Reddit Reddit reviews We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

We found 30 Reddit comments about We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda
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30 Reddit comments about We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda:

u/philge · 31 pointsr/HistoryPorn

Thanks for elaborating, I was trying to give a very brief outline.

For anyone interested in the history of Rwanda and the Rwandan genocide, I'd recommend Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families. It's absolutely nuts to me that over a 3 month period people picked up their machetes and slaughtered 20% of the population.

u/RepostFromLastMonth · 23 pointsr/worldnews
u/Xlator · 19 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

Roméo Dallaire's autobiography, Shake Hands With the Devil, is a good, if long-winded read. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families is briefer, but very good nonetheless, and contains first-hand accounts of the events from both Hutus and Tutsis.

Both books were very painful to read, indeed I couldn't bring myself to finish either, but they are very, very good. I think I will have to give them another try, definitely don't regret buying them.

u/tttrouble · 19 pointsr/books

Can't believe this isn't a top comment. If ever there was a category that this book fit in, it would be this one.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

Started reading it and had to stop. Very poignant.

u/OvidPerl · 17 pointsr/AskHistorians

Kagame is most likely not behind the murder of Habyarimana. Looking at the chain of events, the Hutu majority was being stirred up against the Tutsi minority for months prior to the assassination. There were also rumors of something big happening before the assassination. Less than an hour after Habyarimana's plane crashed, the military had roadblocks up and was searching opposition leader houses. Within hours, the massacre of Tutsis by Hutus had began, the culmination of months of propaganda against the "Tutsi cockroaches".

We don't know who fired the SAMs that hit Habyarimana's plane, but they were most likely fired from areas that the Rwandan army already controlled. It's widely believed that Hutu extremists who wanted to eliminate the Tutsis were responsible for taking out Habyarimana, a major obstacle to their goal. Further, his agreement to the Arusha Accords would end the Rwandan Civil War and create a power-sharing agreement with the Tutsis, something that many Hutus disagreed with. To be fair, Habyarimana didn't like the accords, particularly since they stripped many of his powers, but they were a means to end the civil war.

So why would Kagame, a Tutsi, assassinate Habyarimana? The Arusha Accords would give Tutsis power. The genocide decimated Kagame's tribe and anyone paying attention to the situation in Rwanda knew that it was a powder keg. The Tutsis were in a position to reclaim some lost political power and there was even a possibility that the Rwandan "Tutsi diaspora" across neighboring countries could eventually return home. For Kagame to throw away this huge win for the Tutsis on an outright gamble doesn't make sense.

Note regarding the use of the words "civil war": Some would argue that because the Tutsis who invaded Rwanda in 1990 were based in Uganda, largely members of the Ugandan army, and supported by the Ugandan president, that it was an invasion by Uganda and not a civil war. However, there was also a law passed that prevented non-Ugandans from owning land in Uganda. Because many of the Tutsis in the army were involuntarily exiled from Rwanda, but could not have a stable place in their adopted country, they felt tremendous pressure to return "home". I'm hard-pressed to say whether the term "civil war" is without merit, but it's a succinct way of describing the situation without getting into the complexities.

Sources: The Rwanda Crisis: History of Genocide and We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families (a brilliant and heart-breaking book).

u/golfpinotnut · 16 pointsr/HistoryPorn

There's a book that won the National Book Critics Circle Award about the genocide, written by Philip Gourevitch who covered the story for The New Yorker. It is called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

If you want to read his pieces from The New Yorker, here's the author's page on their website with links to his stories.

u/yellow_eskimo · 12 pointsr/books

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families: about the Rwanda genocide, written in 1998. You will lose whatever faith you ever held in western politicians and international organizations after reading this book.

The descriptions of the Clinton administration arguing over the technical meaning of the word 'genocide' are just painful to read.

u/kaleidingscope · 9 pointsr/history

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild is really good. Its about the Belgian King's rule over the Congo.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevich is an account of the Rwandan Genocide of '94.

That's more recent history, but the fact is little is written about pre-colonial Africa (not dealing with Egypt). I haven't read much, but I'm sure theres some decent readings about the Mali Empire (maybe start with Mansa Musa?).

u/papierkriegerin · 8 pointsr/Dachschaden

Ich kann We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda empfehlen, mit der Warnung, dass das Buch extreme Gewaltdarstellungen enthält. (Und Bildmaterial, wenn ich mich richtig erinnere. Ist etwas länger her.)

u/rkoloeg · 6 pointsr/worldnews

English classes at the university level are usually literature-centered, not so much about grammar and composition. Thus, plenty of opportunity for political questions to come up. My first university English class was entirely focused on experiences of political violence; we read stuff like We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families and selections from Rising Up, Rising Down.

Music theory is a bit more of a reach, but suppression of particular composers and styles of music is absolutely something that happened in China as well as the Soviet Union. So it's plausible that it could at least come up in a certain context.

