In this final episode, Jean-Pierre Chrétien discusses how colonisation had a lasting and negative impact on social relationships in Rwanda and Burundi, which continued until independence and the emergence of a local far-right movement.
Episode 4/4
This is the first interview he has given in ten years. A leading historian of the Great Lakes region and an honorary research director at the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), Jean-Pierre Chrétien is the author of several reference works and a keen observer of pre-colonial and contemporary Burundi and Rwanda. He agreed to give a series of exclusive interviews to African Facts.
Having told us about the initial spark of interest in Burundi that ignited his research based on oral history in the 1960s, Jean-Pierre Chrétien discussed the political and social organisation of the pre-colonial Rwandan and Burundian kingdoms, as well as the origins of the erroneous belief in the existence of a Hamitic people in Africa. He explains how colonisation permanently and negatively transformed social relations in Rwanda and Burundi until independence and the emergence of a local far-right movement.
African Facts: In our first three interviews, we began to talk about German and then Belgian colonisation. What was lastingly transformed by colonisation in the societies of Rwanda and Burundi?
Jean-Pierre Chrétien: During the German period, I would say nothing. The Germans glossed over the situation. Although their writings repeated the discourse from the mid-19th century that identified the Tutsi as invaders from Somalia, Ethiopia and the Nile, the Germans actually managed the country as they were able to. When they conscripted people for forced labour, they didn’t care about their affiliation. There were no identity cards. The Germans did not stay very long and barely had time to control the country. They had this ideological discourse, but did not apply it in practice.
By contrast, during the Belgian era, there was a desire to consider these divisions and distinguish clearly between different vocations: the Tutsi would govern, while the Hutu would work. This resulted in well-structured systems of forced labour being imposed on the Hutu and Twa, particularly in Rwanda. In fact, the ideological structuring occurred during the Belgian era. Unlike the Germans, the Belgians had time to catalogue the country, if I may put it that way.
— So the Belgians isolated the pre-existing words Hutu and Tutsi, but assigned them something completely new that they had invented. In fact, it was something they imagined…
— They gave them a racial meaning.
They were inspired by the Middle Ages. But not just any Middle Ages. Jean-Marie Nduwayo wrote his thesis on this topic [find the reference at the bottom of this article, Ed.] . It’s about how the Middle Ages were perceived before Marc Bloch’s work, if you like. A time when invasions were considered to play a key role in shaping society. On the eve of the French Revolution, for example, Abbé Sieyès — who took the side of the Third Estate [comprising the entire population not affiliated with the nobility or clergy under the Ancien Régime in France before 1789, Ed.] — theorised that the aristocrats were descended from the Franks [a Germanic people who settled in much of Europe, including part of present-day France, between the 3rd and 9th centuries, Ed.]. According to his idea, all the lords in France were of Germanic origin. It is this conception of the Middle Ages that gives rise to a socio-racial discourse. This is not the discourse of contemporary medievalists, but of medievalists of the past, who focused on the process of invasions and also had an underlying racial view of the world.
Note from African Facts Editor : Marc Bloch (1886–1944) was a French medieval historian and co-founder of the Annales School, which profoundly changed the way historians are working by emphasising the processes of integration and slow transformation of social structures and mentalities. Regarding the “invasions”, see Feudal Society (1961) in particular.
Therefore, it is racial essentialism that prevails. In other words, if you are Hutu, you cannot be anything else; likewise, if you are Tutsi, you cannot be anything else. This gives rise to the ideology of colonisation and the “Rwandan Revolution”.
Note from African Facts Editor: The “Rwandan social revolution” (1959–1961), organised by the Belgian colonial authorities and the Catholic Church to overthrow the monarchy and replace one elite with another, was presented as the “liberation” of the “Hutu people”. This appears to be the starting point for political violence in Rwanda. As well as administrative purges, it consisted of widespread pogroms targeting the Tutsi, causing thousands of deaths across the country. These events led to the exile of over 300,000 Tutsi.
— Whereas these categories were previously rather flexible, dynamic and non-structuring…
From the moment people began to be registered and identity papers were introduced that included ethnicity — the term “ubwoko” was used, given the meaning “ethnicity” instead of “clan” — the papers endorsed the colonisers’ discourse and social practices towards Rwandan society. Marcel Kabanda and Léon Saur have researched this turning point in identity papers in the 1930s in great detail [find references at the bottom of this article, Ed.].
— What were the concrete political applications of these racist ideas during the colonial era?
— It was mainly in terms of training people and employing cadres . In other words, the Tutsi, who were supposedly more intelligent, were given preferential treatment and encouraged to become the colonisers’ assistants. This was particularly true in Rwanda. In Burundi, the situation was slightly less clear-cut, but it was still present.
