Prejudice and Discrimination
Rwanda: The Batwa
Mary Barley
Axia College of University of Phoenix
May 21, 2011
Walter James

The Batwa Driving through Rwanda one would think it was one of the most beautiful countries they had ever seen with all the green mountains, lakes, and hills. The people that lived there were farmers tending their crops and it was a clean peaceful country. No one would ever think Rwanda had such a horrible tragedy happen in 1994 to a country such as this. Rwanda is a small rural, over populated, and extremely poor country that is in east central Africa. Burundi is to the south of Rwanda, Tanzania is to east, Uganda is north and to the west of Rwanda is the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The cause of the genocidal civil war in 1994 was ethnic, regional, and class differences. This war took about one million lives (Gordon, 2011). The country of Rwanda consisted of three divisions of ethnic groups. They were the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, or also known as Batwa. The reason why there was a division of ethnicity was the perception that they were from different origins. They all looked very similar with minor physical differences, so in regards to race, they were the same. One of the differences of physical features was height. The Hutu and Batwa were considered short, with the emphasis of being inferior. The Tutsi were regarded as powerful, as they were taller and considered handsome. These were the stereotypes when the conflict between all of them clashed. The divisions between them were very political from a broader point of view than anything else (The World Factbook, 2011). Despite differences, all three groups spoke the same language, practiced the same religions, and in all reality they all had the same culture. The three official languages were Kinyarwanda, French, and English but the most traditional language used was French. Several of the leaders spoke English instead of French because they were in Uganda for several years around people that spoke English a lot (Gordon, 2011). In simple terms, race and ethnicity mean separate definitions when describing people. The definition of race is simply describing the appearance of how someone looks. Such as the color of their hair, color of their eyes, color of their skin, if they were tall, and anything that can describe the person biologically. Ethnicity is defined as a person’s ancestry, beliefs, and nationality. For example, the Caucasian race can be described as that of light skin, thin lips, narrow noses, and straight hair. However, there are many types of ethnicities of the Caucasian race, which include Irish, German, Iranians, Canadians, etc. Many experts believe that the Batwa were the first people of Rwanda, as they were considered the hunter gatherers of the group. The Batwa are made up the smallest percentage of the group which equated to about 1 percent of Rwanda. The percentage was higher before the massacre of genocide took place. The conflict was heavily debated amongst the Hutus and Tutsis (Rwanda’s Forgotten Tribe, 1994). The Batwa were just in the middle and ended up suffering as well. It was estimated that about 10,000 Batwas died during the war, which is a big number in terms of the percentage. The number of deaths total for everyone in Rwanda was close to a million. The majority of the population was Hutus and Tutsis; however, the Batwas were caught in the middle of the event and ended up suffering from the discriminatory and hatred of the Hutus and Tutsis. There were many instances when the Batwa faced discrimination and prejudice. Those who opposed the Batwa group called them thieves. The word used to describe was abayanda, which means people who steal (Gordon, 2011). Batwas were also considered to be dirty and uncivilized, in which others often used the term abashenzi to describe them (Gordon, 2011). The discriminatory statements included descriptions of depicting that they were immoral, depraved, poor, and social outcasts. There are examples of Batwa children being mocked and displaced in schools as they could not afford to pay for textbooks and resulted to the Batwa becoming beggars. Another example of prejudice statements included accusing the Batwa people of destroying gorillas, as others believed they ate them. That is not the case as experts believe true, because Batwas coexisted with them long before. This accusation has led to banning of hunting and gathering of the forests of Rwanda. This utterly destroyed the Batwa civilization and way of life because it destroyed their economic prosperity or whatever they had to economically survival (Vansina, 2004). Since Batwas are regarded as hunter-gatherers, their duties were to collect things from the forest. Now that they banned those practices, Batwas traded their labor with the farmers in exchange for food. Batwas ended up becoming landless and deprived of their civil rights. By far the biggest discrimination against the Batwa group is the lack of attention government gives to them. There is virtually no representation in political powers to aid the Batwa and the fact how the war caused them to be even more displaced from society. Batwa has become known as the forgotten people (Vansina, 2004). There is not one reason why discrimination exists because the answer to it would be an opinion not necessarily a fact. I believe discrimination existed and continues to exist because of lack of education. A person discriminating against another because they lack the understanding of others and in which gives them conclusions about the other based on menial, or gossip form information. Another reason why discrimination existed especially against the Batwa is probably politically, or power motivated. They might have just used the ethnic prejudice as a tool to make them feel inferior to others. It is the classic monarch society, in which one group of people rank superior because they say so. Discrimination could have existed against the Batwa because the elite decided to promote hatred and propaganda against them, in order to rule, or that they were being a distraction in their true quest for rule. It could also come from a bigger point of observation, which as human beings or any species for that matter, we all have a tendency to demean others while trying to make one self feel better. The simple fact that Batwas are still struggling today with virtually little or no aid from government powers, shows that our society is still unjust and unfair. It is important to understand this because it not only hinders our growth as a country like that of Rwanda, but also as humans. Who is to say that one group is better, or deserves help compared to another? Some hope is given to Batwa children as educational facilities have been opened to dedicate the need for the Batwa family. Children are able to get better education and better lives as their parents who were used to the life a hunter-gatherer has become an obsolete occupation and way of life. It is a new world for the Batwas, however they still face problems, the schools specially built for them is the first step to making change. Today, Rwanda only hopes for a future that will be brighter.

References

Gordon, D. L. (2011). Rwanda. Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Retrieved May 21, 2011, from Grolier Online http://gme.grolier.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/article?assetid=0252900-0
Rwanda's forgotten tribe. (1994). Geographical (Campion Interactive Publishing), 66(7), 5. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
The World Factbook. (17, May 2011). Rwanda. Retrieved May20, 2011 from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rw.html
Vansina, J. (Nov 2004). Bantu-Batwa history. The Journal of African History, 45, 3. P. 494(2). Retrieved May 19, 2011 from General OneFile via Gale: http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS