Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Rwanda
- Great Lakes region
- Rwanda: refugees and displaced populations, 31 March 1995
- Introduction: information and disinformation in times of conflict
- 1 Build-up to war and genocide: society and economy in Rwanda and eastern Zaire
- 2 Mind the gap: how the international press reported on society, politics and history
- 3 For beginners, by beginners: knowledge construction under the Rwandese Patriotic Front
- 4 Labelling refugees: international aid and the discourse of genocide
- 5 Masterclass in surreal diplomacy: understanding the culture of ‘political correctness’
- 6 Land and social development: challenges, proposals and their imagery
- Conclusion: representation and destiny
- Appendix: Summary of key dates and events
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Titles in the series
3 - For beginners, by beginners: knowledge construction under the Rwandese Patriotic Front
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Rwanda
- Great Lakes region
- Rwanda: refugees and displaced populations, 31 March 1995
- Introduction: information and disinformation in times of conflict
- 1 Build-up to war and genocide: society and economy in Rwanda and eastern Zaire
- 2 Mind the gap: how the international press reported on society, politics and history
- 3 For beginners, by beginners: knowledge construction under the Rwandese Patriotic Front
- 4 Labelling refugees: international aid and the discourse of genocide
- 5 Masterclass in surreal diplomacy: understanding the culture of ‘political correctness’
- 6 Land and social development: challenges, proposals and their imagery
- Conclusion: representation and destiny
- Appendix: Summary of key dates and events
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Titles in the series
Summary
Having escaped world attention right up to the moment of genocide, Rwanda was a country waiting to be ‘discovered’. What kind of a place was it, really? What kind of a place might it become? But the world did not start from scratch. While Central Africa was not well known in the West, the region nonetheless was ‘enveloped in a century of powerful imagery – ranging from “Heart of Darkness” to the “Noble Savage”’; it was a region outsiders felt they ‘knew’ well (Newbury 1998: 76).
In this chapter we consider how the new guardian of Rwanda's culture and destiny, the victorious Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), made its own contribution to the crafting of an intellectual image about the place and its heritage; an image which the world, the anglophone part especially, would be encouraged to embrace. The portrayal was easy to grasp, reconnected with a classic study translated into English, Maquet's The Premise of Inequality (1961), and was, as would become clear in late 1996, politically convenient. To help popularise its preferred vision of history, the RPF secured the support of sympathetic journalists and aid workers uninformed about the region, and academic scriptwriters without research experience in Rwanda. This chapter deals with RPF-functional academic representations, including statements on the crisis in eastern Zaire, parts of which the post-genocide authorities in Kigali regard as the legitimate extension of the Rwandan polity.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Re-Imagining RwandaConflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century, pp. 109 - 129Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002