Genocide Boris

8/2/2019 Genocide Boris

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/genocide-boris 1/24

Student Paper | Genocide in Rwanda: The Schizoid Position Made Manifest

By

Boris Thomas

Abstract:

Using the theoretical lens of object relations, this paper explores the intersection of theprocesses associated with the Kleinian paranoid-schizoid position and the cultural, socio-economic, and political factors that provided the raw material for two rounds of ethniccleansings over a 40 years span in the African nation of Rwanda. Through a primer of 19th and20th century Rwandan history, including an exploration of totalitarianism, colonialism, and theroots of ethnic prejudice, this paper devotes particular attention to the massacres, beginning in

1990, that resulted in more than one million Rwandan people murdered and tens of thousandsmore who were wounded, raped and terrorized.

This paper takes the position that the paranoid-schizoid position and the related mechanism of projective identification—cornerstone pathology found in the phenomenon of fascism andtotalitarianism—are not atypical, but rather live within the seemingly normal individual. UsingRwanda as a case example, with the right internal and external conditions, the ego defenses canbe rallied and the unimaginable outcome of genocide can occur. Specific conditions including theattraction of the idealized other; simplicity of mind and the moral void; and the processes of distortion, decontextualization, character assassination, and absence of reference, among others,are discussed as contributing to the genocidal state.

Inspired by the 2004 film, “Hotel Rwanda,” which chronicled massacres occurring in Rwanda in1994 and the efforts of a private hotel manager to save 1200 lives while the world communitypassively looked on, this paper is written in the hope that the psychoanalytic framework discussed herein will serve as a template for understanding and possibly preventing the genocidalphenomenon, one that has occurred time after time in ancient and modern history, and one thatwe see continuing today.



Page 1

Genocide in Rwanda: The Schizoid Position Made Manifest

Introduction

This paper will explore the schizoid position and, more specifically, the process

of projective identification as the psychological underpinning of fascism, racism,

fundamentalism, and, finally, genocide. As a case example of this psychological process,

the African nation of Rwanda and its history of ethnic distinctions, dating back to the

16

th

century, and occurrences of genocide, taking place as early as 1959, will be

discussed.

Discussion

I. Rwanda and its History: A Genocide Primer

In my journey through Rwanda I encountered many of the killers: thegenocide was a crime of mass complicity, one could hardly avoid meetingpeople who had been involved. . . . A few gave the appearance of being

truly psychopathic individuals. The mass of others were ragged andilliterate peasants easily roused to hatred of the Tutsis. Perhaps the mostsinister people I met were the educated political elite, men and women of charm and sophistication who spoke flawless French and who couldengage in long philosophical debates about the nature of war anddemocracy. But they shared on thing in common with the soldiers andthe peasants: they were drowning in the blood of their fellowcountrymen.” (Keane, 1995, p. 29)

A. Pre-Colonial and Early Colonial History

Radically divergent interpretations of history provide the basis on whichcollective identities are built and act as powerful justification for currentbehavior. (Uvin, 1998, p. 14).

There is no agreement as to what exactly served as the primary distinguishing

characteristics among the three indigenous peoples of Rwanda, the Hutu, the Tutsi, and



Page 2

the Twa. (Uvin, 1998). Some say that the groups are distinctly different ethic groups

and/or races, while others believe that the tribes are distinguished only by

socioeconomic divisions, the Hutu traditionally holding the role of farmers; the Tutsi,

cattle herders; and the smallest group, the Twa, hunters and artisans (Uvin, 1998). The

most widely accepted pre-colonial historical account of these three groups is that the

cattle-rearing Tutsi traveled south in successive immigrations, fleeing famine and

drought, arriving in Burundi, Rwanda and other neighboring regions during the fifteenth

and sixteenth centuries (Uvin, 1998). The farmer Hutu were already in Rwanda, having

immigrated from central Africa centuries earlier. The Twa, a group representing no

more than one percent of the population, are the earliest inhabitants of Rwanda, always

engaged primarily in hunting and pottery-making (Uvin, 1998). For centuries the three

groups spoke the same language, believed in the same god, shared the same culture, and

belonged to joint clans, living side-by-side in Rwanda (Uvin, 1998).

Until the end of the nineteenth century, the northwestern part of Rwanda was

controlled by several small Hutu kingdoms in which a limited number of politically

powerless Tutsi also lived (Uvin, 1998). The Tutsi controlled a large kingdom located in

the central part of Rwanda and extending almost to the country’s current borders

(Uvin, 1998).

Near the turn of the twentieth century, a fourth group entered Rwanda,

descending, first from Germany, then from 1916 onward, from Belgium (Uvin, 1998).

