Diversity's Downfall
Maybe it’s because I spent 3 weeks in Africa in the summer last year. Maybe it’s because I’m a political junkie; or maybe it’s because I see so much liberal philosophy taken to its logical end. I don’t know. Either way, this will be the first in a series of articles dissecting the political situations in certain caldrons of African political culture. For the next few issues I will be drawing out the absolute stupidity of a few liberal ideals and philosophies that have been tried (and by the way, have failed) in Africa.
They say that those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. Well, there is a small piece of our own history that we were (or at least I was) completely ignorant of. What do you think of when you hear of Rwanda? Well, for me, I knew that genocide had occurred there (and of course, being the talk-radio listening conservative, I heard much about Clinton doing nothing about it) and that was it. I had no clue what had actually happened. Well, thanks much in part to the new movie called Hotel Rwanda staring Don Cheadle, my interest was sparked. So let me sum up for you what I have been recently fascinated by. In a 100-day period in the spring of 1994, over 800,000 people (some estimate a million) were ruthlessly slaughtered and butchered. Almost 10% of the population of this small African country were killed, many by the use of clubs and machetes. This one event is unparalleled in its scope and brutal speed at which 8,000 human lives was expunged each and every day. Yet, many of us have never heard a rhyme or reason, nor have we even looked for one.
According to Rwandan history, after World War I, Belgian colonists divided the countries native people into two groups the Hutus and Tutsis. The basis for such a division?? Well, logically there really wasn’t one. The Belgians used things like the shade of skin, height, and the size of their noses to make the distinction. They empowered the Tutsis and gave them positions of prominence while they controlled the government. They issued national ID cards so that they could tell the two groups apart. Soon these groups grew envious and distrusting of the other.
Then when the Belgians departed, the majority Hutus took power. These Hutus were intent on revenging their ill treatment at the hand of the minority Tutsis, and revenge they did, with small skirmishes and tensions occurring back and forth between the two people groups until a peace treaty was hammered out in 1992 and the UN came in to enforce it. But that is when the real trouble began.
On April 6, 1994, the presidential plane carrying the moderate Hutu president was shot down over the skies of Kigali...that night the killing began. Hutu extremists began assassinating Hutu moderates and high profile Tutsis. 15 days later the UN pulled out (led by a resolution pushed by Warren Christopher and Madeline Albright) leaving only a token force to save face and leaving Rwanda to tear itself to shreds. Stories are told about Tutsi seeking refuge in church buildings only to be slaughtered in mass by Hutu death squads. In the first week alone, reports came of over 100,000 deaths most not caused by gunfire, but rather by machetes, knives, and blunt objects.
A story is told by a BBC journalist about a small girl named Valentina in a church building in Nyarubuye who survived the slaughter of her entire family. With her hand hacked off and a bad machete wound to her head, she was left for dead. There she lived for days among the hundreds of bludgeoned, dead bodies with dogs prowling outside feasting on the flesh of dead bodies outside; her life forever altered by the pure evil that was blanketing the countryside. Stories of death and barbarism abound from this horrific scene that lasted 100 days and took the lives of 800,000 people.
Personally, I can tell you that no other story has so drastically and wholeheartedly captured my attention. It has really grabbed me in a way I cannot describe. But the question begs to be asked, “What can we do about this? What can be learned?” Honestly there are so many things that we could talk about. We could discuss the cowardice and incompetence of the UN, who still refuse to learn the lessons from their mistakes in Rwanda and are still making the same mistakes today. (a.k.a. Iraq) We could discuss the buffoonery and stupidity of the Clinton administration when it came to foreign policy decisions. Still reeling from the embarrassment of Mogadishu, the only thing the administration was struggling with during the slaughter was whether or not to use the word “genocide” because if they used the term they would be forced to act. We could talk about the spineless Belgians who after having a few of their forces targeted, led the exodus of UN forces. (They were targeted for that very reason; the rebels knew they would run in fear.)
Indeed, there are many things we could talk about but there is a deeper, more philosophical lesson that can be learned here. Our world and our country today are held captive by our drive for diversity, but we are making the same mistakes as the Belgians made. True peace and diversity is found NOT by magnifying our differences as was done in Rwanda between the Hutus and Tutsis; true concord and diversity is found in magnifying our similarities. Today, we have African-Americans, Latinos, black America, white America, blue state, red state, urbanites and heartland America. We are striving for diversity by magnifying how we are different instead of how much we are alike. In essence, we are creating racism and envy just like the Belgians did in Rwanda. It is time that we as a country focus on what ties us together (life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness) instead of what tears us apart. It is only then that we will be able to have discussion and free exchange of ideas.