MAS 610-11 - Topics: The Contemporary World

Summer 2019 - Jeff Jones, Ph.D.

Discussion Board 4

Going into these readings, I knew very little on the wars in Yugoslavia with only recently having learned little bits and pieces of the conflict over the past few years. Most of the material that I had learned was about the mass graves and the Bosnian genocide. So it came as a complete surprise when the Diary of an Uncivil War (1999) article showed a different perspective to what was commonly being represented in most Western media that I was accustomed to. For example, I had no idea that the largest discovery of the mass graves was 7 corpses or that there were multiple occasions where journalists needed to retract their ‘facts’. Like the previous discussion board post, the Taylor (1999) article demonstrates how much power the media has; most media sources are the first rough draft that people ever see and even when these sources are retracted, people’s views on the matter at hand have already been shaped with individuals rarely changing their minds. That is why it is important to view a situation from multiple outlets, if possible, so as to get a broader, and hopefully, less biased account of the situation.

With this in mind, one author who many deem to be ‘less biased’ is Susan Woodward whose interpretations of the war in Yugoslavia are often used as an analysis to “[make] sense of the senseless” (Woodward, 1995). The article showcases many factors (e.g., the breakdown of institutions) that led to the ultimate conflict. While these factors are important, I believe that it is the structural forces that are the most important factor when wanting to examine the conflict. These structural forces (the internal vs. the external) were often a result of relationships with other nations; due to its location, Yugoslavia would often have political and economic relationships with Communist, Anti-Communist, and Third World Nations. Furthermore, this interaction of internal and external forces (i.e., structural forces) were often exacerbated post-Cold War because 1) there was not a “international agreement on how to create new institutions for a ‘new world order’” and 2) Yugoslavia lacked a categorization that would have lent itself to international and/or local organizations (Woodward, 1995). As a result, certain organizations (e.g., the International Monetary Fund and the European Union) and countries (e.g., Germany) applied “outdated, generic cold-war policy prescriptions to Yugoslavia, a country that has historically been the exception to such rules” (Woodward, 1995), and with it ensued the breakdown of Yugoslavia.

Discussion Board 15

Throughout my time in school, I have always learned about the Rwandan genocide from the perspective of the film Hotel Rwanda (2004) in which the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines is able to save many Tutsi and Hutu Rwandan lives by hiding them in the hotel; however, with the novel A Long Way from Paradise and the excerpt “Malthus in Africa: Rwandan’s Genocide”, I have been able to see the genocide from new and varying perspectives. One major difference in perspective is in the explanation of the Rwandan genocide. The main explanation given to the genocide in both Hotel Rwanda and A Long Way from Paradise seems to be that of the deeply engrained ethnic tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis (which is the explanation I am most familiar with). This perspective showcases the idea that even though colonialism was ‘put to an end’ when the Belgians left Rwanda, the power and impact of colonialism never ceased overtime; so much so that another latent form of colonialism was developed. This latent form of colonialism was depicted in the fact that after the Belgians left, they categorized Rwandans based on physical appearance, placing the taller, slimmer, more-European looking Tutsis in charge of the shorter, less-European looking Hutus (14), further oppressing one group of people. Basically, even though these people shared one language, worked together, and lived together, they were categorized into a hierarchy because one group of people looked more ‘European’ than the other. Despite this, the Hutus eventually gained power and tensions between the two ethnic groups become more heightened. For example, Chishugi (2012) mentioned multiple times how she and her sisters would try to reshape their noses so as to not look as ‘Tutsi’ in order to avoid being bullied in school (14). Eventually, many Hutus continued to worry about living under the Tutsi minority once again, with tensions eventually boiling to the point of genocide. However, another varying perspective was presented in the excerpt “Malthus in Africa” which placed the explanation for the genocide not on ethnic tensions between the two groups but rather on economic problems caused by the collapse of world coffee prices and on demographic issues. In terms of economics, Diamond hypothesized that because Rwanda’s economy was declining due to “falling coffee prices and World Bank austerity measures” ... that were exacerbated “by drought”, people (mainly young Hutu men) fled as refugees, were recruited into the military, and “competition among Rwanda's rival political groups [were] willing to stoop to anything to retain power” (327). On the other hand, due to overpopulation, climate change, and the environmental impact associated with overpopulation, Diamond believed that the nation’s collapse was inevitable (328). Overall, while I do think that these other factors (e.g., a collapse in the Rwandan economy and demographic issues) played some sort of role in heightening tensions between the two groups, ultimately, ethnic tensions were the main source that led to the fighting.

Finally, readers learn from Gordimer’s “Country Lovers” and “City Lovers” that black Africans and white Africans are treated very differently in South Africa. Both excerpts by Chishugi depict two lovers, one white male and one black female who engage in secret love affairs because of the color of their skin. While both end in the couple breaking apart, “Country Lovers” shows the fear that the apartheid system had on people when Paulus kills his baby because of its mixed heritage while “City Lovers” demonstrates how seriously the South African legal system took mixed relationships. These readings illustrate how apartheid in South Africa was successful in scaring people into being so desperate that some would resort to killing their own children out of fear of being exposed.