dec 7th, 2006
more from rajaram and saxena on the manufactured hutu-tutsi divide and the resulting genocide.
btw, several christist nuns were convicted of crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting the massacres of hundreds of tutsi who had taken refuge in churches.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Navaratna S. Rajaram, Ph.D.
13908 Plantation Way
Edmond, OK 73103
Mr. Steven Hyman, Provost
Harvard University
Dear Mr. Hyman:
I give below an article that will be appearing in several publications
in India and the U.S. I am sending it to you because Harvard has
become one of the last refuges in the West for this brand of
scholarship. Cambridge University in England has just closed down its
department.
I am in the process of preparing an article on the recent California
school curriculum controversy for a major U.S. publication. It will
expose the background to to Witzel's campaign and also the dubious
role of the California Secretary for Education Alan Bersin, who is
also a member of the Harvard Board, in sponsoring him.
I understand that faculty members must have academic freedom to voice
unpopular ideas. But as a former U.S. academic, I too have the
responsibility to expose propagandists and political lobbyists
masquerading as scholars, especially when they use the prestige of
their institution to spread doctrines of hate.
Sincerely yours,
N.S. Rajaram
RACIST THEORY BEHIND GENOCIDE IN AFRICA
An African version of the infamous Aryan invasion theory propagated by
missionaries and colonial rulers triggered the Hutu-Tutsi massacres
Pankaj Saksena
(Edited with comments by N.S. Rajaram)
Editor's introduction: Most Indians are familiar with the Aryan invasion
theory and its political misuse. Some are familiar also with its
demolition by science, especially genetics, and the recent British
admission that it was a political ploy used by them in their policy of
divide and rule. While the theory has been fully discredited, some Western
academics and their Indian followers are clinging to it out of concern for
their academic survival. This was what was really behind the recent
controversy over the California school curriculum. What most Indians,
however, don't know is that the Aryan-Dravidian racial divide was only one
instance of the colonial-missionary tactic of divide and rule combined
with divide and convert.
A similar artificial division created in Africa was to have horrific
consequences. The recent Hutu-Tutsi conflicts in which millions of lives
were lost was a direct result of such a tactic applied by academics,
colonial bureaucrats and missionaries as Pankaj Saksena's following
account describes. (N.S.R.)
The concept of the Aryan invasion theory being the handiwork of British
colonialists for the sake of proving the superiority of the European
Caucasian races is not an isolated case. There exist similar theories in
other parts of the world involving other nations and other (imaginary)
ethnic groups as the following shows. One has to wonder why it has
received so little attention from scholars. (Perhaps they are worried that
their dubious record would be further damaged by the exposure of more such
skeletons in their already rotten closet.)
When we look at the map of middle Africa, we see two little countries
named Rwanda and Burundi, bordering on Zaire (or the Democratic Republic
of Congo). The name Rwanda brings to mind in a flash the image of ethnic
violence, civil war, military juntas and genocide on a horrific scale. Few
Indians know the recent history of these unfortunate countries or the
cause of their tragic history. As reported in the Western media, these
countries are inhabited by two supposedly different ethnic groups, the
so-called Hutus and Tutsis. The ethnic composition of these two countries
is as follows.
Rwanda: Hutu 84%, Tutsi 15%, Twa (Pygmies) 1%
Burundi: Hutu 85%, Tutsi 14%, Twa 1%
In other words, their compositions hardly differ at all. But according to
Western anthropologists, mainly colonial bureaucrats and missionaries, the
Tutsies are supposed to be a Hamitic people, a race that was often
intermixed with the whiter races of the North, notably from Ethiopia and
Egypt, which in their turn were intermixed with some West Asiatic people,
mainly the Hittites, by repeated invasions from the North. These people,
the Tutsis, are supposed to have arrived from the North and not native to
Rwanda.
(The analogy to the invading Aryans is immediate and striking, but it
doesn't stop here. Read on. N.S.R.)
The majority of Hutus are said to be Bantu, of original African race,
which spilled out from the middle of the West African coast of Nigeria,
Cameroon, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Cote d'Ivorie (Ivory Coast) and the inland
countries of Burkina Faso and its neighbors.
In this scenario, which incidentally is contradicted by genetic analysis,
Tutsis are foreign invaders or migrants (like the Aryans) in the
Rwanda-Burundi region. The Hutus, like the Indian Dravidians, are said to
be much older people, but not the original inhabitants. The original
inhabitants are supposed to be the Pygmies (or Twa), who constitute barely
1 percent of the people. The really interesting part of the theory is the
role of the Tutsi minority. They are made into a superior race of
invaders, just like the Aryan invaders, and supposedly constitute the
aristocratic elite and the oppressors of the Hutu majority.
According to this theory, the minority Tutsi have subjugated the
indigenous, but not too indigenous (compared to the Pygmies) Hutus for
centuries and forced them into inferior position of agriculture. Now the
key notion: Hutus and Tutsis are really two completely separate races,
with the 'black' Hutus forming the oppressed majority, and their
relatively fairer invaders, the Tutsi, forming the oppressors.
This in essence is the Tutsi invasion theory, the African version of the
Aryan invasion theory. The similarities are startling, even to the extent
of the Dravidians in India being preceded by earlier inhabitants, the
aborigines (so-called adi-vasis), who have their African counterpart in
the Pygmies. So we have the African Pygmy-Hutu-Tutsi sequence
corresponding to the Indian aborigines-Dravidian-Aryan scheme.
