McCoy, Jason. “Making Violence Ordinary: Radio, Music and the Rwandan Genocide”

Jason McCoy’s article on the usage of music in the Rwandan genocide was published in the 55th anniversary edition of the journal African Music, which provides its reader with a wide range of differing perspectives on African music.

McCoy argues that the Rwandan radio station Radio-Television Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) created an atmosphere which normalized pro-genocidal opinions, through consistently playing songs with hate speech and voicing hatred towards the Tutsi. McCoy places RTLM’s role in the genocide in the context of perpetration, committed by normal civilians rather than as a form of extreme nationalistic and sociopathic behavior (85).

McCoy discusses the dangers of radio when used as a platform for propaganda. This includes dismissing or failing to recognize (extreme) nationalism when normalized through radio coverage, when perceived as harmless or, when it presents “so many obvious lies, that it [is] hard to take seriously” (94). McCoy offers a fresh perspective on this issue by analyzing it through a non-Western context.

The article is divided into four sections. In the first section, McCoy provides the reader with an historical overview of the conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and the role colonial Europe played in reinforcing said conflict.

In the second section, McCoy argues that RTLM played a significant role in rallying the Hutu against the Tutsi, but also in directing the Hutu people as well as militants to move against the Tutsi with the intention of killing them, hours after the death of the Rwandan President; however, he argues that the involvement of RTLM in the conflict started more than a year prior to the genocide. The broadcast started out relatively innocently, which is why it was not perceived as dangerous.

In the third section, McCoy moves on to close reading specific songs written by Bikindi about the conflict, which were often used by RTLM to further their political agenda. In the end, Bikindi was arrested, tried and sentenced to fifteen years for the hate speech expressed in his songs, which were used to further the genocidal agenda.

In the last section, McCoy discusses how RTLM used both Bikindi’s songs as well as Western, particularly American, popular music as propaganda to further promote their genocidal agenda against the Tutsi. This section also functions as the conclusion of McCoy’s article. McCoy states that Rwanda’s government ignored international warnings about the serious repercussions the radio station’s messages could have on the existing conflict, one of which was issued three months prior to the genocide. McCoy argues that both the Rwandan as well as foreign politicians ignored or dismissed the seriousness and power the radio and music could have in this (and other) conflicts.

McCoy’s article contributes to perpetrator studies by emphasizing the role of music and the radio, two aspects of the process and context of perpetration that have not received sufficient attention so far. In close readings of specific songs and focusing on the figure of Bikindi, it presents a methodology for how to study the role of music and the radio in perpetration.

Author of this entry: Alyssa Vreeken.

McCoy, Jason. “Making Violence Ordinary: Radio, Music and the Rwandan Genocide.” African Music: Journal of the International Library of African Music, vol. 8, no. 3, 2009, pp. 85-96.