The Order of Genocide

Extract

The Order of Genocide. By Scott Straus. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006. 273p. $27.95.

Studies of the 1994 Rwandan genocide have moved, Scott Straus argues, beyond simplistic interpretations in terms of “tribal” or “ancient” hatreds (interpretations that were, in truth, more those of the media and politicians than of the early academic literature) toward a “new consensus” that this was a modern genocide based on elite planning, nationalist ideology, and media manipulation. Straus argues that while this is not wrong, it does not go far enough to explain why genocide happened and why so many Hutus were mobilized to kill their Tutsi neighbors as well as moderate Hutus. Emphasizing the need to link the national, elite level on which most study has focused with the local level in the rural areas where most killing was done, Straus undertook a unique study, interviewing more than two hundred confessed and convicted male perpetrators in Rwanda's jails.