a query on Rwanda

U28550@UICVM.BITNET
Tue, 21 Jun 1994 10:21:38 CDT

This list has over 600 members, and I am guessing that some of the subscribers
are Africanists. Do any of of you have some ethnographic-historic information
on the present disaster that would help the rest of us to actually understand
what has been going on there? Not that I don't love child sacrifice or jobs,
but I'm really alarmed by the extent of the reinforcing of old tribal/primitive
stereotypes of "Africans" in the media coverage and the comments from ordinary
people that I'm hearing. I would think that anthropologists--and I've heard
only one interviewed (on NPR)--would have something to contribute to our
understanding of what s going on now, particularly on the nature of the
ferocity of the conflict. I don't mean to exclude opinions of our "regulars",
but I'd like to hear from people who know something about the situation, like
(gulp!) ethnographically advantaged.
Mike Lieber