Called the Bazungu, a term used for whites, this group, like the Twa, never constituted

more than one percent of the population, but, unlike the Twa, they owned the largest

portion of Rwanda’s assets, purchasing power, status symbols, and possessions (Uvin,



Page 3

1998). The Bazungu conquered Rwanda by military force and diplomacy, which involved

assigning a flaccid political role to the Tutsi king, followed by the annexation of the small

northwestern Hutu kingdoms and control under a centralized monarchic rule

(Uvin,1998). The Bazungu colonizers imposed legislation and taxation, compulsory

work programs, required mastery of Bazungu language (French), adherence to Bazungu

religion (Catholicism), and the application of a money-based market (Uvin, 1998).

Under these new institutions, power was granted—only to the Tutsi—in the form of

education, jobs in the governmental administration and armed forces with many Tutsi

chiefs acting as “‘rapacious quasi-warlords’” (Uvin, 1998).

B. Ethnic Differences, Prejudice, and the Vehicles of Distortion

Ethnicity is neither a function of objective cultural or physical distinctions, but

rather a social construct (Anderson, 1991). Ethnicity creates imagined communities

focused upon the erection of boundaries between in-groups and out-groups (Barth,

1969). Uvin (1998) reflects that it is not traits alone that set a group apart, but rather it

is the shared perception that defining traits set a group apart. Indeed, for decades

“distinct ethnicity has been a reality in Rwanda at the levels of public discourse, state

policy, and individual sentiment” (Uvin, 1998, p. 15). It is not surprising that during the

colonial period, the Bazungu deemed the Tutsi more intelligent, reliable, and

hardworking—more like themselves—than the Hutu (Uvin, 1998).

Despite their many similarities, the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa have been deemed

three distinct ethnic groups. The Bazungu, comprised of Germans and Belgians, are two

additional ethnic groups, but under the definition of ethnicity and for the purpose of

looking at the colonial history of Rwanda, they can be deemed one ethnic entity.



Page 4

Nevertheless, another issue that complicates an understanding of the complexities of

ethnic distinctions among the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, are the numerous references,

replete with scientific “proofs,” to various physiological differences that signal racial

distinctions1 among the groups (Uvin, 1998). The idea of a ‘pure’ ethnic divide in

Rwanda is a myth: In southern Rwanda, for example, there was extensive intermarrying

between Tutsis and Hutus, as well as a long history of people exchanging identities from

Tutsi to Hutu (Keane,1995, p. 11).

Uvin (1998, p. 30) draws a critical distinction between the recognition of ethnic

difference and prejudice, stating that the later requires “the reduction of people’s

identity to their ethnicity with disregard for their other features” and “the attribution of

moral judgments to these identities.” Indeed, a number of prejudices operated in

Rwanda, many in place long before the arrival of the colonizers (Uvin, 1998). One such

prejudice, put into place with the arrival of the colonizers, was that the Tutsi were not

only “foreigners,” but also were genetically different, descendants of Ham, which was

supported by “scientific evidence” related to food habits, height, blood factors, and

lactose tolerance (Uvin, 1998). This belief persisted, even among the intelligentsia, until

1994 (Uvin, 1998).

It is not surprising that these prejudicial beliefs would be memorialized for wide

dissemination. Penned by a small group of Hutu intellectuals, the Hutu Manifest, for

example, set forth at its core the belief that “the problem is basically that of the

monopoly of one race, the tutsi . . . which condemns the desperate Hutu to be forever

subaltern workers.” (Uvin, 1998, p. 31). This passage was derived in part from a long

1 Race, unlike ethnicity, is based upon physiological characteristics rather than social constructs.



Page 5

folk historical memory of pre-colonial Tutsi misrule (Keane, 1995). To peasants with

this folk memory, the warnings and the increasingly hysterical propaganda against the

Tutsi had a powerful effect. “Tens of thousands became infected . . . by an anti-Tutsi

psychosis; they were convinced through newspapers, radio and the frequent public

speeches of Habyarimana’s closest supporters that the Tutsis were going to turn them

into beasts of the field once again.” (Keane, 1995, p. 9)

The Hutu extremists, most of them members or supporters of the ruling party,

produced a set of Ten Commandments that dictated how Hutus should treat their Tutsi

neighbors (Keane, 1995). Among other things, the Commandments described as

traitors any Hutus who “married, befriended or employed Tutsis; all Tutsis were

dishonest and they were to be excluded from business and from positions of influence in

education; crucially the Commandments . . . urged Hutus to ‘stop having mercy on the

Batusi.’” This last injunction was to be obeyed by thousands of Hutu peasants when the

genocide began (Keane, 1995, p. 10). Through these mechanisms, Tutsis were

marginalized and an atmosphere was created in which their mass destruction became

acceptable.

