bid to explain a separate class of black people as well as the fact that King Gahima I was identified as Kham in various locales along the Nile.
This was also the period of mass Christianisation of the Rwandans, which peaked with the ‘ilivuze umwami’ in the 30s.
King Yuhi refused to be baptised in 1931, and chose to stick to his ancestors’ animist spiritualism. He also became a stumbling block to Belgian plans, so they simply deposed him and replaced him with his son. His son thus became King Mutara III Rudahigwa (baptised King Charles Leon Pierre after his tutor and confessor Bishop Charles Leon). The Catholic King of Rwanda.
While Tutsis received education and training to prepare them for civil service, administration, private business, The Hutus were maintained in the role they knew and had known for centuries. So they were trained and educated for menial work. This policy was maintained throughout Rwanda with the specific assistance of the Belgians and the Catholic Church.
This was finally cemented in 1935 with the introduction of colonial IDs which designated everyone as either Hutu or Tutsi. This was the beginning of the next 60 years of this identity dichotomy elevated to one of ethnicity and with it the gradual decline of the erstwhile strong clan identities.
This centuries-long status quo was interrupted in the 50s during a period some call the ‘Hutu awakening’.
In the intervening period between the 30s and 40s, Belgium had sent a good deal of Flemmish priests and semininarians into Rwanda. The Flemmish are an ethnic group of Belgians who had only a few generations before secured their independence from the Dutch as Belgium. As strongly nationalistic people with stinging memories of a period of Dutch superiority over the Flemmish, these priests and seminarians naturally identified with the Hutu and their continued low status in society that was incongruent to their numbers. They did a great deal in teaching and educating the Hutus in church to realise their reduced status in society and the reality of their greater numbers.
This Hutu awakening thus had a group of Hutu seminarians at its vanguard, they were to be known as the first generation of the Hutu counter-elite. This bubbling of Hutu political awareness resulted in the first overt Hutu political action, the Bahutu Manifesto of March 1957. 9 Hutu leaders signed the document, one of them Gregiore Kayibanda, who would go on to be the first president of Rwanda. The Manifesto, and the bulk of Hutu political activity in this period revolved around rousing the Hutu to realise their numerical advantage and take political control. This awakening was fueled by the ideals and ethos of democracy that the Hutu counter-elite learnt as their first political lesson. And with democracy, they saw an avenue through which their numbers could translate to political power, and dominance in society.
As a response to the Bahutu manifesto, the Tutsi response was published publicly as Mise au Point (Statement of Views). They recommended a quick independence for Rwanda through proper utilisation, preparation and recognition of the elite. The Tutsis.
I should point out that 1957, the year of the Bahutu Manifesto was also the year Paul Kagame was born. Right at the beginning of the eruption of the Hutu-Tutsi fissures, he was born.
In the wake of the increased political activity of the 50s, three major parties were formed:
PARMEHUTU (later MDR-PARMEHUTU) - Under the leadership of Kayibanda. Largely composed of Hutus from Central and Northern Rwanda. They sought full independence and full democratic rights for all Rwandans as the sure route to Hutu political dominance.
UNAR - Under the leadership of a Hutu, Francois Rukeba. Although its titular head was a Hutu, UNAR was a party that stood for conservative Tutsi views. Strongly monarchical and feudal, identifying the Mwami as the true leader of Rwanda.
APROSOMA - Under the leadership of Joseph Habyarimana. Largely composed of Hutus from Southern Rwanda, they sought to build an alliance between poor Hutus and poor Tutsis against Tutsi privilege.
The increasingly charged atmosphere was tipped over by two events in 1959. First, King Mutara III dies in suspicious circumstances, presumably murdered. And Belgium announces that it will grant Congo her independence in 1960.
The Hutu political class saw their opportunity to get power was close and the Tutsis were thrown into some level of shock with the mysterious death of their King. His successor, Kigeli V would reign for a mere two years and the monarchy would be abolished.
1959 saw the beginning of upheavals in Rwanda with Hutus and Tutsis killing each other. A state of fragile peace held intermittently until 28th January 1961 when Kayibanda who led the most popular party of Hutus summoned all local leaders (with the assistance of the Belgians) to Gitarama and declared Rwanda a Republic. So before they even got their independence, Rwanda was first a Republic. The Belgian administration had by this time switched their view from one of Tutsi preference to that of following Hutu majority, and banking on a democratic process to crash land this transition. Elections were duly held in September of the same year on two points. The first was a referendum on the abolishing of the monarchy (a formality to legitimise the events of January), and the second a vote for representatives to the legislature. 80% of Rwandans voted for the abolishing of the monarchy. As to the legislature, of the 44 seats, PARMEHETU clinched 35, UNAR 7 and APROSOMA 2. This translated to a house composed of 84% Hutu and 16% Tutsi members. This reflected the population of Rwanda.
Rwanda subsequently gained her independence on the 1st of July, 1962. Between 1959 and 1962, Rwanda lost one King to death, another to the Republic and in the process set off the first wave of Hutu-Tutsi killings. By 1964, the number of Rwandan refugees in neighbouring countries was around 336,000, most of them Tutsis. The refugee dispersal looked roughly as follows:
Burundi got 200,000; Uganda 78,000; 36,000 went to Tanzania and about 22,000 to Congo.1
Rwanda thus exited an age of royalty and subsequently an age of Tutsi feudalism in quick succession within a short period of political activity. President Kayibanda thus began the first Hutu Republic by aggressively clamping down of political rivalry, especially Tutsi activity.
For 30 years, the tyranny of Hutu majority held strong throughout Kayibanda’s 12 years in power (1961-1973) and for the first 17 years of General Habyarimana’s military rule. Hutus largely preserved their total dominance of the public sphere to the exclusion of the Tutsis… Until Paul Kagame happened.
From the 60s through to the late 80s, Hutu rule remained unchallenged. There were waves of Tutsi attacks against Hutu positions and outposts by the refugee Tutsi population.
Others, like Paul Kagame (and his future RPF leader Rwigeema) joined their cousin Museveni in his bush wars, helping the NRA take power in 1986. These Tutsis, who sharpened their claws in Museveni’s Bush wars formed the nucleus that marched back into Rwanda from Uganda and marched to Kigali and brought the Tutsis back into active consideration in Rwandan politics.
That’s my brief crash course on Rwandan power upto 1990 and Paul Kagame. I’ll write you next on the story of the last 3 decades of Rwanda. Of Paul Kagame’s rise to power and restoration of Tutsi rule. This man Paul Kagame, who within a decade had a hand in a new President clinching power in Uganda, the restoration of Tutsi rule in Rwanda through him, and the installation of a new President in DRC. A once-in-a-generation type of political operative. He deserves a separate post. His fingerprints are all over the resurgence of Rwanda in the past two decades. So I’ll carry on from the 90s Rwanda in my next letter to you. My fawning over Kagame.
p.s. The optics of Uhuru chairing the Nairobi III summit in Safaripark hotel are rather splendid. He looks like the natural First Chancellor of Jumuiya. Perhaps, the Bismarck Jumuiya needs… or at least the first iteration.
I’ll continue with my pitch for the Jumuiya Federation in the days to come, I just thought to take a detour through Rwandan history, perhaps because of the importance my vision of a Jumuiya Federation places on the Rwandans in general, and the Tutsis in particular.
without wax,
III
J. Sayinzoga, Journal of the Swiss Society of African Studies (1982)