« Alien | Main | Pakistan Elections »
جمعہ 15 فروری 2008Friday, February 15, 2008
When Victims Become Killers
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda by Mahmood Mamdani was recommended to me by Sepoy of Chapati Mystery.
It took me forever to finish this book because it is a difficult read. The density of information is good, but there’s also the dry, academic style of writing.
Mamdani covers the big picture of Rwandan history and how that led to the 1994 genocide. His central thesis is that Hutu and Tutsi identities are basically political identities forged over the years before, during and after colonialism. Mamdani also discusses the history of the whole region (Uganda and Congo etc.) and how that affected events in Rwanda.
Overall, it is a good companion to We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch which focuses on the genocide itself.
Tags: book, genocide, history, review, rwanda
Posted by Zack at February 15, 2008 12:16 PM in Books
Related Entries
- When Victims Become Killers
- The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857
- The Third Chimpanzee
- At Canaan's Edge : America in the King Years, 1965-68
- god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
- Spin
Advertisements
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.zackvision.com/mt/zv-trbk.cgi/1107
Comments
Post a comment
Note: Disagreements are welcome, but please keep it civil. Any comments full of hatred, bigotry, trolling or spam will be deleted and the commenter banned. Do read the commenting policy.
Valid XHTML: You have to preview your comment to make sure that it is valid XHTML 1.1. You will see the "Post" button on the preview page.
Urdu: To comment in Urdu, include "p[ur](urdu). " (with a space at the end and without the quotes) at the start of every Urdu paragraph. If you want to write an Urdu word(s) in an English paragraph, do it like this: %[ur](urdu)اردو%. If you want to put an English word(s) in an Urdu paragraph, write it like this: %[en](en)English words%.
PGP Signing: PGP-signed comments are encouraged. However, clearsigning Urdu text with GPGshell produces garbage.
MathML: Select the Textile with itex to MathML text filter. What you'll use is itex, which is a superset of WebTeX and differs somewhat from standard LaTeX.
Text Filters: For regular comments, whether in English or Urdu, keep the text filter setting to its default of Textile 2. Change it to Textile with itex to MathML when writing MathML.