Uvin (1998) also cites violence as a phenomenon that solidifies ethnic prejudice

in several ways. He references violence as a traumatizing phenomenon that both the

perpetrator and victim—both in the present and in subsequent generations—must

manage. In the case of the Hutu and the Tutsi, both groups had been both victims and

perpetrators of violence. Accordingly, the feelings of aggression, injury, helplessness,

and shame are deep in the individual and collective memories and the identities of both

groups (Uvin, 1998).



Page 6

With the feelings of mistrust split along ethnic lines, there were administrative

details that served to facilitate the organization and effectuation of genocide. In 1926

the Belgians issued identification cards, based on ethnicity and differentiating the Hutu

from the Tutsis, followed by a census of Rwanda in 1933, which ensured that all

Rwandans had been classified and preceded the mandatory requirement that

identification cards be carried by all citizens (Keane, 1995). An eyewitness to the grisly

scene of a Tutsi village where all villagers were massacred in a church described the

government building occupied by the local Hutu administrator charged with running the

village:

Most poignantly in a room at the very back is a library of index cards. Theseare in fact the identity cards of every local resident. There are thousands of these thin paper cards on to which are fixed the photographs of the bearers .. . . The colonial government introduced this system of populationregistration and their Rwandan Hutu successors entrenched it as a means of political control . . . . These cards . . . have been used as instruments of genocide. . . . The [Hutu killers] had a ready-made death list.” (Keane, 1995,pp. 85-86).

C. Independence and the First Massacres

In 1957 the Party for the Emancipation of the Hutus (“PARMEHUTU”) was

formed (Keane, 1995). In 1959, shortly therafter, the Tutsi king, Mwaami Rudahigwa

died, and in the wake of his death, Hutus rose up against the Tutsi nobility (Keane,

1995). Tutsis fled to neighborhing Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Zaire (Keane, 1995).

Between 1959 and 1962 more than 2000 Tutsi were killed (Uvin, 1998). It is believed

that the violent turn of events did not occur without the covert connivance of the

Bazungu (Uvin, 1998).



Page 7

In 1962, under pressure from the United Nations, and with little preparation, the

Bazungu transferred sovereignty from Belgium to local authorities (Uvin, 1998).

However, the Bazungu had every intention of maintaining control over its many holdings

in Rwanda, and had grown fearful of the Tutsi elite, which had become increasingly

anticolonial in its views (Uvin, p. 1998). Between December 1963 and 1964 more Tutsi,

15,000 to 20,000, were killed, prompting the departure of 140,000 to 250,000 Tutsi (40-

70% of the surviving Tutsi population) for other countries (Uvin, 1998). It is from the

descendants of these refugees that the Uganda based Rwandan Patriotic Front (“RPF”)

was formed, and whose guerrilla soldiers would invade Rwanda in 1990 (Keane, 1995;

Uvin, 1998).

In the resulting power structure, the PARMEHUTU, a small Hutu elite, was on

top (Uvin, 1998). Thousands of Tutsi remained in Rwanda, many well educated and

relatively wealthy. A Rwandan elite of approximately one percent of the population,

including virtually all of the Bazungu, lived wealthy, urban, educated, globally mobile, and

Westernized lives (Uvin, 1998). By contrast, the majority of the population in Rwanda,

Hutu peasants, remained as poor and powerless as they were prior to independence

(Uvin, 1998). PARMEHUTU eventually morphed into the National Revolutionary

Movement for Development (“MRND”), which was formed in 1975 by army chief of

staff, General—later, President—Juvenal Habyarimana, and entrenched as a single party

ruling entity (Keane, 1995).

[MRND] effectively was in charge of all fields of human endeavor and allsectors of the economy from subsidizing prices; allocating jobs; fundingresearch; building hospitals, schools, and vocational training centers; andregistering births and deaths to prescribing social behaviors, sexual mores, orpolitical thought—all activities previously left to the market, the family, orthe church, or not done at all. Until 1990, there were no other political



Page 8

parties, no independent unions, no human rights organizations; in the early1980s, all large cooperatives were also brought under state control. TheCatholic Church, to which more than half of all Rwandans belong, making it apotential major source of counterpower, was closely associated with thestate; its leaders were thoroughly co-opted in both state and party structures

at all levels. A dense network of hundreds of kilometers of well-maintainedroads, together with a fast-growing vehicular fleet, allowed the central stateto relay messages rapidly to the farthest corner of the country. (Uvin, 1998,p. 22).

Torture and other arbitrarily instituted punishments became a regular part of life in

Rwanda, generating little surprise that Habyarimari was elected by a 98% majority year

after year (Uvin, 1998). A totalitarian state was in place and fully functioning with the

intent to eliminate any opposition.

MRND avoided sharing power with any other party until July 1990, when

Westeran aid donors pressured Habyarimana to concede to the principle of multi-party

democracy (Keane, 1995). In response to a guerrilla attack of the RPF, which invaded

Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990, the Rwandan army began training civilian

militias, called Interhamwe (“those who stand together”), while, for three years,

Habyarimana put off the establishment of a genuine multi-party system (Keane, 1995).

