Learn from history? Not really…
Partition in India was needed. Muslims and Hindus had serious religious problems, neither wanted to ‘share’ their land. Religious rebellions had already happened, everybody feared reprisals from the opposing party.
In Lahore everything started happening fast. Nobody knew to which side it was going to belong. Tension was high, one could probably almost grasp it. Then the killings started.
When I watched a movie about the last weeks before partition and a few weeks afterwards, with the British not doing much to help, it reminded me of another topic I had studied before.
In 1994 Rwanda witnessed one of the most brutal genocide ever: search for “fastest genocide” on google. Everything you’ll find will be related to it.
Two ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsi. The latter used to be the ruling power. Hutu overthrew the Tutsi monarchy. The Rwandan Patriotic Front (Tutsi), a rebel group, fought until the 90s, a peace deal was agreed upon. Yet, intertribal tensions remained. 1994, April 4 was the ill-fated date that started a 100 day long killing of roughly 1 million people.
Neither the British nor the UN did enough to help or prevent.
Learn from history? Not really…
Anyone interested in a good summary of the rwandan genocide? Watch this movie
