Employing Genocide : Narratives, Ethnic Identities, and Political Legitimacy in Post-Genocide Rwanda

Abstract: This thesis offers an analysis on the memory politics in post-genocide Rwanda, and examines the official narratives regarding history, ethnicity, and identity in order to analyse how political elites in Rwanda politicises collective identity and transforms the social environment of its population through establishing power struggles. By adopting of a qualitative content analysis, the thesis focuses on the speeches by the president Paul Kagame held at the start of each year’s commemorative event of the genocide, known as Kwibuka. Using a theoretical framework of social psychology, collective memory, and the politics of memory, and conceptualisations made by Peter Verovšek regarding political actors interacting with memory consumers and Bert Klandermans regarding politicised identities; a qualitative assessment will be made regarding the strategic employment of tactics within the produced official narratives, and how these narratives relate to the political aims of the regime. It is revealed that memory of genocide is being employed for a variety of political aims, including delegitimization of critique against the regime, thwarting dissent, consolidating political legitimacy, and justifying political actions. In addition to this, elaborations are made regarding the fluidity and salience of identities in Rwanda, when different identities are emphasised for different political purposes, which memories are being promoted and which are being silenced, as well as deliberated which implications this has for the aims of national post-genocide reconciliation. The study demonstrates that the political elite exploit collective identity in a top-down manner, for political aims and in response to political events.