I suppose calculus is pretty safe, unless one has a strong opinion on Newton vs. Leibniz.

u/UmarthBauglir · 4 pointsr/DnDBehindTheScreen

This is especially true when times are challenging. It's also self reinforcing.

So say you have two groups that live near each other and get along well. Then there is a famine and people are starving.

Group A starts looking out for their own because they empathize with them more, or they are more closely related, or whatever. They then start to fight over the resources to make sure their group is taken care of. Maybe they steal from the other group or maybe they think (real or not) the other group is stealing from them. You get people just wanting to "protect ourselves" and this idea of us vs. them really sets in. Toss in a few murders or maybe Group A riots and burns down an area dominated by Group B.

Now even after the hard times have passed things can't easily go back to the way things were before. Group B has legitimate reasons to be mad at Group A. They burned down their houses and killed a bunch of their people. Group A knows Group B hates them and is out to get them so they had better act first.

Group A maybe feels guilty about burning so many people alive but some rationalization will help with that. Did you know Group B actually set the fire in the first place and they are just trying to blame Group A? Did you know Group B are all thieves so they only got what's coming to them.

It's very easy for this to spiral out of control and very hard to pull back from it.

If you want to read a book that highlights how badly things can go I'd recommend, [We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda] (http://www.amazon.com/Wish-Inform-Tomorrow-Killed-Families/dp/0312243359)

u/tilmbo · 4 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

You bring up a really important factor in current African politics - that modern nations were drawn without any concern for ethnic nations within their geographic borders, but I think Rwanda is not really a good example of what you're talking about.

No one is really sure where the Hutu and Tutsi come from (!). It is often said that the Tutsi were herders who came to Rwanda from Ethiopia while the Hutu were native farmers, but there is little actual evidence to support this claim. Instead, it gained ground when European race-scientists put it forth. Ethiopians were seen as Caucasian (and therefore ,superior), so there was an attempt to attribute any good aspects of African culture or societies to them instead of to 'lesser' Africans.

Anyway, regardless of where the two groups came from, there was, over generations, lots of mixing between the two groups. By the time the Belgians got to Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis spoke the same language, had the same religion, lived in the same communities, married eachother, had kids together. There was a general idea that Tutsis raised cattle while Hutus farmed, bu in reality both groups did both. Basically, there wasn't that big a difference between Hutus and Tutsis. The genocide couln't have been avoided if the Hutus & Tutsis were separated because, really, they weren't even different groups.

When then Belgians came, they came with their own mindset and world view. Belgian society was one with rival ethnic groups - the Flemish and the Walloons - and that rivalry came across in the make up of the Belgian government. When they set up a government in Rwanda, they set it up with that model. They saw the Tutsis as descendents of Caucasian Ethiopians and as superior to the Hutus. They made everyone have an ID card saying if hey were Hutu, Tutsi, or pygmy. They gave the Tutsis more power and more access to education and better jobs. They basically created tribal conflict where there hadn't been any.

Fast forward to Rwandan independence, and the Hutus, who had been disenfranchised under the Belgian system, were (understandably) pissed. Over the years, they began to disenfranchise Tutsis. And in 90s, it erupted into full-fledged genocide.

Clearly, this is an oversimplification. And I'm too lazy right now to go upstairs and pull citations out of the shelf full of books I have on the subject. But, for an awesome read about the genocide, its origins, and its ramifications, check out We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch. You might also check out Rene Lemarchand's writings, especially Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo, Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice, and & The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa*. I don't know that those can be accessed online, but this article of his also discusses the complexities of the Rwandan genocide.

And, since this is ELI5, here's the TL;DR:

When Europeans drew borders in Africa, they didn't care about the people there. Lots of times, this lead to later civil wars because two groups that were enemies had been lumped in together or because one group was split up between two different countries so they'd try to leave and make their own new country. But what happened in Rwanda in the 1990s was a little bit different, and a lot more complicated.

u/blackstar9000 · 4 pointsr/books

I like to tailor my recommendations to what I know about people, so a request like this leaves me a little at a disadvantage. Basically, I believe that there may be no such thing as a universally applicable book, and to that end, whether or not a book is really a "must-read" for any given person depends on the circumstances of that person's life. So what I'm going to give you instead is this: a list of the ten books that I've read that I think (at the moment) have the best chance of having an impact on any random English-speakers life. Make of it what you will.

Ahem. In no particular order:

  1. The Bridge at San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder

  2. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

  3. The Spirit Catches You and You Fell Down, by Anne Fadiman

  4. The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius

  5. We With to Inform You that Tomorrow We Well Be Killed With Our Families, by Philip Gourevitch.

  6. The Theban Plays of Sophocles.

  7. The Bell, by Iris Murdoch.

  8. The Book of J, by Harold Bloom and David Rosenberg.

  9. Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative, by Herbert Mason.