Between 1990 and 1991 thousands of Tutsis were killed in separate massacres around

the country, while politicians and newspapers who opposed the MRND were

persecuted (Keane, 1995). In November 1992, prominent Hutu activist Dr. Leon

Mugusera appealed to Hutus to return the Tutsis “back to the Ethiopia” via the rivers2

(Keane, 1995).

2 In 1994 thousands of Tusis were lined up along the banks of the aKagera River, executed, then pushedinto the fast-moving current, resulting in the mass accumulation of dead and bloated bodies in Uganda’sLake Victoria (Keane, 1995). Ignorant Hutu peasants erroneously believed that the aKagera flowed toEthopia (Keane, 1995).



Page 9

Starting in September 1993, after Habyarimana committed to a negotiated

agreement to share power with the Hutu opposition and the RPF, and to integrate the

RPF with the Rwandan army, he stalled once again, instead diverting his efforts to the

intensified training of militias (Keane, 1995). In the early spring of 1994, extremist radio

station Mille Collines began broadcasting exortations to attack the Tutsis, spurring

human rights groups to warn the international community of impending disaster (Keane,

1995). Following is an eyewitness account of Rwandan peasants listening to a Mille

Collines radio broadcast:

One group is gathered around a radio. “Beware of the cockroaches,” thepresenter says. “It is the duty of all Muhutu to rise up and resist theinvasion of the cockroaches. Remember the victory of 1959. LetRwanda not be destroyed by the invaders.” The voice crackles its poisoninto the minds of the loitering crowd. (Keane, 1995, p. 101).

With the murder of President Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, Rwandan armed forces

began killing Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians, going house to house to implement

the massacre (Keane, 1995). Thousands died the first day. “In one hundred days up to

one million people were hacked, shot, strangled, clubbed and burned to death . . . . This

is not to ignore the vast numbers who were wounded, raped and terrorized . . . .”

(Keane, 1995, p. 29).

II. The Schizoid Position: A Psychological Basis for Genocide

A.

The Depressive and the Schizoid Positions

In the depressive position, the infant is able to synthesize “loved and hated

aspects of the complete object” and, thus “[give] rise to feelings of mourning and guilt,

which imply vital advances in its emotional and intellectual life,” Klein (1946, p. 294).



Page 10

The depressive position stands in contrast to the paranoid-schizoid position in which

“splitting processes, involving the splitting of the first object (the breast) as well as the

feelings towards it, are at their height” (1948, p. 34). Although Klein named these two

processes based upon the clinical data she gathered in observing and treating children,

they are readily applicable to adults and are useful in explaining a broad range of psychic

and behavioral phenomenon.

You know, I was watching a history show the other night. It was all about the SS troops[in Nazi Germany] and how they took innocent people and put them in ovens. I wasdisgusted and upset by it. I’m affected by those things. You know, when I heard aboutthe tsunami and watched the news coverage, I sat at the edge of my bed and cried. Mysister, well, she wouldn’t care. She doesn’t know where Indonesia is and couldn’t be

bothered to find out. She just doesn’t see it as her problem. But I’m different; I reallycare about these things. I really care about people. * * * I just worked a flight fromChicago to LA, and there were the usual bunch of entitled people sitting in first class.We were running low on bin space, and one of the passengers needed a place to put histhings away. I said to the passenger that it would be no problem, that we’d find a spacefor his belongings in another section of the plane. And then, up stands L.. Epstein from[seat] 5F, “You know there should be plenty of closet space in this plane. There’s noreason why his belongings should have to go to another section of the plane.” I couldn’teven bother to be nice. I turned around and I said, “Sit down!” At that moment, if Ihad an oven, BAM! he would have been right in it and I would have hit the [ignition]button. I mean it. I really would have done it! * * * All I need is one passenger to actlike an asshole. After that I can only see all of them as assholes.

This excerpt, taken from a session with a patient whom one would quickly

describe as thoughtful and caring, illustrates the ease with which a normally

compassionate individual can leave civility and entertain the most vicious fantasies—

fantasies in which others are grouped, reduced to subhuman proportions, and disposed

of in the most hideous ways—without guilt or regard for the cautionary tales of history.

Bollas (1992) refutes the notion that fascists—and by extension, fundamentalists

and other extremists—are insane, while liberals are sane. He replaces it with the idea

that, indeed, the type of pathology found in fascism lives “inside each of us” (1992, p.

197). The paranoid-schizoid position and the mechanism of projective identification are



Page 11

“involved in all communication but in its virulent forms [lies] at the heart of hatred,

racism, and idealization” (Young, 2001, p. 12).

