How Did Imperialism Lead To The Rwanda Genocide

Humanity is constantly looking for ways to expand, whether it is in a state’s population our in the territory a state possesses. Even today, when humanity has begun to over fill the earth we continue to build giant skyscrapers and look to the stars for new territory. But this is not a new practice, when Christopher Columbus stumbled upon the ‘New World’ in 1492 this caused the western world to flood with excitement, this lead to countless states sending expeditions in an attempt to grab up as much land as they could before another state could. This was not only the start of colonization but the start of something much darker, imperialism. Although at first glance imperialism doesn’t sound half bad, it could be simply defined as a state extending its rule or authority over a nation onto foreign countries. Unfortunately, imperialism is often responsible for the loss of many of the world’s richest cultures, by pushing western views upon these societies their culture and history is often lost along the path of assimilation. This can be clearly seen in the events that took place Rwanda. In fact, many of the factors that lead to the Rwanda genocide of 1994 started in 1916 when the Belgian colonist first arrived; by creating a since of Tutsis superiority the Belgian colonist created resentment within the Hutus community. This resentment would eventually build up within the Hutus people, leading to the Rwandan genocide. …show more content…
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