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When Victims Become Killers:

Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda
Front Cover
13 Reviews
Princeton University Press, 2001 - History - 364 pages

"When we captured Kigali, we thought we would face criminals in the state; instead, we faced a criminal population." So a political commissar in the Rwanda Patriotic Front reflected after the 1994 massacre of as many as one million Tutsis in Rwanda. Underlying his statement is the realization that, though ordered by a minority of state functionaries, the slaughter was performed by hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, including even judges, human rights activists, and doctors, nurses, priests, friends, and spouses of the victims. Indeed, it is its very popularity that makes the Rwandan genocide so unthinkable. This book makes it thinkable.

Rejecting easy explanations of the genocide as a mysterious evil force that was bizarrely unleashed, one of Africa's best-known intellectuals situates the tragedy in its proper context. He coaxes to the surface the historical, geographical, and political forces that made it possible for so many Hutu to turn so brutally on their neighbors. He finds answers in the nature of political identities generated during colonialism, in the failures of the nationalist revolution to transcend these identities, and in regional demographic and political currents that reach well beyond Rwanda. In so doing, Mahmood Mamdani usefully broadens understandings of citizenship and political identity in postcolonial Africa.

There have been few attempts to explain the Rwandan horror, and none has succeeded so well as this one. Mamdani's analysis provides a solid foundation for future studies of the massacre. Even more important, his answers point a way out of crisis: a direction for reforming political identity in central Africa and preventing future tragedies.

  

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Review: When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda

User Review  - Lashelle Hill - Goodreads

This book is written more like a textbook. It is not an easy read but does provide information and the authors insight. Read full review

Review: When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda

User Review  - Gloria - Goodreads

This new book by Mahmood Mamdani, one of the world's most respected Africa scholars, should be considered as the standard English-language introduction to Rwanda and its genocide. Mamdani's highly ... Read full review

All 13 reviews »

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Contents

List of Abbreviations
ix
Preface and Acknowledgments
xi
Thinking about Genocide
3
Defining the Crisis of Postcolonial Citizenship Settler and Native as Political Identities
19
The Origins of Hutu and Tutsi
41
The Racialization of the HutuTutsi Difference under Colonialism
76
The Social Revolution of 1959
103
The Second Republic Redefining Tutsi from Race to Ethnicity
132
The Politics of Indigeneity in Uganda Background to the RPF Invasion
159
The Civil War and the Genocide
185
Tutsi Power in Rwanda and the Citizenship Crisis in Eastern Congo
234
Political Reform after Genocide
264
Notes
283
Bibliography
343
Index
357
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

1959 Revolution administrative armed army Bahunde Banyamulenge Banyarwanda began Belgian Burundi Butare Catharine Newbury cattle central cited citizenship civic civil claim clientship Cohesion of Oppression colonial Conflict and Genocide Congo Congolese context cultural customary defined distinction elite exile Gatwa Gisenyi guerrilla Habyarimana Hamitic hypothesis Herero Human Rights Watch Hutu and Tutsi Hutu Power Hutu/Tutsi Ibid identified indigenous institutions Interahamwe internal justice Kampala Kigali killed Kingdom of Rwanda Kinyarwanda-speaking labor land Lemarchand mainly majority Masisi massacres ment migration minority mwami National Native Authority nonindigenous North Kivu opposition organized PARMEHUTU party pastoralists peasants percent political identities political violence population postcolonial precolonial president Prunier race racial ranches reform regime region response Reyntjens RPF invasion rule Rwabugiri Rwanda and Burundi Rwanda Crisis Rwandan genocide Rwandese Second Republic settler social South Kivu squatters struggle Tanzania tendency tion turned Tutsi chiefs Tutsi power Uganda UNAR

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References from web pages

Sample Chapter for Mamdani, M.: When Victims Become Killers ...
Sample Chapter for When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda by Mamdani, M., published by Princeton University Press.
press.princeton.edu/ chapters/ s7027.html

JSTOR: When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the ...
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. By Mahmood Mamdani. Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2001. ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0361-7882(2002)35%3A2%2F3%3C462%3AWVBKCN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1

When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. By Mahmood Mamdani. Princeton University Press, 380 pp., $29.95. IV.
www.encyclopedia.com/ doc/ 1G1-84054098.html

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Christian Century: When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism ...
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. . - Never again? Perpetrators and bystanders in Rwanda - book review ...
findarticles.com/ p/ articles/ mi_m1058/ is_5_119/ ai_84054098/ print

When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the ...
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Mahmood Mamdani. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. Pp. 357. ...
web.africa.ufl.edu/ asq/ v5/ v5i3a16.htm

Procrastination: When Victims Become Killers
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda by Mahmood Mamdani was recommended to me by Sepoy of Chapati Mystery. ...
www.zackvision.com/ weblog/ 2008/ 02/ when-victims-become-killers.html

The Rwandan Genocide
13. Africa Review of Books. The Rwandan. Genocide. Urusaro Alice Karekezi. When Victims Become Killers:. Colonialism, Nativism, and the. Genocide in Rwanda ...
www.codesria.org/ Links/ Publications/ review_books/ karakezi.pdf

When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, nativism, and the ...
Institution: Google Indexer Sign In as Personal Subscriber · Oxford Journals · Social Sciences · African Affairs · Volume 101, Number 402; Pp. 126-127 ...
afraf.oxfordjournals.org/ cgi/ reprint/ 101/ 402/ 126

Steven Pierce | Pierce on Mamdani | Journal of Colonialism and ...
Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) ...
muse.jhu.edu/ journals/ journal_of_colonialism_and_colonial_history/ v002/ 2.3pierce.html

About the author (2001)

Mahmood Mamdani is Director of Makerere Institute of Social Research at Makerere University and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University

Bibliographic information

QR code for When Victims Become Killers
TitleWhen Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda
Political science / Afrian studies
AuthorMahmood Mamdani
Edition3, illustrated, reprint
PublisherPrinceton University Press, 2001
ISBN0691102805, 9780691102801
Length364 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Africa / General
Political Science / Comparative Politics
Political Science / History & Theory
Social Science / Violence in Society
  
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