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We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families

Book by Philip Gourevitch · 3 quotes · Rwandan Genocide, Genocide, African History

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We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families Quotes

“The world powers made it clear in 1994 that they did not care to fight genocide in central Africa, but they had yet to come up with a convincing explanation of why they were content to feed it. The false promise of protection represented by the camps placed Hutu civilians, as well as Tutsis and everyone else in the region, in mortal peril, and it was no comfort that this state of affairs was not brought about by a malevolent international policy in central Africa but by the lack of any coherent policy.”

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“Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. A vigorous totalitarian order requires that the people be invested in the leader's scheme, and while genocide may be the most perverse and ambitious means to this end, it is also the most comprehensive. In 1994, Rwanda was regarded in much of the rest of the world as the exemplary instance of chaos and anarchy associated with collapsed states. In fact, the genocide was the product of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorizing and indoctrination, and one of the most meticulously administered states in history. And strange as it may sound, the ideology–or what Rwandans call "the logic"–of genocide was promoted as a way not to create suffering but alleviate it. The specter of an absolute menace that requires absolute eradication binds leader and people in a hermetic utopian embrace, and the individual–always an annoyance to totality–ceases to exist.”

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