The Creation of the Enemy: A Story of Demons and Saints

"The Creation of the Enemy", by Barbara Ann Bush, explores the process of identity construction immediately preceding the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. While Rwanda seemed to descend into chaos immediately following the downing of President Habyarimana's plane on April 6, 1994, the genocide had long been underway. This case study is then used to investigate the construction of identity through a specific formation of discourse identified here as "pre-genocide rhetoric". While this case study is particular to Rwanda, a few illustrative examples from the genocides of Germany and Cambodia reveal that genocidal movements require, or have used, similar rhetorical devices. Placing communication at it's center, this analysis provides an understanding as to how discourse is used to essentialize and polarize even populations living in intimate proximity. This study is not an attempt to dislocate the other necessary and aggregate components to genocide, but merely to highlight 1) the similarityin pre-genocide rhetoric across such social and political phenomenon, and 2) to understand genocides as under-girded by rational structures, and as social and political movements.