ABSTRACT

The 1994 Rwandan genocide represents a period of unprecedented violence that almost destroyed the small Central-East African country. The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), in control of the state after the genocide, committed itself to reconciliation and inclusive nation-building. Analysts of the various approaches adopted by the RPF to addressing peace-building and reconciliation have observed that, despite this rhetoric, the dominant political narratives propagated by the ruling political party are “framed dichotomies” in their concurrent promotion and negation of ethnic division between the Hutu and Tutsi. Although the concurrent de-ethnicisation and ethnicisation of the Rwandan public sphere appear paradoxical, a closer analysis of the “public transcripts” enacted by the Rwandan Patriotic Front reveal that they are not completely irreconcilable. This article shows that these “incongruent” political narratives constitute the cohesive basis of the rule of an ethnically elite minority that demobilises ethnicity as the mode through which to articulate competing political claims on the post-genocide Rwandan state.

摘要

1994年的卢旺达种族灭绝是一个前所未有的暴力时期，几乎摧毁了这个中小东非国家。卢旺达爱国阵线在种族灭绝之后控制国家，致力于和解与包容性国家建设。RPF为解决建设和平与和解而采取的各种方法的分析家观察到，尽管有这种言论，执政党传播的主要政治叙述是“框架二分法”，同时促进和否定了民族之间的种族分裂。胡图族和图西族。尽管同时发生的卢旺达公共领域的非种族化和族裔化似乎是自相矛盾的，但对卢旺达爱国阵线颁布的“公共成绩单”进行的进一步分析显示，它们并非完全不可调和。