Will this angry flight attendant patient become genocidal? Fairbairn (1943, p. 65),

making reference to internalized bad objects stated:

[w]hether any given individual becomes delinquent, psychoneurotic,psychotic or simply ‘normal’ would appear to depend in the main uponthe operation of three factors: (1) the extent to which bad objects havebeen installed in the unconscious and the degree of badness by whichthey are characterized, (2) the extent to which the ego is identified withinternalized bad objects, and (3) the nature and strength of the defences[sic] which protect the ego from these objects.

The patient displays his awareness of his departure from the depressive position and

into the schizoid position. His awareness and struggle with the two sides of himself

illustrates the tendency of the ego “towards integrating itself and towards synthesizing

the different aspects of the object” (Klein, 1948, p. 34). Notwithstanding Klein’s

reference to the synthesizing expression of the life instinct (1948), or Fairbairn’s three

factors set forth above, the point that Bollas makes, which will be more fully discussed

below, is that fascism exists on a continuum with genocide at one extreme with another

continuum therein. “Intellectual genocide,” for example, consists of the mental

processes that precede the genocidal act (Bollas, 1992, p. 207).

There are small acts of fascism that we can easily effect by thought, word, and

deed; and the seeds of fascism, racism, fundamentalism, and related acts of obliteration

of the other exist in all of us as does primitive aggression.

B. Fear of Annihilation and Projection

Citing the writings of Sigmund Freud, Klein described the operation of the death

instinct (1946, 1948), which she stated is “felt as fear of annihilation and takes the form



Page 12

of fear of persecution” (Klein, 1946, p. 296). Similarly, Fairbairn (1943, p. 79) called the

death instincts “masochistic relationships with internalized bad objects.” This fear of

persecution can result in several defensive processes that are set forth below.

Klein (1946) discussed the infant’s relationship to its mother around a basic task,

feeding, and, correspondingly, the breast as a first external object with which the infant

develops a relationship. Addressing two polar feeling states—gratification associated

with being fed and nurtured, and frustration associated with hunger and neediness that

are not readily satisfied—Klein (1946, p. 298) described, respectively, the “good” and

the “bad” breast, and a cycle of projection and introjection by which the ego manages

these good and bad objects.

Courtesy of the infant’s oral aggression, which is expressed through teething,

chewing, and biting, the bad breast is perceived by the infant as fragmented, taken in “in

bits” (Klein, 1946, p. 297). Infantile oral aggression is a manifestation of the first

destructive impulse that is projected outwards by the infant in response to the

frustrations generated by the bad breast (Klein, 1946). This projection outwards

constitutes “a dispersal of the destructive impulse which is felt as the source of danger,”

and is, in Freudian terms, a deflection of the death instinct or fear of annihilation (Klein,

1946, p. 297). It is a defensive process by which the ego—in the face of “the primary

anxiety of being annihilated by a destructive force [experienced from] within”—splits

itself (Klein, 1946, p. 297). By contrast, the gratifying breast, taken in—or introjected—

via gratifying sucking and the resulting feeling of satiation, is felt to be complete, and

counteracts the projective processes of splitting and dispersal (Klein, 1946). The

process cycles, with the infant being able to hold on to the feelings of gratification



Page 13

associated with the good breast, but only until the feeling of frustration associated with

the bad breast sets in once again. Klein (1948, p. 31) streamlined her description of

these processes as follows:

To summarize: the frustrating (bad) external breast becomes, owing toprojection, the external representative of the death instinct; throughintrojection it reinforces the primary internal danger-situation; this leads toan increased urge on the part of the go to deflect (project) internal dangers(primarily the activity of the death instinct) into the external world. There istherefore a constant fluctuation between the fear of internal and externalbad objects, between the death instinct acting within and deflected outwards.

C. Defenses in Protection of the Ego and Projective Identification

Klein (1946, p. 299) cites four defensive processes used by the ego to protect

itself in the scenario presented above: Idealization, by which the object is split, with the

good aspects of the breast exaggerated so as to protect against “fear of the persecuting

breast”; projection, also associated with splitting, whereby the ego deflects the death

instinct, thus avoiding fear of persecution and annihilation; introjection, by which the

good object is taken in and used by the ego as a defense against anxiety; and denial. The

bad object is

not only kept apart from the good one, but its very existence is denied,as is the whole situation of frustration and the bad feelings (pain) towhich frustration gives rise. This is bound up with denial of psychic reality. . . possibly only through strong feelings of omnipotence . . . . (Klein,1946, p. 299).

In this process, it is not only the object that is denied and annihilated, but also the

“object-relation which suffers this fate, and therefore a part of the ego, from which the

feelings towards the object emanate, is denied and annihilated as well.” (1946, p. 299).

