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2 What Happened 27
6 Interruptions 113
Notes 171
Acknowledgments 174
Paul opens the driver’s side door to get out and as-
sess the situation. But stepping out of the vehicle, he
realizes that he has not driven off of the road. Instead,
the road is covered with bodies. It’s an image that cap-
tures both the tragedy and reality of Rwanda in the
spring of 1994.
A book about the Rwandan genocide must be a
book about bodies.
But this book cannot just be about the hundreds of
thousands of Rwandan bodies that were mutilated in
the spring of 1994. Of course, each one of those bodies
is precious to God. Each bears the very image of God.
But we cannot begin to understand the life and death
of these bodies until we consider another body — the
body politic.
The genocide of 1994 did not erupt out of nowhere.
It has a political history. It happened in a nation called
Rwanda, with certain borders and laws and economic
policies that had been in place for some time. The kill-
ers and the killed in Rwanda were Rwandans — which
is to say, they shared a political history where the labels
Hutu and Tutsi meant something, not only about who
you were but also about how you were supposed to
relate to those who were not like you. When Hutus
were told to kill their Tutsi neighbors in 1994, they
either did or they were killed. Rwanda’s genocide is not
just a story about the bodies of some who were victims
and others who were killers. It is about the ultimate
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