Introduction: The ‘Dilemma of Recognition’. On the ‘Experienced Reality’ of Ethnicised Politics in Rwanda and Burundi

Abstract

How can (conflict-prone) salience of ethnicity in Rwandan and Burundian politics be overcome? How can this salience be approached analytically? And why, precisely, is it that it is potentially conflict-prone? These questions drove my research and my interviews (their analysis and production) conducted with Rwandans and Burundians from September 2007 to May 2008. For one of these interviews, I contacted the former deputy cited above. I met him in Butare, the second largest town in Rwanda, located in the south, where he lives. When he came up with his explanations expressed in the quote, I felt vaguely satisfied, since what I had decided (more or less consciously by then) to focus on comes close to these interpretations. In this sense, the quote can be read as a rough answer to the questions just raised. What he mentions and what seems to be crucial to me is, broadly speaking, the general presence of ethnicity in politics. According to him, politics provide the fastest access to resources in Rwanda and Burundi.