Klein (1946, p. 300) references dual phantasied attacks on the mother, one, oral,

to “rob the mother’s body of its good contents,” and the other, anal/urethral, to



Page 14

“[expel] dangerous substances (excrements) out of the self and into the mother.” Klein

posits that the excrements or bad parts of the self are projected out “not only to injure,

but also to control and to take possession of the object” (1946, p. 300) who is

perceived as a persecutor. Through this process, the mother, now containing the bad

parts of the self, is not felt by the infant to be a separate individual: Mother is now “the

bad self” (1946, p. 300, original emphasis). This process forms the basis of projective

identification.

Making reference to psychotic disorders, Klein (1946, pp. 300-301) cites the

“identification of an object with hated parts of the self” as a contribution to the

“intensity of . . . hatred directed against other people.” The process allows for the

despised and/or hated part of the self—for the infant, the excrement—to be projected

out and placed into another. The other now carries the bad and the individual who has

made the projection completes the split by using denial and omnipotence (“I am

virtuous; the other is bad, and without virtue”) that support a sense of paranoia (“the

other and others like him are dangerous and threatening to me”) thus justifying the

means for thwarting the perceived threat of the destructive other. The inner world that

gets projected out is ruled by persecutory fears and “leads to the introjection—a taking

back—of a hostile external world; and vice versa, the introjection of a distorted and

hostile external world reinforces the projection of a hostile inner world” (Klein, 1946,

p. 304). Fairbairn presents a projective/introjective scenario not unlike that set forth by

Klein. The child wants to escape his bad objects, but cannot because he is identified

with them and they have, especially in the form of his parents, “wielded power over him

in the external world,” hence, “these objects retain their prestige for power over him in



Page 15

the inner world” (Fairbairn, 1943, p. 67). The child cannot reject his bad object parents

because he needs them (Fairbairn, 1943, p. 67).

Uvin’s observation that the violence experienced by both the Hutu and Tutsi are

deep in their individual and collective identities, followed by the ability of the Hutu to

systematically murder the Tutsis, is a prime example of bad objects being introjected,

violently projected, then reintrojected with all of the violence intact. The Hutu, for

example, already knew the feelings of injury, helplessness, and shame associated with

being the victim of violence. Accordingly, through their violence against the Tutsis, they

projected their own state of injury, helplessness, and shame into the Tutsi. However,

the feelings were not eliminated through this projection. The Tutsi remained as

reminders of the Hutu’s collective and individual sense of weakness. Thus, the Tutsis

are hated, which in turn generates the use of more violence and supports the desire to

eliminate the holder of the projective identification as well as the need to justify the

heinous act of eliminating the despised other. Omnipotence and grandiosity then acted

to assist the Hutu in splitting themselves off from expressions of self-hate, which had

been carried out through eradicating (by word and deed) the Tutsis.

A significant source of anxiety associated with projective identification arises

when “the impulses to control an object from within it stir up the fear of being

controlled and persecuted inside it” (Klein, 1946, p. 304). Correspondingly introjection

and reintrojection of a forcefully entered object reinforces the individual’s feelings of

inner persecution “since the introjected object is felt to contain the dangerous aspects

of the self. The accumulation of anxieties of this nature, in which the ego is . . . caught



Page 16

between a variety of external and internal persecution-situations, is a basic element in

paranoia.” (Klein, 1946, pp. 304-305).

D. Dangers of the Idealized Other

Through projective identification germinate the seeds of unthinking obedience

to the leader, whoever it may be; and the group, whatever it may demand. With racism

and nationalism “we give our superegos over to the leader, the organisation [sic] or

group or gang or nation or ‘the cause.’” (Young, 1993, p. 5). Violence and destruction

are not far behind. Indeed, Klein (1946, p. 300) calls projective identification “the

prototype of an aggressive object-relation.”

The excessive projection out of parts of the self can result in the feeling that

parts of the personality are lost. The other, which can take the form of the individual or

the state, then becomes the holder of all good, and, accordingly, “becomes the ego-

ideal” a process that impoverishes the ego (Klein, 1946, p. 301). “Very soon such

processes extend to other people, and the result may be an over-strong dependence on

these external representatives of one’s own good parts” (Klein, 1946, p. 301). Simply

stated, others hold the goods, leaving the individual self puny and weak, needing to rely

upon those idealized others. In agreement with Freud, Fairbairn discussed the super

ego as an “internalized object, with which the ego has a relationship . . . . based upon a

process of identification” (1943, p. 61).

Armstrong-Perlman (1994, p. 224) describes the individual trapped in

relationships with theher who has “become the ego ideal, now externalized, who must

be submitted to at all costs.” Indeed, this dependent relationship provides infinite

amounts of psychic fuel for subsequent splitting since “[t]he frustrating aspects of the



Page 17

relationships are denied as well as the consequent rage, hatred, and humiliation, and the

shame regarding the humiliation.” (Armstrong-Perlman, 1994, p. 224). Loss of this ego-

idealized other is experienced by the weakened self as “potentially catastrophic: The

fear is that loss will lead either to the disintegration of the self, or to a reclusive

emptiness to which any state of connectedness, no matter how infused with suffering, is

preferable.” (Armstrong, Perlman, 1994, p. 224).

