Recap for the story
Mr. Gordon having taken his lunch would not hesitate making a trip to visit his friend who lived two miles away. He decided to walk instead of boarding a vehicle. His walking stick as well as Tommy his tinny dog was his companion and they moved together each time he was going somewhere. Leisurely, he started taking a stroll. He couldn’t avoid whistling as it had become part of his hobbies. Tommy followed waged its tail as a sign of peace and enjoying the company. After taking few steps he could see people forming in different groups creating some kind of discussions. At first, he found it looking awkward but he decided to ignore them and continued with his journey. After all they were discussing their private matter which was not in his interest.
It took him less than an hour to reach Zamri’s house. The cool and serene environment of his friend’s compound seemed to tell him Mr. Gordon that everything was okay. It gave him an assurance that he could feel at home. As usual, Zamri was standing at the balcony of his house relaxing after some trimming the edge of his fence the whole morning. He welcomed his friend warm heartedly and after giving him a seat at the visitors’ room, they began to chat. However, that day Zamri seemed to be out of conversation. Something clicked in Gordon’s mind that all was not well with Zamri but he decided to keep it to himself.
After some few minutes they could hear people screaming from everywhere as they moved towards Zamri’s house. Tension grew among them and Mr. Gordon could not figure out what was going on. In about one minute, Zamri dashed to his store and came back with a sword and started making threat towards his friend Gordon. Left with no choice, Gordon had to flee. Zamri having come from the Tutsi community and Gordon from Hutu, he could now get a clear understanding that something had been unearthed, tribal disparities.
Identity based conflict
Identity based violence has been a common phenomena in the world today. It is surprising that Zamri and Gordon had been friends for a long time and yet one day Zamri decided to attack his friend who had played him a visit in what seem to be an organized ordeal. This incident happened in 1994 during Rwanda genocide that led to extermination of close to a million people. In many cases, identity based conflicts are deeply rooted in the history of the people (André and Platteau 43). However, they emerge at one particular point and once uncovered, they become explicit and people come openly and start fighting, a situation that comes as a surprise to many people.
Facts behind identity based conflict
Identity based conflict occur due to diversities in the interests and needs. Identity based needs usually occurs as a result of people’s zeal to retain the sense of who they are and the position they take in the world (Prunier 496). For instance in Rwanda, the Tutsi communities had been praised and highly exulted as a high status tribe. This did affect the Hutu who were considered to be an inferior community (Magnarella 30). It is therefore not surprising to find out that even though Zamri and Gordon had been friends, they had disparities which were created long time ago and his reaction to the pre-planned ordeal was a demonstration that the disparities were existed.
Works Cited
André, Catherine and Jean-Philippe Platteau. Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap, Journal of Economic ‘Behavior and Organization, Vol 34, (1998): 1-47.
Magnarella, Paul. “Explaining Rwanda’s genocide, Human Rights and Human Welfare,” Vol 2.1 (2002): 25-34.
Prunier, Gerard. The Rwanda Crisis: 1959-1994. London: Hurst. Uvin, P. Violence and UN population data, Nature, Vol 372 (1994): 495-496.s.