Humans live in groups formed by the similarity of appearance, traits, and values, and such an approach has always been crucial for survival and evolution. However, the negative outcome of that ancient instinct is that a different individual or a cohort is being perceived as deviant and dangerous. Moreover, terror leaders manipulate groups to hate one another by empathizing how one could ruin the well-being of another due to their distinguishing characteristics such as ethnicity (Gourevitch, 1995). People are more responsive to collective behavior in unstable times, thus the most devastating genocides occurred during military conflicts.
In 1994, the Rwandan genocide occurred during the Civil War and was against the Tutsi ethnicity and led to almost a million victims. Minority group representatives were killed by their neighbors and even friends, revealing the extremely high level of hate developed against Tutsi (McGreal, 2013). Rwanda had the separation between ethnicities and casts since the colonization times of the eighteenth century, thus convincing that one particular nation is worse than others was not complicated for the Civil War leaders (Gourevitch, 1995). The country was in severe conflict, economic crisis, panic, and instability influenced citizens’ mental vulnerability. The architects of genocide manipulated populations through political campaigns, compulsion to obey the new orders, and declarations that one ethnicity causes all the severe conflicts the country faced. When President Habyarimana’s plane was shot in 1994, the mass panic expanded, and the Tutsis portrayed as responsible became the worst enemy of the country (McGreal, 2013). Consequently, the aggression in people was used by the leaders against one group and led to the violent genocide administrated by the military forces.
In the conditions of a military conflict, it was not complicated for the government to influence the minds of the population because any solution would lead them to address their fundamental need for safety. During the Civil War, the military leaders affected the perception of Tutsi as a deviant ethnicity that must be eliminated through the nationwide campaigns and communication with the locals (Gourevitch, 1995). Rwandan genocide revealed that people’s perception of themselves as a part of a group is critical, and the hate they develop against unlike populations occurs due to their uncertainty of the latter’s notions, values, and traits.
References
Gourevitch, P. (1995). After the genocide. The New Yorker, pp. 78-94.
McGreal, C. (2013). Rwanda genocide 20 years on: ‘We live with those who killed our families. We are told they’re sorry, but are they?’. The Guardian. Web.