The Kigali City like the rest of the Country started categorizing people in social classes called Ubudehe

ubudehe

“Kigali: Abaturage batanyuzwe n’ibyiciro bishya by’ubudehe bemerewe ubujurire” Literally meaning that people who are happy with the social or economic categorization could appeal.Social injustice is a relative concept about the claimed unfairness or injustice of a society in its divisions of rewards and burdens and other incidental inequalities based on the user’s worldview of humanity.

In the entrepreneurs of hate and entrepreneurs of Solidarity: Social Identity as a basis of mass communication,  Stephen Reicher, Nick Hopkins, Mark Levine , Rakshi Rath authored how  the principles of  social identity  could be  a psychological  model of mass communication.

They argue that these social identities could be construed by people to find their social identity and the meanings of the events of these identities. There is a long standing view that the masses are mindless and hence should only be appealed to in the simplest possible terms.  The Kagame regime is doing worse than all the previous regimes combined including the colonial administration that many Rwandans blame for the chaos and genocide that befell to our country.

When Europeans first explored the region and discovered the Country that has since become Rwanda, they created an interpretation of the people found in the region as three racially distinct tribes, coexisting in a complex social order: the Tutsis, Hutus, and Twa . The Tutsis, an elite minority of about 24% of the population, were tall, slim pastoralists. The Hutu majority, about 75% of the population, were stocky, strong farmers. And the Twa were a marginalized minority of 1% of the population: a tribe of pygmies, dwelling in the forests as hunters and gatherers.

Unfortunately this interpretation has been the pivot of the Rwandan disintegration of the cohesion that existed before the fabrics of the Rwandan societies were torn apart. These were rocks on which our grandfathers founded our country Rwanda we have today. Although these groups were distinct and stratified in relation to one another before the coming of the Europeans, the boundary between Tutsi and Hutu was somewhat open to social mobility.

The Tutsi elite were defined by their exclusive ownership of land and cattle. Hutus, however, though disenfranchised socially and politically, could shed Hutuness, or kwihutura, by accumulating wealth, and thereby rising through the social hierarchy to the status of Tutsi. Hence the social categorization was not permanent, however, when the Europeans came especially the Belgium administration after the defeat of Germanys in the Second World War, the Rwandans have been taught that they are different and they cannot live together without killing one another.

Indeed, in contrast the human cultural diversity was recorded in the early Rwandan oral histories, ritual texts, and biographies, in which the terms Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa were quite rarely used and had meanings different from those conceived by the Europeans. I’m bringing all this background to show Rwandans that our society has been divided by the Hyenas in both colonial and post colonial administrations for political and economic interetets.

Basically the Kagame regime has developed a colonial style of diving the Rwandans in the name of Ubudehe , it’s not only unfair or injustice but its morally wrong because it exploits Rwandans and creates hardship to some families who have to buy  a category from the local administration.  The RPF spin doctors who work to please their masters in Village Urugwiro so that they can solicit funds through deception will categorize Rwandans not according to their wealth but according to the instructions from the RPF Secretariat.

It’s a shame that the Kigali Mayor Mr. Fidele Ndayisaba is telling his Citizens that if they are not satisfied or happy with the classification they could appeal. “Mu gikorwa cyo gushyira abaturage mu byiciro bishya by’ubudehe, ubuyobozi bw’Umujyi wa Kigali bwatangaje ko bizakoranwa umucyo hirindwa kurenganya abaturage, ndetse hanashyirwaho amahirwe yo kujurira kubatanyuzwe n’aho bashyizwe “.

Can you imagine! Without telling the Rwandans or Kigali residents how they will appeal or where they will go to appeal, he just gets orders from the RPF secretariat then brings them to his people, feeds them in wholesale. This is the nature of a country compared to the North Korea. In fact, some people call it the North Korea of Africa.

Nobody dares to ask what he has been told; it’s in this context that the Great Lakes Human Rights Link is seriously concerned with these classes that will have both social and economic impact on the Rwandans. We urge the international human rights watch dogs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to take great interest in those categories of Rwandans. We shall continue to work hand in hand with our partners to ensure that Rwandans get the right and the best they deserve.

Joseph Ruhumuriza

Legal Researcher Great Lakes Human Rights Link.