Submission Type
Blog Post
Abstract
Distorted, selective, and manipulated memories of historical events are widely recognised as playing a role in mobilising genocidal violence. Genocidal propaganda, however, sometimes fabricates conspiracies in their entirety, claiming to ‘discover’ plans by the target group that encouraged audiences to re-evaluate the threat supposedly posed by their neighbours. Through an analysis of the ‘Tutsi Colonisation Plan’ and the ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’, published in the Rwandan hate newspaper Kangura, I explore this phenomenon and assess the role that this may have played in shaping genocidal violence. I conclude by comparing this phenomenon to analogous texts in other cases, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and situating this use of historical conspiracy theory in the broader discussion of genocidal discourses of intimate intra-community threats.
Biographies
False, historical, ‘accusations in a mirror’? The Tutsi Colonisation Plan, conspiracy, and genocide in Rwanda
Distorted, selective, and manipulated memories of historical events are widely recognised as playing a role in mobilising genocidal violence. Genocidal propaganda, however, sometimes fabricates conspiracies in their entirety, claiming to ‘discover’ plans by the target group that encouraged audiences to re-evaluate the threat supposedly posed by their neighbours. Through an analysis of the ‘Tutsi Colonisation Plan’ and the ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’, published in the Rwandan hate newspaper Kangura, I explore this phenomenon and assess the role that this may have played in shaping genocidal violence. I conclude by comparing this phenomenon to analogous texts in other cases, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and situating this use of historical conspiracy theory in the broader discussion of genocidal discourses of intimate intra-community threats.
