Words matter…to Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. As also Tutsis in Rwanda

Thirty years ago, a genocide was perpetrated in Rwanda. Extremist activists belonging to the country’s Hutu majority community set up a radio station and newspapers that circulated hate propaganda, including the grim exhortation for people to “weed out the cockroaches”. It was code for kill the Tutsis, the minority community that had long dominated the country as part of a divide-and-rule scheme set up by Rwanda’s Belgian colonial masters.

The terminology and the methodology of that mass murder in Rwanda in 1994 is worth recalling today.

I’m reading, with rising dismay, about the recent bomb threat in Springfield, Ohio. That city is in focus because it has a roughly 15,000-strong community of Haitians and Donald Trump has stoked a rightwing conspiracy theory against them. Most of Springfield’s Haitians are lawfully resident in the United States.

Mr Trump used the immense platform offered by the September 10 presidential debate stage to spread the debunked claim that the immigrants are hunting down and eating pet cats and dogs, as well as geese and ducks in public parks.

The allegation does more than spread unfounded rumours against the Haitians; it dangerously casts them as someone other than the rest of us — now, they are being portrayed as barbarous, complete strangers to all civilising forces. In this telling, Springfield’s Haitian community is scarcely human.

The danger of such a narrative is there in the history books…as well as, sadly, news reports from the recent past.

In a mere 100 days in 1994, about 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were slaughtered in Rwanda by Hutus extremists. As one news analysis later noted, “Even priests and nuns have been convicted of killing people, including some who sought shelter in churches”.

It points to an uncontrollable bloodlust sweeping the land. But it’s worth noting that it didn’t just happen. It was words (like “cockroach” to describe the Tutsis) and those who wielded them like daggers that started it all…and kept it going.

Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com