IS REEP HATE RADIO HARMLESS? Hate radio, a case study: Rwanda

This is a frightening article.

“In Rwanda,” Gowing writes, “hate radio… systematically laid the groundwork for mass slaughter from the moment it was licensed in July 1993.” <3> It also helped facilitate the genocide, as RTLM broadcast names, addresses and license plate numbers of Tutsi targets. <4> “Killers often carried a machete in one hand and a transistor radio in the other” <5> according to Power.

RTLM and the propaganda it broadcast did not happen by accident. Rather, the founding of the station in 1992 by Hutu hard-liners closely associated with the government and its subsequent activities were “directly promoted by government authorities” as “the political and military elite established RTLM as part of this broader strategy to thwart the impact of internal reform.”


http://www.internews.org/mediainconflict/mic_rwanda.html

Watch Hotel Rwanda. Understand that this will happen here.

I have more faith in my fellow americans than that. I really don't think that either side politically in this country wants to commit some kind of genocide against the other side. There are always wackos who feel that way, like McVeigh or JE Rudolph. They don't speak for all conservatives, just like the PETA and eco-terrorists don't speak for me.

I'm not saying that it can't happen here, or that we should ever lose our vigilance when it comes to confronting genocidal mentality. But I can't imagine the people I know who I disagree with politically (conservatives) taking up arms and killing their liberal neighbors because they are egged on by a radio personality.

The situation in Rwanda went a lot deeper than hateful radio broadcasts.

Indeed. And I am not saying that we are the same as Rwanda, but here also the situation goes a lot deeper than hateful radio broadcasts. I don't think we blue state urban progressives fully appreciate just how deep the gulf is, how different a world, the hardcore religious right lives in. We joke about it, referring to ourselves as the 'reality based community', but it is no joke. The republican control of government is based partially on their empowerment of the hardcore theofascist right. That empowerment is a very dangerous thing, as the agenda of the religious right is the establishment of a theocracy here. The republican party is playing with fire. The corporate greed heads and the neocons think that they can just pander to the theofascists and use them, but it is not clear at all who exactly is using who here. It is not the people you know who you disagree with politically (conservatives) who are the problem, it is the people you most likely don't know who live in that other bizaro world, who are very well organized, who are fed a steady stream of hate in their exurban mega churches every sunday, they are the problem and they will be doing the lord's work as they slaughter us.

I haven't heard in regards to Rwanda what conditions were like leading up to the disaster there, but think Yugoslavia, think Iraq. Ten years before they blew up, no one imagined that they would devolve into ethnic and religious civil war. They were friends, neighbors, families even. They look alike, they dress alike, they speak the same language - but they have family names, or first names, that identify them as one group or another. Just like, perhaps, you. But as ethnic cleansing progresses, the neighbor who happens to be different is threatened not by you, but by strangers, and is forced to move. You are not forced to move. The neighbor, who you talked to over the fence, has suddenly lost everything and resents you, because you didn't. The neighbor complains to some acquaintances, where he moved to, and those acquaintances take it on themselves to pay you a visit. Not the neighbor, who you know and like, but strangers.

The friends and neighbors may even go out of their way to help protect you from the strangers, but there are a lot more strangers than neighbors.

Don't imagine it could not happen here.

I'm glad you've brought it up again.

Whenever someone acts as if there's something benign about government sponsored propaganda masquerading as independent political commentary, remind them of Rwanda.

Whenever someone repeats Rush's lie that he's just a "harmless little fuzzball," remind them of Rwanda.

girls name from, probably, like, Louisiana.

A land far away, where people heard a tale on the radio that some of their neighbors were plotting to kill them, and it was kill or be killed--that's riveting to anyone, whether they've heard of Rwanda or not.

I'd like to think this is a non partisan thing. I know I can talk to even my wingnut acquaintances and get them to agree that genocide is a Bad Thing. Where we go with the lessons we learn from Rwanda, I guess, depends on our skills as persuaders.

(If that makes any sense at all...)

glad you're applying the principles. Good points.

tons of brand new machetes before the blood bath started..if anyone thinks it can`t happpen here is sadly mistaken...