Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Disconnecting the Threads: Rwanda and the Holocaust Reconsidered

  • Chapter
The Political Economy of the Great Lakes Region in Africa

Abstract

The Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide are two of the most terrifying and complex catastrophes of the 20th century. Whether measured by the scale of the atrocities committed against Jews and Tutsi, the distinctiveness of their collective identities, and the deliberate, purposeful manner of their annihilation, there are compelling reasons for seeing in the Rwanda carnage a tropical version of the Shoa. Little wonder if time and again the better known of the two has been used as the paradigmatic frame for analysing the other.

The only way to clarify the applicability of definitions and generalizations is with comparisons. The question of whether the Holocaust had elements that have not existed with any other form of genocide … is extremely important if we want to find out more about social pathology in general. When one discusses unprecedented elements in a social phenomenon, the immediate question is, Unprecedented in comparison with what?

(Bauer 2001, 39)

Because the Holocaust is often regarded as the apotheosis of genocide and is the best known genocide in the western world, it is the paradigmatic genocide for political manipulation and revising the past … Comparisons based on either the Holocaust or the Gulag Archipelago as a single archetype which assume that there is one mechanically recurring script are bound to be misleading.

(Fein 1990 55–6)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Bibliography

  • Arendt, Hannah. 1963. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauer, Yehuda. 2001. Rethinking Genocide. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berkeley, Bill. 2001. The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Birn, Ruth Bettina. 1997. ‘Revisiting the Holocaust’, The Historical Journal. 40: 1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Browning, Christopher. 1992a. The Path to Genocide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Browning, Christopher. 1992b. Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperCollins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Browning, Christopher. 1994. ‘Ordinary Germans or Ordinary Men’, Address and Response at the Inauguration of the Dorot Chair of Modem Jewish and Holocaust Studies. Atlanta: Emory University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chrétien, Jean-Pierre. 1995. Rwanda. Les media du genocide. Paris: Karthala.

    Google Scholar 

  • Des Forges, Alison. 1999. Leave None To Tell the Story. Paris and New York: Human Rights Watch and International Federation of Human Rights.

    Google Scholar 

  • Destexhe, Alain. 1994. Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, Richard. 1989. In Hitler’s Shadow: West German Historians and the Attempt to Escape From the Nazi Past. New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fein, Helen. 1984. ‘Scenarios of genocide: models of genocide and critical responses’, in Israel Charny (ed.), Towards the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide. Boulder: Westview Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fein, Helen. 1990. ‘Genocide: A sociological perspective’, Current Sociology, 38: 1 (Spring), Special Issue.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fein, Helen, ed. 1994. The Prevention of Genocide: Rwanda and Yugoslavia Reconsidered, A Working Paper of the Institute for the Study of Genocide. New York: Institute for the Study of Genocide.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gasana, James. 2000. ‘Natural resource scarcity and violence in Rwanda’, A Report Prepared for the Swiss Organization for Development and Cooperation (Intercooperation), n.p.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gasana, James. 2002. Rwanda: Du Parti-Etat à l’Etat-Garnison. Paris: L’Harmattan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldhagen, Daniel J. 1997. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hilberg, Raul. 1967. The Destruction of European Jews. New York: Quadrangle.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hintjens, Helen. 1999. ‘Explaining the 1994 genocide in Rwanda’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 37: 2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Husson, Edouard. 1997. Une culpabilité ordinaire? Les enjeux de la controverse Goldhagen. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • Husson, Edouard. 2000. Comprendre Hitler et la Shoa: Les historiens de la République fédérale d’Allemagne et l’identité allemande depuis1949. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, Bruce. 1995. ‘“Intervention without borders”: humanitarian intervention in Rwanda, 1990–94’, Millenium: Journal of International Studies, 24: 2.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, Bruce. 1999. ‘Civil war, the peace process and genocide in Rwanda’, in Taisier M. Ali and Robert O. Matthews (eds), Civil Wars in Africa. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kershaw, Ian. 2000. Hitler: 1936–1945, Nemesis. London: Penguin Books, p. 841.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemarchand, René. 1970. Rwanda and Burundi. London: Pall Mall Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemarchand, René and David Martin, David. 1974. Selective Genocide in Burundi. London: Minority Rights Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemarchand, René. 1995. Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University and Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemarchand, René. 1999. Ethnicity as Myth: The View from Central Africa. University of Copenhagen, Center for African Studies, Occasional Paper.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemarchand, René. 2000. ‘Where Hamites and Aryans cross paths’ unpublished ms.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levene, Mark. 1999. ‘Connecting threads: Rwanda, the holocaust and the pattern of contemporary genocide’, in Roger W. Smith (ed.), Genocide: Essays Toward Understanding, Early-Warning and Prevention. Williamsburg, VA: Association of Genocide Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malkki, Liisa. 1995. Purity and Exile: Transformations in Historical-National Consciousness Among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandel, David. 1998. ‘The obedience alibi: Milgram’s account of the holocaust reconsidered’, Analyse & Kritik (October).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, Arno. 1989. Why Did the Heavens Not Darken? The Final Solution in History. New York: Pantheon Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melson, Robert. 1992. Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Midlarsky, Manus. 2000. ‘The killing trap: genocides and other mass murders of the twentieth century’, unpublished ms.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miles, William F.S. 2000. ‘Hamites and Hebrews: problems of “Judaizing” the Rwandan genocide’, Journal of Genocide Research, 2: 1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Naimark, Norman. 2001. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niwese Maurice. 2001. Le peuple rwandais un pied dans la tombe. Récit d’un réfugié étudiant. Paris: L’Harmattan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ntezimana, Vincent. 2000. La Justice Belge Face au Génocide Rwandais. Paris: Karthala.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poliakov, Leon. 1994. Le Mythe Aryen. Paris: Calmann-Levy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reyntjens, Filip. 1996. ‘Rwanda: genocide and beyond’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 9: 3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rothchild Donald and Groth, Alexander. 1995. ‘Pathological dimensions of domestic and international ethnicity’, Political Science Quarterly, 110: 1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saunders, Edith. 1969. ‘The Hamitic hypothesis: its origins and functions in time perspective’, Journal of African History, 10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sehene, Benjamin. 1999. Le Piège Ethnique. Paris: Editions Dagorno.

    Google Scholar 

  • Semelin, Jacques. 2000. ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un crime de masse? Le cas de l’ex-Yougoslavie’, Critique Internationale, 6 (Winter).

    Google Scholar 

  • Semelin, Jacques. 2001. ‘Penser les massacres’, typescript. Paris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ternon, Yves. 2001. L’innocence des victimes au siécle des génocides. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uvin, Peter. 1996. ‘Tragedy in Rwanda’, Environment (April).

    Google Scholar 

  • Vansina, Jan. 2001. Le Rwanda Ancien: Le Royaume Nyiginya. Paris: Karthala.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zolberg, Aristide, Astri Suhrke and Sergio Aguayo. 1989. Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. René Lemarchand
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp, Belgium

    Stefaan Marysse (professor of Political Economy, director) & Filip Reyntjens (professor of Political Science and chairman) (professor of Political Economy, director) &  (professor of Political Science and chairman)

  2. Centre d’Etude de la Région des Grands Lacs d’Afrique, Belgium

    Stefaan Marysse (professor of Political Economy, director) (professor of Political Economy, director)

Copyright information

© 2005 René Lemarchand

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lemarchand, R. (2005). Disconnecting the Threads: Rwanda and the Holocaust Reconsidered. In: Marysse, S., Reyntjens, F. (eds) The Political Economy of the Great Lakes Region in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523890_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation