Killing Neighbors

In the horrific events of the mid-1990s in Rwanda, tens of thousands of Hutu killed their Tutsi friends, neighbors, even family members. That ghastly violence has overshadowed a fact almost as noteworthy: that hundreds of thousands of Hutu killed no one. In a transformative revisiting of the motives behind and specific contexts surrounding the Rwandan genocide, Lee Ann Fujii focuses on individual actions rather than sweeping categories. Fujii argues that ethnic hatred and fear do not satisfactorily explain the mobilization of Rwandans one against another. Extensive interviews in Rwandan prisons and two rural communities from the basics for her claim that mass participation in the genocide was not the result of ethnic antagonisms. Rather, the social context of action was critical. Book jacket.

Lee Ann Fujii is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University to Toronto.