Masculinities, Militarization, and Myth-Making in Post-Genocide Rwanda

In the context of Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) and Security Sector Reform (SSR) programs in post-genocide Rwanda,

• Rwanda’s DDR and SSR programs promoted masculinities that reinforced an association between manhood and military strength, resulting in the re-emergence of traditional gender norms in a militarized, post-genocide Rwanda.
• Certain gendered myths—like the “gentleman soldier” and “women as peacebuilders”—were used by the Rwandan Defense Forces to re-assert traditional gender roles.
• While Rwanda’s DDR/SSR programs included a gender perspective, they employed a masculine logic that never challenged militarization, failing to dispel the association between manhood and military power.

Summary

Despite adopting a gender perspective in its disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) and security sector reform (SSR) programs following the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has emerged a deeply militarized and authoritarian state. When the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF) engaged in the process of state-building and reconciliation, they relied on myths of a Rwandan “gentleman soldier” and of “women as peacebuilders” to repatriate former combatants. Though the RDF seemingly adopted a gender-inclusive approach, these myths reconstructed a traditional gender order that failed to challenge militarization. The authors explore this dynamic by asking, “how has the implementation of a gender-inclusive DDR/SSR program in Rwanda shaped militarized masculinity?”

The authors analyzed government policy documents, training materials from the Rwandan Ministry of Defense, and work from Rwandan historian Frank Rusagara to better understand how masculinity and gendered myths were appropriated by the RDF. In addition, they conducted 65 in-person interviews with male and female soldiers and government officials to examine how these gendered myths were used within the Rwandan security institution.

Rebuilding the Rwandan state after its civil war and genocide in 1994 was no small task. In the following decades, Rwanda built a security infrastructure to implement DDR/SSR programs to “demilitarize citizens and former combatants; to transform military culture to serve the civilian nation-state; and to provide the structural conditions for enduring peace.” For example, the Rwanda Demobilization and Reintegration Commission (RDRC) was created to implement DDR processes. A gender perspective was incorporated in these DDR processes to accommodate women’s needs in demobilization centers, provide community counseling for women, and develop gender-awareness training for staff. By 2007, the RDF and UN Women (the United Nations gender and equity arm) established a Gender Desk to incorporate a gender perspective into ongoing SSR programs.

Yet, as the authors note, “when formal DDR/SSR programs fail to break the association between manhood and militarism, they are rightly criticized for failing to transform the conditions that led to violent conflict.” The RDF employed ancient myths, like “the process of Ku-aanda,” which saw pre-colonial Rwanda consolidated through military conquest, and the “militarized soldier-citizens at the center of developmental progress.” Ku-aanda ended during colonization but was reimagined in post-genocide Rwanda as a return to an older, non-European, militarized social order. This constituted a form of “masculinity nostalgia,” longing for a time of “patriarchal power, authority, and gender certainty”1 when peace was achieved. Soldiers during this time period were mythologized as civilized and governed by a moral code—as “gentleman soldiers”—in contrast to ruthless colonial powers or genocidal Hutu extremists.