The Shadows of History: Unpacking Rwanda's Genocide The 1994 Rwandan genocide is one of those events that defies easy explanation.
Its horrors were so profound they risk being reduced to a mere footnote in the annals of history, yet as we revisit this dark chapter, it's clear that the circumstances leading up to the atrocities were just as devastating as the acts themselves.
The colonial legacy looms large over Rwanda's tragedy. The imposition of fixed Hutu and Tutsi identities created a racialized hierarchy of fear that proved impossible to dismantle.