Genocide, Evil and Human Agency: the Concept of Evil in Rwandan Explanations of the 1994 Genocide

Evil, conceived of as the opposite of good, is defined by a moral system and thus cannot be abstracted as a portable theoretical concept to be applied cross-culturally. David Parkin solved this problem by assuming a “common awareness of evil acts” and then raising “the question of how and to what extent certain kinds of behavior and phenomenon come to be identified by this or a comparable term” (Parkin: 1985, p. 224). Following this same methodology, this chapter explores the ways Rwandans made sense of their experiences of violence during the civil war (1990-1994) and genocide (April – June 1994) by mobilizing the concept of “evil.” Based on several years of ethnographic research in urban and rural Rwanda, I found that Rwandans mobilize three competing conceptions of evil to understand genocidal violence: the personified presence of Satan who inspired humans to perpetrate evil acts, genocide perpetrators as evil by nature, and genocide perpetrators as possessed by Satan or evil spirits. These understandings emerge from the layered systems of religious belief (competing indigenous systems of religious belief and practice, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and abarokore (born-again Christian) movements) that form the cosmological system that frames good and evil for Rwandans. The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, counters these understandings of evil and assert that the evil acts of the genocide were a result of humans’ free will, greed, and their rejection of Christian values

Women Have Found Respect: Gender Quotas, Symbolic Representation and Female Empowerment in Rwanda

Building on previous studies of women’s formal, descriptive, and substantive representation in Rwanda, this article examines women’s symbolic representation, meaning the broader social and cultural impact of the greater representation of women in the Rwandan political system. It explores the cultural meanings of gender quotas by analyzing popular perceptions of women, of women’s roles in politics and society more broadly, and of changing cultural practices vis-à-vis gender. Data were gathered over twenty four months of ethnographic research conducted between 1997 and 2009, and ongoing documentary research. The study finds that although Rwandan women have made few legislative gains, they have reaped other benefits, including increased respect from family and community members, enhanced capacity to speak and be heard in public forums, greater autonomy in decision-making in the family, and increased access to education. Yet, there have also been some unexpected negative consequences such as increased friction with male siblings, male withdrawal from politics, increased marital discord, and a perception that marriage as an institution has been disrupted by the so-called “upheaval” of gender roles. Most significantly, increased formal representation of women has not led to increased democratic legitimacy for the government

Gender Balance and the Meanings of Women in Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Across Africa, many countries have taken initiatives to increase the participation and representation of women in governance. Yet it is unclear what meaning these initiatives have in authoritarian, single-party states like Rwanda. Since seizing power in 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front has taken many steps to increase the participation of women in politics such as creating a Ministry of Gender, organizing women’s councils at all levels of government, and instituting an electoral system with reserved seats for women in the national parliament. This article explores the dramatic increase in women’s participation in public life and representation in governance and the increasing authoritarianism of the Rwandan state under the guise of ‘democratization.’ The increased political participation of women in Rwanda represents a paradox in the short-term: as their participation has increased, women’s ability to influence policy-making has decreased. In the long-term, however, increased female representation in government could prepare the path for their meaningful participation in a genuine democracy because of a transformation in political subjectivity. The lasting repercussions of the 1994 genocide, the material realities of life in post-genocide Rwanda, and the greater representation of females in public life and political office have promoted a great deal of change in cultural and social conceptions of gender roles. With these changes has come a greater acceptance of women in positions of authority and of women as independent agents in the public sphere. This transformation in political subjectivity could prepare women to take a meaningful role in government should a real transition to democracy take place in Rwanda

A six-parameter space to describe galaxy diversification

Galaxy diversification proceeds by transforming events like accretion, interaction or mergers. These explain the formation and evolution of galaxies that can now be described with many observables. Multivariate analyses are the obvious tools to tackle the datasets and understand the differences between different kinds of objects. However, depending on the method used, redundancies, incompatibilities or subjective choices of the parameters can void the usefulness of such analyses. The behaviour of the available parameters should be analysed before an objective reduction of dimensionality and subsequent clustering analyses can be undertaken, especially in an evolutionary context. We study a sample of 424 early-type galaxies described by 25 parameters, ten of which are Lick indices, to identify the most structuring parameters and determine an evolutionary classification of these objects. Four independent statistical methods are used to investigate the discriminant properties of the observables and the partitioning of the 424 galaxies: Principal Component Analysis, K-means cluster analysis, Minimum Contradiction Analysis and Cladistics. (abridged)Comment: Accepted for publicationin A\&