  10. The Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz.
u/ericalina · 3 pointsr/MorbidReality

About the Rwanda genocide. One of the best I've ever read.

we wish to inform you...

u/bltonwhite · 3 pointsr/todayilearned
u/harg7769 · 3 pointsr/books

Shake hands with the devil A very detailed account of the Rwandan genocide and the problems the head of the UN mission faced to get the world to try and care about what went on.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

Stories from the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda. Gives another side of the story to compare and contrast against Gen Dallaire's account.

Auschwitz : The Nazis & The 'Final Solution'

The title says it all...

u/mercedenesgift · 2 pointsr/worldnews
u/ReallyHender · 2 pointsr/HistoryPorn

If you want to read an incredibly powerful and gut-wrenching book on the Rwandan genocide, I highly recommend Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda.

u/crazy15 · 1 pointr/IAmA

A really good book about the genocide, def recommend to anyone
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch

u/ThatAudGirl · 1 pointr/books

Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees and We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch were both very difficult to read.

u/otiliorules · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

In the book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, the author discusses this process a bit. The book is really interesting (but sad). I read it after watching Hotel Rwanda.

http://www.amazon.com/Wish-Inform-Tomorrow-Killed-Families/dp/0312243359/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334242536&sr=8-3

u/justthistwicenomore · 1 pointr/explainlikeimfive

The below is based on my recollection of this amazing book

Rwanda is a small african country. As a result of specific policy choices made during the colonial era, the country was divided between a Tutsi minority that dominated politics and trade, and a Hutu majority that often felt left out of governance.

In the post colonial period, this ethnic divide deepened, and ultimately the Hutu majority took power in the country. The country faced trouble typical of the region at the time, with strongman government and ethnic strife.

Over time, the government increasingly used the Tutsi minority as a scapegoat for problems in the country. Following the assassination of the president (which some claim was the responsibility of his supposed allies) the government called on the Hutu population to rise up and cleanse the Tutsis. Spurred by radio personalities and the government, soldiers, police, and armed mobs began to slaughter Tutsis.

The international response was divided. France considered the Hutu government a client, and was opposed to direct foreign intervention. The UN forces in the country were similarly paralyzed, and politics prevented them from taking a direct role in trying to stop the worst of the conflict. (the leader of the UN force ultimately killed himself out of guilt for failing to do more, if I recall correctly).

Ultimately, a mostly Tutsi resistance force was able to stop the killing, eject the government and force the worst of the military out of the country (Which destabilized neighboring Congo).

The estimated death toll is between 800,000 and 1.2 million killed, I think, in a matter of weeks.

u/RedHermit1982 · 1 pointr/DebateAltRight

> The Tutsi and Hutu were ethnic groups/social classes within Rwanda, not the Congo. And Rwanda was under German control until 1916 when it was taken over by the Belgians, which was 7 years after Leopold II died.

I'll admit, I got my facts confused. I was just going off memory from what I learned from the film "Hotel Rwanda" and this book and it has been years since I read it.

I suppose I should have spent 5 minutes brushing up on my history before mentioning it.

But you're acting like you're somehow an expert when you obviously just went to Wikipedia and found the first thing you could find to debunk my claim...

The truth is still closer to my side. When the Belgians took over they implemented the ID card system which codified the ethnicities into a rigid caste system with the 1 percent Tutsis ruling over the 88 percent Hutus. This is what I was thinking of and I wrongly attributed it to Leopold. My bad.

But most historians trace the strife back to this action by the Belgians and I still stand by that position. There were divisions between the Hutus and the Tutsis prior, but people could move fairly freely between the ethnic groups. And there wasn't this intense hatred:

> The Hutu and Rwanda were not living in equality before European colonialism but major conflicts between the two ‘races’ didn’t occur until after European colonialism. The European “divide and conquer” strategy for dealing with native populations combined with the ‘scientific’ racism of the era gave motivation and reasoning for developing the divide between the Hutu and Tutsi. European colonialism directly created the animosity between the Hutu and Tutsi, through the subjugation of the Hutu and elevation of the Tutsi as well as the removal of any social mobility, that upon their subsequent withdrawal from the firestorm they created, they had put the country of Rwanda on the road to genocide.


And the use of ethnic ID cards provided a basis on which to carry out the genocide, i.e. you had lists of people who were designated Tutsi, much like you had people with Yellow Stars or Pink Triangles, designated Jews or Gays.

u/KlaatuBaradaNikto · 1 pointr/Anthropology

We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families is a great read about tribalism and the causes and events of the Rwandan Genocide. Long title but great book.

u/themodernvictorian · 1 pointr/AskReddit
u/William_Dowling · 1 pointr/worldnews

Relative to Bosnia. Try this, Kagame interviewed about why they couldn't bring them all to justice, not least because a very large number were parked in refugee camps in the DRC. The story of the Rwandans closing those camps is pretty horrific too.