Who Must Die in Rwanda's Genocide: The State of Exception Realized

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This book provides a juridical, sociopolitical history of the evolution of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Over one million citizens were massacred in less than 100 days via a highly organized, efficiently executed genocide throughout the tiny country of Rwanda. While genocide is not a unique phenomenon in modern times, a genocide like Rwandas is unique. Unlike most genocides, wherein a government plans and executes mass murder of a targeted portion of its population, asking merely that the majority population look the other way, or at most, provide no harbor to the targeted population (ex: Germany), the Rwandan government relied heavily on the civilian population to not only politically support, but actively engage in the acts of genocide committed over the 100 days throughout the spring of 1994. This book seeks to understand why and how the Rwandan genocide occurred. It analyzes the colonial roots of modern Rwandan government and the development of the political state of exception created in Rwanda that ultimately allowed the sovereign to dehumanize the minority Tutsi population and execute the most efficient genocide in modern history.

Reviews

From the pre-colonial era to the present, Rwandan politics has been divided along caste lines, reified by colonial "race science," finally resulting in genocide. Sinema masters the paths of Rwandan political history without getting lost in the forest. She brings a practical politician's insight into the realities of power. She describes how impunity finally fostered catastrophe.--Gregory H. Stanton, George Mason University
Twenty-five years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Who Must Die in Rwanda's Genocide: The State of Exception Realized by newly-elected Arizona senator Krysten Sinema is a timely reminder that state-backed killings do not erupt accidentally, but instead they are the predictable outcome of security logics that are increasingly the norm in contemporary liberal democracies. . . . A senator with expertise in African history and politics can help those in positions of power notice what many scholars of Rwanda and African Studies know too well: devastating violence is already occurring to those who have been excluded from the political community, in contemporary Rwanda and in the United States, and for many, its escalation already feels inevitable.-- "African Studies Review"

Author Bio

Kyrsten Sinema represents Arizonas Ninth District in the U.S. Congress. She received her PhD and JD from Arizona State University.