{"id":395,"date":"2004-07-27T03:39:55","date_gmt":"2004-07-27T10:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=395"},"modified":"2004-07-27T03:39:55","modified_gmt":"2004-07-27T10:39:55","slug":"correction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2004\/07\/correction\/","title":{"rendered":"Correction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johan Norberg, on a blog that now commendably has permalinks but not yet commenting or trackbacks,Allowing feedback on posts is like encouraging free trade in the market of ideas: contriving to only allow the export of ideas from one’s blog to the internet is ideological mercantilism. Of course, it is a blogger’s sovereign right to dictate such policies, though all good Ricardians know this leads to sub-optimal intellectual equilibria.<\/span> rightly points out<\/a> that it is religious extremism of all stripes, not only (or even predominantly) Islamism, that is responsible for the world’s recent massacres and ethnic cleansing episodes, and he cites the role of Hutu Christian funamentalist incitement in the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. But then he also apportions blame thus (or, to be perfectly accurate, he cites a documentary he watched): <\/p>\n

The Catholic Church and Western Christian democrats supported the murderous [Rwandan Hutu majority] regime before and during the massacres – especially the Belgians and their prime minister Wilfried Martens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is a (figurative) whiff of Michael Moore about the way in which the filmmakers, Peter and Maria Rinaldo, construct this argument. Yes, Martens is a Christian Democrat (he was prime minister only up until 1992, however, and in a coalition with the Socialists<\/a> from 1988 on); yes, the west, including Belgium, supported the Rwandan government against a Tutsi insurgency from 1990 until the genocide of Tutsis by Hutu extremists began in earnest in 1994. But does the first fact have any bearing on the second? Hardly.<\/p>\n

This does not lessen the blame that Belgium can be made to shoulder for its role prior to and during the genocide. It’s just that attributing Catholic motivations to Belgian policy in Rwanda in the solidly secular 90s is a rather outlandish charge, especially if you consider that from 1992 on, it was a Socialist, Willy Claes<\/a>, who was Belgium’s foreign minister. I’m all for bashing the Catholic church, but I’d prefer not to see demons where there are none.<\/p>\n

I am not sure Johan is aware that the Rinaldos approach their subject matter with an ideological leaning<\/a> that tends to favor Marxist perspectives of current events, where imperialist western governments naturally ally themselves with reactionary conservative religious forces against progressive communist movements. I find all this a bit much — still, I haven’t seen the documentary, and so I am technically open to persuasion that the Belgians plotted to support the Hutu Habyarimana government out of a religious conviction that having lots of dead communist sympathizers was preferable to lots of dead Catholic extremists. In 1994.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I myself can’t find any indication that Radio Milles Collines (RTMLC), the private Hutu radio station that directed the massacres, propelled the genocide with primarily religious invocations: Neither this extensive description<\/a> of its broadcasts nor this one<\/a> mention religion even just once. Radio Milles Collines did, however, start the rumor that Belgians had shot down the plane that carried the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, which led to attacks on Belgian peacekeepers that left 10 of them dead. This prompted their removal from the country, which facilitated the genocide. Hutu extremists wanted the Belgians out, and Belgium obligedHere<\/a> is a primer on the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. And here<\/a> is a primer on the dress rehearsal in Burundi in 1972.<\/span>. This<\/em> is what Belgium can rightly be faulted for (in addition, of course, to a disastrous colonial stewardship that favored the Tutsis and which institutionalized a cycle of mounting retribution between Hutu and Tutsi as soon Rwanda and Burundi became independent in 1962).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johan Norberg, on a blog that now commendably has permalinks but not yet commenting or trackbacks,Allowing feedback on posts is like encouraging free trade in the market of ideas: contriving to only allow the export of ideas from one’s blog … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-economics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-6n","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}