E. Simplicity of Mind and the Moral Void

Referencing Klein’s depictions of aggressive infantile phantasies, and recalling the

myriad instances of racially and ethnically based violence and genocide, Young (1993, p.

6) describes the underlying internal psychological process as constituting paranoid

phantasies that are “persecutory and schizoid because fears and feelings about the self

are split off and projected into the Other—initially the mother/breast and later to

outgroups.”

Both Young (2001) and Bollas (1992) cite the achievement of a simplicity of mind

as a key element of moving, respectively, to a fundamentalist or fascist state of mind.

Psychoanalytically, the simplification to which they refer is a regression in which the

middle ground is eliminated and the world split—divided “into safe and threat, good and

evil, life and death” (Young, 2001, p. 3). In defining the “fascist state of mind” Bollas

(1992, p. 200) states as a core element, “the presence of an ideology that maintains its

certainty through the operation of specific mental mechanisms aimed at eliminating all

opposition.” Opposition is threatening, and the individual who is threatened in this way

suffers from Kleinian phantasies of annihilation, psychotic anxieties that further support



Page 18

rigid views (Young, 2001) in which others are first seen as part objects, then as

nonexistent.

In the wake of idealogy that will tolerate no opposition, a “moral void” is

generated, resulting in the need for “a victim to contain that void,” which leads to an act

of violence (Bollas, 1992, p. 203). Correspondingly, the mind has split off a dead core

self and projected it into a victim identified with the moral void. The fascist mind has

transformed the human other into a “disposable nonentity, a bizarre mirror

transference of what has already occurred in the fascist’s self experience” (Bollas, 1992,

p. 203). Through projective identification, the victim has been exterminated, but the

process must be completed. Denial and omnipotence, which Bollas (1992, p. 203) terms

“delusional grandiosity,” are enacted, thus idealizing the entire process of annihilation.

“Mental contents are now regarded as contaminates, and the Fascist mind idealizes the

process of purging itself of what it has contained.” (Bollas, 1992, p. 203). Following is

an excerpt taken from an interview with a member of the Hutu elite shortly after the

killings began in 1994:

Birchman’s face seems to swell as he rants on about the RPF and how theykilled the president in order to provoke the Hutus and start a civil war. Thisman is probably the second-most prominent academic in Rwanda. He hasstudied in Belgium and Canada. His English and French are impeccable andhe wears spotlessly clean clothes. Yet he struggles to hide his hatred of theTutsis. He is much too clever to blurt out his feelings . . . . Instead, he saysthat Tutsis inside the country co-operated with the RPF. They helped theminvade. As long as he has known them this is the feeling he has had. “They

were not loyal to the government.” (Keane, 1995, p. 172) [Birchman] is aman of such cleverness that he has contrived not to see any of the tens of thousands who have been killed in and around Butare. Nor has he heard anyscreams of dying people. (Keane, 1995, p. 173)

Birchman is an example of an individual deep in the schizoid position. His denial is

complete: Although he sits within earshot of people being killed, he hears and has seen



Page 19

nothing. He has idealized his own party and the anti-guerrilla rhetoric that supports and

justifies his hatred of the Tutsis and condones their deaths. His lack of connection with

the bloodbath leaves him clean, spotless, omnipotent, and grandiose. In Rwanda, circa

1994, there were many more like Birchman—individuals and groups also deep in the

schizoid position.

F. Schizoid Mechanisms and Societal Schemas

Bollas (1992, pp. 207-209) sets forth the following processes that move the

individual and/or group first toward a “fascist state of mind” and ultimately to genocide:

Distortion renders the opponent less intelligent and/or credible than before (Bollas,

1992). This instrument was used widely by the Hutu in building forces to annihilate the

Tutsis. Casting the Tutsis as foreign, evil, and wanting to kill the Hutus are only three

examples. The following statement illustrates one such distortion: “It is true that the

minds of ordinary Hutus are being poisoned against us. They are being told that we will

kill them like they killed our people.” (Keane, 1995, p. 140).

With decontextualization the opponent’s point of view is taken outside of its

proper context, thus leaving him to struggle with correcting this idea (Bollas, 1992). The

folk history belief that the Tutsis were bent on visiting harm on the Hutus as they did in

olden days, was a belief taken out of context and reality and utilized to incite the Hutus.

