A Contemporary Case of Scapegoating

The Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi, 1994

In a break from my recent pattern, this post is not from my forthcoming book—but has everything to do with scapegoating. It has to do with what can be accurately named as one of recent history’s most extraordinary cases of mass scapegoating.

Liz and I are in Rwanda this week, visiting our son Matt (who has lived here for 12 years). The dates of our visit were chosen because of our grandson’s school vacation, but as it happens, our time here coincides with the 31st annual Genocide Commemoration, when the entire country pauses to remember the events of 1994. Beginning on April 7th of that year, and continuing over the next hundred days, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed (mostly from the minority Tutsi community, but including some Hutus who opposed the genocide), mostly killed by machetes, and a distressing number killed while sheltering in churches, in what at the time was the most “Christian” nation in all of Africa.

The Hutus and Tutsis have co-existed here for many centuries, the Hutus as “tillers of the soil” and the Tutsis as pastoralists, but ethnic tensions were greatly magnified by the Belgian colonial power, which gave the Tutsi most authority in the colonial government. Independence in 1962 brought the majority Hutu to power, with tension and occasional violence increasing over the decades.

In the months leading up to the genocide, a campaign of dehumanization and scapegoating against the Tutsis was carried out over the airways and through political rallies. When the president’s plane was mysteriously shot down on its approach to Kigali airport on April 7th, an organized campaign of terror and violence erupted within hours. While the rest of the world turned a blind eye, UN Peacekeepers were withdrawn, and the killing ended only when a rebel Tutsi force (which had been fighting on the Ugandan border for several years) captured the capital on July 4.

Excerpts from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s 2025 message, commemorating the 1994 genocide:

The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi is a chilling chapter in human history. And it occurred at terrifying speed. . . . This was not a spontaneous frenzy of horrendous violence. It was intentional. It was premeditated. It was planned. . . Including through the hate speech that inflamed division, and spread lies and dehumanization. . . . This terrible period of Rwanda’s history reminds us that no society is immune from hate and horror.

And as we reflect on how these crimes came about, we must also reflect on the resonance with our own times. These are days of division. The narrative of ‘them’ versus ‘us’ is increasingly polarizing societies. . . . Digital technologies are being weaponized to inflame hate, stoke division, and spread lies. . . . We must stem the tide of hate speech and stop division and discontent mutating into violence.

The Secretary General also correctly notes that in the years since the genocide, “Rwanda has made an extraordinary journey towards reconciliation, healing, and justice.” Today, Rwanda is peaceful and (in the African context) prosperous. And yet each year, they pause to remember. . . perhaps that is why they are peaceful and prosperous.

The evening before the commemoration started, we accompanied our son to an evening Mass at the local Jesuit Center, on the final Sunday of Lent. One of the lectionary readings has always spoken to me, and perhaps to you; a lenten message of hope in dark times. From Isaiah 43:

Do not remember the events of the past;

Nor consider the things of long ago.

Behold, I am doing a new thing!

Even now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?

In the desert I make a way, and in the wasteland, rivers.