Essay On Running The Drift

Running the Rift focuses on an adolescent who matures in the frightening Rwandan society that tears itself apart.. Benaron wrote the book to retell the genocide and bases much of her novel on her own travels in Rwanda. The Rwandan Genocide officially began in 1994, but decades prior to the Tutsi slaughter, racial violence ravaged the Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis. Historyrocket describes Rwanda before the year 1900 when both races lived in Rwanda for centuries before European imperialists set foot in Africa, and Hutu and Tutsi were terms that did not exist. The Germans had lain claim to Rwandan land and permitted the Tutsis to take control of society. After the first world war, Belgians encouraged the Tutsi monarchy which oppressed the Hutu peasants (History). Finally in 1962, the Hutus assumed power and gained independence from Belgium. For over 30 years after the Hutu takeover, the Hutu discriminated the Tutsi in Rwandan culture (Rwanda). The nation erupted into genocide in 1994 when hundreds of thousands of Tutsis are raped, mutilated, and murdered. Benaron’s Running the Rift attempts to exhibit the Rwandan Genocide but fails to account for its historical, ethnic violence and to express its horrors, trivializing and romanticizing the tragedy.
Chiefly, Running the Rift does not accurately depict the violence leading up to genocide, as …show more content…
Survivors Fund documents the total death toll of the Rwandan Genocide: “Over the course of 100 days from April 6 to July 16 1994, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide. A recent report has estimated the number to be close to 2 million” (Statistics). The Genocide was not only massive in numbers but occurred within a short amount of time.A unique, Hutu survivor of the Genocide