From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Wed 16 Apr 2003 - 19:27:30 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Henson" <hkhenson@rogers.com>
> My comment re rivers as boundaries and such would be that if Africa had
been
> divided up into states on tribal boundary lines, you would have wars
between
> these states for "Lebensraum" instead of civil wars for the same reason.
> The problem is not population so much as it is resources per capita.
>
> And to bring it back to memes, when things get tight from population
growth
> a latent human psychological trait emerges, which supports the spread of
> memes that dehumanize those your tribe is about to kill.
Keith, Jeremy,
I am not an expert on the matter but in the case of the Hutu/ Tutsi
situation
I want to add the following,
I agree that (economical) resources per capita are the main reason behind
the troubles but in the context of the conflict you have to understand that
both populations are very intertwined_ meaning_ " in the early days of
our era the Bahutu ruled the Twa ( the original people of the area now
known as Rwanda and Burundi).
In turn the power shifted to the Batutsi.
In 1961 the monarchy in Rwanda was overtrown by the Hutu, in 1965
the same thing was bloody repressed in Burundi.
Despite this both cultures are very deep intertwined."
Tutsi ( 10 to 16 % of the total population of Rwanda and Burundi)
had since they came to power total control over all resources/ politics/
culture and society_ even after the arrival of the Europeans they stayed
in the saddle.
So, where you see, IMO simply economical reasons as the major
point of the troubles, where indeed in the end it is like so, I think
you ought to look deeper for the political background.
A minority ruled, had all the power, the nicest jobs and had access
to all kinds of resources and facilities_ and don 't forget the role
of Europe, in casu Belgium.
Congo ( Zaire) for example, was giving ( literally) to Leopold II,
it was his property, so that the surroundings powers who kolonised
other countries stayed out of eachother thwart.
Leopold II, was in the eyes of the others ' neutral '.....France, Spain,
Germany, England, Portugal,...and no doubt others, ( Italy) were fighting
eachother to get control and power_ and right in the middle there sat
we...Belgium. It all ended in 1960.
Regards,
Kenneth
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