Ethnic Categories: Institutions Defined by Descent

Abstract

Gérard Prunier (1995) describes how the (violent) Rwandan political history has been driven by the ideas (he calls them “myths”) about Hutu and Tutsi and about the relationship between them. Although very few Tutsi were haughty lords in 1940 in Rwanda, as he asserts, the social category Tutsi relates to the idea of oppressors that were a long time in power and could potentially seize power again. In this sense, Tutsi “had become haughty lords”, and Hutu were oppressed (Prunier 1995: 347). “They behaved according to their ‘traditional’ patterns, obeyed their ‘ancestral customs’ and probably felt their feelings appropriate to their position in life” (Prunier 1995: 347). In 1959, Rwandans acted based on the notions they had of the ethnic categories of Hutu and Tutsi. In this sense, “the myths had become real” and the fake of the 1959 revolution is “based on truth” (Prunier 1995: 347). Arguing according to the approach of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann just introduced (4.3), it should be added that myths are real in that they are experienced as real.