My colleague and friend, Alexandre Hatungimana, demonstrated this in his thesis on coffee [find the reference at the bottom of this article, Ed.]. Tutsi were recruited as “moniteurs café” (“coffee inspectors”), preferably over Hutu. However, the Tutsi were not particularly skilled in coffee farming. They were “traditionally” skilled in livestock farming. However, in the colonial view, they were considered to be more intelligent. They were supposedly the most capable of supervising, being obeyed and followed, and of explaining things well. There is a “Tutsi privilege” in terms of recruitment almost everywhere. Virtually no secondary education exists, and Tutsi are sought after for recruitment to Astrida [now Huye in southern Rwanda, Ed.], which trains colonial administrative elites. That’s very clear.
— In our view, there is one fundamental question. At what point, and to what extent, did this change the way Rwandans or Burundians perceived themselves, their neighbours, and their compatriots?
— That’s a real question. It can’t be dated, though. It’s a gradual movement affecting different social circles, families and places to varying degrees. I think it’s the picture of a society in which, if you’re Tutsi, you go to school and are recruited to the Astrida auxiliary training college…
This ideology was integrated into the life of these colonies in the 1930s. However, with regard to the Burundian and Rwandan experience, I would say it was more prevalent in the 1950s. It takes time for a generation to become aware, and to become frustrated or inflated by this management, if I may say so. So, shortly before independence. And this was especially the case in Rwanda.
— How can we explain why this took on such proportions in Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Congo?
— Well, for some people, the answer is obvious: it was because there were very strong hereditary divisions, etc.
Personally, I think it’s a good question. I don’t know…
It’s mainly an issue in Rwanda and Burundi. In Uganda, for example, there were a royal family and a number of clans with chiefs, but this issue did not play a role at all. On the other hand, in Nkolé [an ancient kingdom located in south-west Uganda, Ed.] or in the principalities of north-western Tanzania, they were minorities. The Hima [a mainly pastoral community in south-western Uganda and the Congolese province of Ituri, Ed.] represent only 2–3% of the population, whereas the Tutsi make up around 15–20% of the population in Burundi and Rwanda. So there, it starts to represent something in society once it is foregrounded.
As the Rwandan intellectual Sebasoni [Servilien (1931–2015), author of Les origines du Rwanda (The Origins of Rwanda), L’Harmattan publishing, 2000, Ed.], said, it was the kiss of Judas. We believed what our colonial protectors told us because it suited some of us. For others, the Hutu, it was absolute frustration. The biography of Kayibanda [Grégoire (1924-1976) leader of the first Rwandan Republic from 1962 to 1973, Ed.] and others is exemplary of this. Among the leaders of the Parmehutu [reactionary and supremacist party founded by Grégoire Kayibanda in 1957, Ed.] there are people from the north, a region where there were practically no Tutsi. However, Kayibanda himself is not from the north. He is from Kabgayi. He reflects that backdrop well.
I also remember something else: there was a delegation from the Belgian Christian Democrats — who supported the Hutu movements in the same way that they supported indigenous movements in South America, with a completely clear conscience. This delegation was somewhat shocked to find that Kayibanda’s speeches were too racially charged for their liking. After all, they were left-wingers. Léon Saur illustrates this clearly. Then Monsignor Perraudin [André, 1914–2003, the Swiss apostolic vicar and then bishop of Rwanda from 1955 to 1989 Ed.] said to them: “No, no, don’t pay any attention. That’s how people express themselves in Africa”. But that’s not how people express themselves in Africa. That’s how people expressed themselves in Rwanda, due to all that ideological history.
But it’s not easy. I understand that people still have questions.
— How did the intellectual elites of the region reappropriate this colonial myth, this “Hamitic” idea, turning it into a racist ideology after decolonisation?
— It’s conscious exploitation! For Kayibanda, I think it was about having a captive electorate. It’s similar to the National Rally [French nationalist and xenophobic far-right party Ed.] in France — they want to represent the French against foreigners and “dubious” French people. That’s their dream: the French must think of the National Rally. Well, here, the Hutu must think Hutu.
— So is this actually a far-right movement forming in Africa?
— Yes, yes, yes. Listen, precisely. I am against exoticism. There are political movements in Africa. Obviously, the terrain, issues, demands, and so on, are different. However, there is an opposition between identitarianism and universalism; between closing off to inherited divisions and opening up to a mixed society. These are debates that exist across Europe and they exist in Africa too.
In Africa, the situation has become somewhat catastrophic lately. I am not an expert on Africa as a whole. However, I do think that the current fascination with authoritarian power in the name of narrow nationalism and the admiration for Russia, Putin, etc. are no coincidence. It is also a vision of the world. I have friends and former students from Ivory Coast, Mali, Benin and so on. All these people are appalled by what is happening. It is catastrophic.
