When Victims Become Killers

出版者:Princeton University Press

作者:Mahmood Mamdani

页数:0

出版时间:2001-05-01

价格:USD 55.00

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780691058214

图书标签:非洲研究社会学和人类学社会学看世界安全研究历史人类学imperialism

"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.</p>

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.</p>

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.</p>

用户评价

不够简洁啊，重复着说了又说。提示重点是好事但是同样的话说了很多很多便就是很罗嗦了

简单过了一遍，感觉内容比较空洞，没什么深刻的见地。

不够简洁啊，重复着说了又说。提示重点是好事但是同样的话说了很多很多便就是很罗嗦了

不够简洁啊，重复着说了又说。提示重点是好事但是同样的话说了很多很多便就是很罗嗦了

The racialization of the Tutsi/Hutu differences begot the establishment of political, administrative, and legal regime under then colonial Belgium government, which confirmed the made-up legislated identities of the so-called two different ethnicities, leading to a huge gap of social status between them and the later genocide in Rwanda.