It is highly illustrative to look at the political evolution of this
grotesque theory and its monstrous consequences. Until the coming of the
Europeans, the Tutsis and the Hutus never saw themselves as different and
were not engaged in any racial wars. With the European scramble for
Africa, Rwanda-Burundi became part of the short-lived German East Africa.
After Germany's defeat in the First World War, it became part of the
Belgian colonies in Africa. This notion of the Tutsi-Hutu racial
difference began to be drilled into the natives by colonial
administrators, some academics (Witzel-types) and missionaries known as
the Pere Blancs (White Fathers). They invented the Tutsi invasion theory
and labeled the Hutus as the victims of Tutsi invasion and oppression.
It is worth noting that this period, between the two world wars, was the
heyday of race theories in Europe. It seems the notion of superiority due
to skin color-real or imagined as in this case-is so deeply ingrained in
the European psyche that they cannot get out of it. Its politics has
collapsed, not due to any dawn of enlightenment on its proponents but the
defeat of Nazi Germany. It has continued however in Western academia as
Indo-European Studies and other guises.
As with the Aryan theories and their various offshoots, this Tutsi-Hutu
division has no factual basis. They speak the same language, have a long
history of intermarriage and have many cultural characteristics in common.
Most differences are regional rather than racial, which they were not
aware of until the Europeans made it part of their politics and
propaganda.
The division if any was occupational. Agriculturists were called Hutu
while the cattle owning elite were referred to as Tutsi. The Tutsi, like
the Indian Aryans, were supposed to be tall, thin and fair, while the Hutu
were described as short, black and squat- just as the Indian Dravidians
are said to be. Since the Tutsi today don't fit this description, scholars
claimed that their invading ancestors did. They offered no proof but,
being based on no evidence, cannot be disproved either. In fact, it is
impossible today to tell the two people apart. They are separate because
government records carried over from the colonial days say so. (More of
this below.)
This imaginary racial difference was emphasized by colonial officials
during Belgian rule. The Belgian Government forced everyone to carry an
identity card showing tribal ethnicity as Hutu or Tutsi. This was used in
administration, in providing lands, positions, and otherwise for playing
power politics based on race. This divisive politics combined with the
racial hatred sowed by the invasion theory turned Rwanda-Burundi into a
powder keg ready to explode.
The explosion occurred, following independence form colonial rule.
Repeated violence after independence fueled this hatred based on this
supposed ethnic difference and the concocted history of the Tutsi invasion
and oppression. Some 2.5 million people were massacred in this fratricidal
horror of wars and genocides. Unscrupulous African leaders, like the
so-called Dravidian leaders of India, have exploited this divisive
colonial legacy to gain power at the cost of the people. Hutu leaders
described the Tutsis as cockroaches, telecasting their tirades against the
Tutsis on the radio during the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis. This led
ordinary Hutus to massacre the Tutsis en masse in a bid to annihilate them
completely.
So a peaceful, placid nation with a common populace, with a common
language, culture and history was destroyed by colonialist, racist
concoction called the Tutsi Invasion Theory- entirely the handiwork of
colonial bureaucrats, missionaries and Witzel-like pseudo-scholars.
It is of course no coincidence that ideas that led to the Holocaust in
Europe should have led to genocide in Africa. The disgrace is that they
have found a home in Western academia in various guises, ready to come out
of the closet at an opportune moment, as for instance during the recent
California school curriculum controversy.
Why should we learn all this? Because the Tutsi Invasion Theory has
ominous parallels to the Aryan Invasion Theory which Witzelite
pseudo-scholars are trying desperately to save in the name of linguistics,
Indo-European Studies or some such fig-leaf. Also, ethnic tension and
violence, thankfully not on the same horrific scale, was incited between
North- and South Indians by self-styled Dravidian parties like the DMK,
AIDMK and their many offshoots and incarnations. These are the poisonous
legacy of the colonial-missionary racist offspring.
Why did India not go the way of Rwanda-Burundi? Not for lack of trying but
because the cultural legacy of Hinduism proved too strong. It defeated the
designs of politicians and propagandists masquerading as scholars. It is
no coincidence that Rwanda and Burundi had been converted to Christianity,
carrying with it the message of intolerance. But there is no room for
complacency. The anti-Hindu politicians of India and the
Marxist-missionary academia have come together to defend the
Aryan-Dravidian divide. They have been joined by the Witzelites, concerned
for their academic survival.
Their failure in Hindu India is also what is behind the visceral
anti-Hinduism of the Witzelites. This is enhanced by the fact that Hindu
scholars have been at the forefront of exposing their designs and
scholarly pretensions.
The Witzelite brand of pseudo-scholarship cannot survive once the Aryan
theories end up in the dustbin where they belong. They have found useful
stooges in Indian politics and academia. They no longer engage in debate
but in name calling. Any opposition to the Aryan invasion is denounced as
emotional, chauvinistic, and the handiwork of Hindu nationalists and
fundamentalists. Like the artificial Aryan-Dravidian divide, the
Tutsi-Hutu divide is also denied by respectable-non-Witzelite-scholarship,
including Western scholarship. Are we to denounce these-and a million
Tutsi victims of the genocides-as the handiwork of these nationalistic
chauvinistic Tutsis who deserved their fate?
The answer lies in the correct reading of the indigenous history through
the various new tools available today, from science, genetics and
archaeology. It calls for the deconstruction of the colonial edifice that
has promoted this racist, hate filled theories to appeal to the vanity of
a few and help the careers of some pseudo-scholars. Above all, it calls
for exposing the charlatans who fatten on the misery of victims of
colonial horrors carrying pompous names like anthropology, Indo-European
Studies and the like. These are the parasites of colonialism.
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