Hutu and Tutsi Ethnic conflict
Name
Institution
Cross-cultural psychology has been defined as a branch of psychology which looks at how cultural factors influence human behaviors (Keith, 2010). Increasing number of psychologists has investigated how behaviors differ among various ethnic groups throughout the world. Keith in his research founded two ethnic groups that were at war with each other. The two groups were Hutu and Tutsi tribe from Rwanda. Their stories about their conflict and fighting were all over in news reports. Their reasons for war have been discussed by various psychologists based on their differences and their similarities.
According to Levinson (1998), in February of 1994, the president of Rwanda who was a Hutu, called habyrimana was shot down in a plane. Hutu extremist, who never liked Tutsi, used this as an excuse of killing Tutsis because they blamed them for the killing. However, this was not the probable case, in that, Tutsis believed that the plane was most likely to be shot down by Hutus who never liked the fact that habyrimana was working mostly on peace treaty with Tutsis.
Levinson argues that, it is more likely the whole thing was planned and they wanted top have ethnic war with Tutsis. Typically, conflict between these two groups were colonial influenced, in that, before these happened, there was British that controlled the area and allowed Tutsis who were the minority to rule the government. This implies that, most of this ethnic conflict started when the group was placed in power and thereafter Hutus took control. It caused a continual struggle between the two groups for power to the extent it caused the death of 800, 000 people within three months in 1994.
Despite of their differences, there were similarities between the two groups in that they shared a common land, heritage along with language. Their similarities caused the two groups at war with each other, because each group wanted to be better in terms of wealth possession, power along with land possession. Mamdani (2002) argues that, ethnic identity influences ethnic conflict in that the two groups fight with each other to own and posses the best possession discussed as concept of conformity.
Concept of conformity and how it relates to these ethnic groups
Conformity has been defined as the act of matching beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that people perceive as norms of their social group or society. Conformity may have good or bad effects depending on the situation. It influences maintenance of social norms in addition, helps the society to eliminate behaviors that are contrary to the unwritten rules. However, in this sense it can be proven not to have positive force which prevents dangerous behavior from emerging. People of Burundi and Rwanda were traditionally considered Nilotic. They spoke the same language and had similar Christian religious beliefs. In addition, conformity within Rwandan culture was very deep (Mamdani, 2002).
There was a requirement from the law to obey authority in everything whether bad or good. Reporting in 1994 January, human rights in the entire world assessed the combat operations by the Rwanda army to have been associated with civilian atrocities of civilian groups that were composed of majority Hutus in ethnic violence against Tutsi. These ethnic wars were led by local administrators that were militia attached to Rwanda ruling political party for a longtime. Those reluctant to kill destroyed crops, slaughtered cattle, burned homes and killed many people using spears, clubs and spears.
Additionally, Tutsi retained their dominant position over the Hutu within Rwanda until 1961 when monarch was overthrown. Unsuccessful Hult revolt led to 100, 000 deaths that were mostly Hutu. When Tutsi evaluated Hutu to be liked more, it caused them to cause ethnic conflict. Despite of their matching beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, we can conclude that, their war was political because each ethnic tribe wanted to possess their own goods along with possession.
The relationship between social perception and social cognition, and social perceptions required to be addressed in order to resolve the conflict between the two groups.
Social cognition has been defined as encoding storage, retrival together with processing in the brain (Saha, 2006). This method has been used as an approach in social psychology in investigating various social abilities that disrupt information processing in the brain and any other disorder. In addition, Saha has defined social perception as the part of perception that helps people to understand individuals with the groups of their social world which is an element of cognition in giving solution of changing behaviors. This implies that, there is a relationship between social cognition and social perception in that, social recognition determines the outcome of social perception as discussed in their definition. Additionally, both have similarities in influencing self-motives in desire to achieve beneficial outcomes that maintain positive behaviors.
Relating the concept of social cognition and social perception on the two groups, the underlying root condition for their cause of mass violence can be assessed by examining social psychological factors. In analyzing, certain factors of cultural history, dehumanization, moral exclusion, impunity can be then be applied in analyzing the effectiveness prevention of its occurrence. In social perception, such behavior recognitions can be used in outlining instances of genocides for instance, threat of genocide committed by different tribes, in addition, knowing what caused the war along with having full information on any political leader that would have influenced the conflict. In doing the assessment, violent forms of aggression may be assumed to be natural part of human evolutionary development, but should be avoided in all means (Saha, 2006).
In conclusion, the ability of organizing the development of pro-social behavior plays a major role in survival humanity rather that using aggressive behavior. This may be a fundament role in controlling behaviors that may cause war, in addition, solving the differences between the two groups.
References
Keith, K. D. (Ed) (2010). Cross-Cultural Psychology: Contemporary Themes and Perspectives. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Levinson, D. (1998). Ethnic groups worldwide: a ready reference handbook. Westport New York: Greenwood publishing group
Mamdani,M. (2002). When victims become killers: colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda. New York: Princeton University Press
Saha, S.C. (Ed) (2006). Perspectives on contemporary ethnic conflict: primal violence or the politics of conviction. California: Lexington Books
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