Even though we have the facts that Africa has more of a history then just colonization, why is it that people still seem to think that these people would not have existed if there was not colonization? I know that is an overgeneralization about what everyone believes, but there is always a picture of barbarism, tribal warfare, chaos, dictatorships and so on. After reading about the Hutu and Tutsi in Burundi and after we watched Hotel Rwanda it got me thinking about the history of the people of Africa and the history of the whites.
In the novel Purity and Exile by Liisa Malkki, she mentions the history of the Hutu and the Tutsi. She talks about how they we told apart even though they looked very similar. The colonialists came to Burundi and Rwanda and decided to measure their noses and those with longer noses were Tutsi and those with wider noses are Hutu. Before the colonialists arrived and made those distinctions there were a lot of intermarriages and the people lived peacefully.
So after the genocide in Rwanda, and after the exile of Hutus from Burundi, does there history begin after that and hold whatever happened as the horrible Hutu or the horrible Tutsi? How come they have a history of only the genocide and exile? Why is their history of times before the colonialists gone? Why was is erased? Is it forgotten? We learn in class about how they did live together in harmony, but when did they live in harmony? How come that harmony is no longer present? Is it because of the colonialists? How can a person change the history of a country forever?
