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Alex Bisangwa is a Tutsi from Rwanda. He is currently a resident psychiatrist at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. Reflecting on the divisions that tore his country apart, Bisangwa told Satya that who ate meat was one of the key signifiers of who belonged where and to which people. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda took the lives of his entire family. My father was a farmer, rearing cattle. He bought cows from farms and took them to the Congo and sold them for a higher price. Most of the meat produced in Rwanda was eaten by Congolese, since there was more meat in Rwanda than actually consumed and there was not enough meat in Congo. He only had a number of cows, perhaps never more than 50 at any time. Although he raised cattle, my father was basically a vegetarian, and I was raised a vegetarian. My father was not a vegan because his main consumption was milk. For Tutsis it was traditionally forbidden to eat meat. My grandfather and his brother died at over 100 years of age and I do not think they ever ate meat. My father was a typical conservative Tutsi. He would buy meat maybe once a year, but he did not know how to cook it well. When I went to medical school, however, I ate meat every day, partly because it was well cooked. Both my high school and the medical school were in the hands of Europeans. When I finished school, I went back to my own culture. I am vegetarian because it is healthy--that aspect has been scientifically proven--and because it is my traditional Tutsi culture. Origins and Traditions Twas mainly ate meat from game and this reinforced the prejudice that eating meat made you less clever and more primitive. Twas also ate sheep, which was taboo even among Hutus, and neither Tutsi nor Hutu would drink from the same containers because the Twa ate sheep. While Hutus looked down upon Twas, Tutsis also would not share drinking straws with Hutus, again because of dietary considerations. There was, however, a humane component to the
Tutsi vegetarianism. If an animal was being hunted and ran into a Tutsi
house or property, the hunter would have to let the animal go unharmed.
Both Hutus and Twas hunted for meat, although very few Tutsis hunted
(except occasionally Tutsi kings, who hunted for sport) and the activity
was looked down upon. Domestic animals were sometimes used by Tutsi
prophets, who would read the entrails of chickens, sheep and bulls to
foretell the future. Instead of eating the rest of the animal, however,
the diviners would give the meat of the animal to Hutus and Twas. There
used to be a ceremony Tutsis would hold where each person would take
a bite from cooked meat but generally not swallow it. Ironically, that
ceremony was meant to increase the number of cattle and symbolized unity
with them. The vegetarian culture among Tutsis existed until the first white person reached Rwanda around 1870 and the Germans took control 30 years later. Tutsis did not have guns, and, during the colonial war, they were quickly defeated. The myth of Tutsi superiority was crushed, along with their vegetarian culture, because the Germans ate meat even more than Hutus. Tutsis slowly adopted the culture of the colonizer for many reasons, the main one being simple opportunism, for better positions and so on. When the Belgians took over, they made the situation worse by introducing ethnic identity cards around 1940. But it is unfair to blame them the most because ill feeling between Hutus and Tutsis had existed ever since they had been in Rwanda. The only difference was that, in pre-colonial times, Hutus had not put up any significant resistance against the more organized Tutsis and there were no office jobs to fight for. There was no scarcity of land or grazing grounds as the population was smaller than today. Tutsis who were in some kind of administrative positions were less than one percent of all Tutsis--the rest being peasants like Hutus. Cattle, however, always reflected more wealth than food crops and Hutus resented this. Moreover, the justice system, which consisted of hearings in public, would at times favor a wealthy Tutsi. All this created resentment among Hutus, a kind of inferiority complex, which means that they worry about being controlled by Tutsis. Neither Tutsis nor Hutus are mature enough politically to share a country. I am one of those who argues for separate Tutsi and Hutu states. Anyone who argues that Tutsis and Hutus should stay together does not care about war and genocide, and I am interested in all people being able to live. Even as I write this, there is fighting continuing in Rwanda. Nowadays, although there are a few old people who do not eat meat, 95 percent of Tutsis do. This situation may change, because Tutsis are now in charge of the country and a revival of the old vegetarian culture might happen, even if slowly.
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