The power of hate on the radio

In 1993, the problems in Rwanda escalated and the Hutu President, Melchior Ndadaye of Burundi, was assassinated. Ethnic tensions heightened quickly. 2,500 UN military officials from all over the world were sent to Rwanda to keep the peace between the Hutus and Tutsis. They were led by General Romeo Dallaire of Canada. The UN officials tried to keep peace as best they could, however the seize fire agreement was threatened by the Interahamwe, a group of extremists for Hutu nationalism who wished to exterminate all of the Tutsis. On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down while returning from a peace meeting with the Tutsi rebels. This horrific event was the catalyst for the Rwandan genocide and gave the Hutu extremists justification to kill the Tutsis, something they had been planning to do; it is possible that Hutu extremists shot down the President’s plane in order to set their plan in motion. That night Hutus told all Rwandans to stay in their homes. Little did the Tutsis know this was so the Hutus could find them and kill them. Hutus marched throughout the country with machetes, guns, grenades, and clubs, brutally murdering both Tutsis and Hutu moderates. The identification cards that had been put into action back in the days of the Belgians were now used to round up the Tutsis. A main tool during the genocide was the radio. The Hutu extremists controlled the radio and used it to play hate propaganda messages telling all Hutus to kill the Tutsis. The radio also pinpointed where Tutsis were hiding.

http://www.trincoll.edu/~thyde2/rwanda_browse_history.htm

Thanks to DUer Karenina for reminding me of this. :)

I was reminded of this.

and just as unacceptable . . .

Details are sketchy. Can't remember the name of the guest, but he had just returned from Rwanda.

The government there has just passed one of the most restrictive laws regulating the media. Journalists are required to be licensed and registered. The interviewee was a member of an advocacy group for a free press and was trying to persuade government officials to vote against the measure.

One of the officials told him (paraphrasing):

You do not understand. The media destroyed this country. The Hutu controlled radio stations broadcast the license plate numbers of Tutsis so Hutu extremists could identify them and kill them.

I was stunned.

:shrug:

I posted about it...I think 1 person responded

Hate kills and those who feed hate are complicit

the alleged, suppressed anger of the alleged, great silent majority. It was an outlet for mostly white audiences to vent their repressed racist outlook and not feel guilty about it, since the host was generally sympathetic and yet would not let them go over the line and sound like a closet Klansman or your average run-of-the-mill Nazi next door. Inevitably, it appealed to the basest part of everyone's nature to blame others for their personal failures, anxieties, fears, regrets, and despairs. Society, as a whole, has degenerated as a consequence of it. Nowadays, the American public no longer feels a mutual respect for each other. Society has been hardened by the pundits like Limbaugh, who warns his listeners that they have mortal enemies amongst them, in their cities, in their neighborhoods, in their workplaces, everywhere. The "us against them" argument has become a cancer that has killed reasonable discourse and solution-solving. A once reasonable and conciliatory population of citizens has been transformed by the Limbaugh philosophy of "No Compromise".

:kick:

I mentioned that in the "All you fascists" thread.

Whites on the other hang can understand when it's just parody!

Edit: Did I just mistype "on the other hand" as "on the other hang"? Lol sorry for the Freudian slip!

with the right-wing reactionary Cuban hate radio hosts. I've read that they "out" Cubans they believe are not sufficiently anti-Castro, and that they have given out addresses and phone numbers of people they want to intimidate.

If a Miami DU'er sees this post, he/she might add personal experience. It's pretty goddamned hideous, as these wingnuts are deadly, and have controlled the town for years with fear and intimidation.