Given what has always been a limited numbers of Tutsis, as well as a further depleted

Tutsi population in Rwanda, due to earlier massacres and the many who had fled the

country, even with the existence of the RPF, it was unlikely that the Tutsis could have

rendered the Hutus servile. Bollas (1992) states that removing the victim/opponent

from his tribe and isolating him for the purpose of persecution is a non-rhetorical



Page 20

example of decontextualization. The fact that even after many Tutsis escaped Rwanda

for refugee camps in neighboring countries, they continued to be murdered by Hutus in

the camps (Uvin, 1998) is an example of actual decontextualization. The Tutsis were

systematically driven out, only to be ambushed and killed when they thought they were

safe from harm.

Denigration combines distortion and decontextualization, thus belittling the

opponent’s view (Bollas, 1992). Caricature allows for the person or group to be more

significantly identified with the qualities associated with the already denigrated views of

the person’s or group’s view (Bollas, 1992). Character assassination attempts to eliminate

opponents by discrediting the personal character of one who holds an opposing view

(Bollas, 1992). Further investigation into the history of Rwanda, especially regarding the

individuals involved in the socio-political battles fought among the Tutsis, Hutus, and

Bazungus is necessary to present examples of denigration, caricature, and character

assassination.

Change of name, which is often used in debate to recast the opponent’s ideas, can

also be used to further reduce the individual or group (e.g. “nigger” for black or “kike”

for Jew) (Bollas, 1992). The Mille Collines broadcasts in which the tutsi were reduced

to a despicable insect, “cockroaches,” exemplifies one way in which the Hutu extremists

managed to further reduce the image of the already discredited Tutsis.

Categorization as aggregation conveys the point at which the individual is now part

of a mass, without any individual identity (Bollas, 1992) (e.g. “What do you expect, he’s

a Republican”). In Rwanda, the process of aggregate categorization experienced a long

history, beginning before colonial days, but was manifested in many ways during Bazungu



Page 21

rule and post independence. The use of identification cards with ethnic classifications

stamped upon them was one way in which the individual was instantly categorized and

reduced. The association with the category of a variety of characteristics (e.g. Hutu as

descendants of Ham or Tutsis as intelligent and like the Bazungu) were easily accessed.

The aforementioned constitute what Bollas (1992, p. 207) calls “committive

genocide.” Absence of reference, which is the deliberate omission of an individual’s or

group’s existence and their works and/or culture, constitutes what Bollas (1992, p. 207,

209) names “omittive genocide.” The institution of a single party after independence,

not unlike the transfer of power to the Tutsis during colonialist days, is an example of

omittive genocide whereby entire groups of people were rendered impotent and

unimportant in the face of a totalitarian state.

Conclusion

The constellation of socio-economic, political and other historic factors that

contributed the raw material needed for the creation of a mechanism for mass murder

are many—too many to be fully described herein. However, the underlying psychic

phenomenon of projective identification and its societal manifestation form a schema for

a limited understanding of decades of genocidal destruction in Rwanda. There are many

factors that have not been explored, one being the failure of the international

community to assist a nation where genocide occurred not once, but twice in a 40 year

time span. It is unfathomable that one million people would be slaughtered when 20,000

of the same people were massacred fewer than 40 years before.

Colonialism and its remnants, as well as totalitarianism, served as the

overarching economic/governmental structures that facilitated the destruction described



Page 22

above and much more. Fairbairn (1943, p. 80) stated that the weakness of

totalitarianism, however, is its reliance upon widespread success, “for only under

conditions of success can the regime remain a good object to the individual. Under

conditions of failure, the regime becomes a bad object to the individual; and the socially

disintegrating effects of separations-anxiety then begin to assert themselves at the

critical moment.” A flame of hope burns.



References

Anderson, Benedict, (1991). Imagined Communities. New York: Verso.

Armstrong-Perlman, E. M. (1994). The allure of the bad object. In J. S. Grotstein and D.

B. Rinsky (Eds.), Fairbairn and the Origins of Object Relations (pp. 222-233). NewYork: Guilford Press.

Barth, Fredrik, (1969). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural

Differences. Boston: Little, Brown.

Bollas, C. (1992). The fascist state of mind. In Being a Character (pp. 193-217). London:Routledge.

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1952). The repression and the return of bad objects (with specialreference to the "War Neuroses"). In Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality (pp.59-81). London: Routledge.

Keane, F. (1995). Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey . New York: Viking.

Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. In J. Riviere (Ed.), New Developments in Psychoanalysis (pp. 292-320). London: Hogarth Press.

Klein, M. (1948). On the theory of anxiety and guilt. International Journal of Psycho-

Analysis, 29, 114-123.

Uvin, P. (1998). Aiding Violence. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, Inc.

Young, R. M. (1993). Psychoanalysis and the other: Psychopathology and racism. RetrievedMarch 7, 2005, from www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/psysc/staff/rmyoung/papers/paper16h.html

Young, R. M. (2001). Fundamentalism and terrorism. Retrieved March 7, 2005, fromhttp://psychematters.com/papers/young2.htm

Documents

Genocide Boris