EARLY EPISODE: The Rwandan Genocide: Part 4

This series was brutal, but I’m going to listen twice because it’s so important.

These episodes came out at the same time the conservative party was saying Haitians are "eating peoples' cats and dogs". It's the same rhetoric as the build up to this genocide. I managed to convince some people of that by saying, "Would you be surprised if someone shot up a Haitian community or church after Trump said that?". They always said they wouldn't be surprised. As much as the genocide/war crime episodes make me feel miserable, I feel they continue to be relevant.

I continue to weary of Tom. My feeling is that he is engaged in ruining the best extant military history podcast. It pains me to say that it seems to me that his trite hackneyed simplistic dull and repetitious references to base elements of modern european culture at the expense of analysis is wrecking this shit. Enough with the fucking dutch accent jokes, for example. It is my opinion that the listeners of this podcast deserve more. His series on the Troubles was magisterial. His other podcasts evidence similar brilliance. Tired of the same four fucking jokes about the continental cocaine habit. Joke about history, please!! That is all.

Creed? Creed is 'we have Pearl Jam at home'

I will defend League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as one of my favorite movies. I’m aware this is just childhood nostalgia, i do not care.

Incredibly small thing given the content of this episode, but thanks Nate for calling out the "yuck someone else's yum" phrase. As a kinky person, I hear it occasionally and it's become like a trigger phrase where I turn on everyone and emphatically ask if we all have to talk like babies now.

I pooped my pants while listening. I don’t know if it was because of the podcast. But it was a variable. I blame Joe.

This may be the one. The Lions pod I can't get thru. Need to sit down with a bowl and some brews before part 4. I know what happens.

I had my ice cream cone stolen near a light house in a small city near Sydney

Coming back once I actually finished the episode to say thank you Tom for brining up the spread of hiv and the amount of rape used during the genocide. I wish it was more touched upon in the script by Joe but I also understand that it's a challenging topic to discuss. As Joe said they had to create a new legal code for genocidal rape because it was so bad. There is a book called The Men Who Killed me that is mostly Tutsi survivors of rape during the genocide telling their stories and feelings first hand. I do recommend it. Haven't read it since I was neck deep in grad school research but I think after this series I'll go back to some of those resources and refresh.

This was the perfect week for us to hear this, with Springfield and all. Thought of yall when I saw this https://open.substack.com/pub/anandwrites/p/the-rwanda-playbook-in-springfield?r=nu3q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Christ, til now I thought Browning's Ordinary Men was the bleakest shit I would ever read Not anymore https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/Rwanda.htm Not the '40s but 94, while I was an infant

Can we get a sticker of that quote "everybody says never again, until it's time to put up or shut up"?

Just as a data point: for me, Ethnic Cleansing was always just a synonym for genocide, or perhaps a sub-category which implied a certain line of reasoning / motive. 28/m/white/usa

Fun Fact: president Mitterand was a bureaucrat in Maréchal Pétain's Vichy government. It's rumored that he became a socialist party member because he wouldn't stand out in the conservative parties.

No animal facts were brought up this episode :(

I'm glad Tom shouted out the monsters that are Dublin seagulls at the start of the episode. There are literally signs up in Trinity College in the city center warning tourists that they will steal your food and that it is not a joke

slightly off topic, but as a bengali i just wanna say that im so thankful you guys acknowledged how the british empire’s engineered famines affected not only india, but also current-day bangladesh and pakistan. it’s an unfortunate consequence of shifting national borders that lets people erase other south asian countries and the genocides (yes, plural) we’ve been through. not even getting into how there are still many historians who insist on absolving the role of the british empire and instead find new and inventive ways to blame the native people. nope.

God I wish I had not listened to part 3 and 4 in the same day this story has been filled with so many cruel and revolting characters but above all fuck France

This shit is actually me feel sick.

Oh thank goodness From what I've tasted of this mire, I store it for another pyre

Can confirm that I also thought 'ethnic cleansing' was a separate but similar charge to genocide. Had no idea or was a circumlocution until I listened to this show.

abolish france. society has progressed past the need for the french.

Johnny Mnemonic is based on a William Gibson story and they didn’t go far enough in making the psychic dolphin also an addict to black tar heroin. He is in the written version.

Had to pause the podcast mid listen because Joe took the words out of my mouth about how bs the term ethnic cleansing that I've been trying to explain to people for years. I understand why people don't know these things unless you're particularly involved in the subject so no shame. Just glad to hear others say the same because I've been frustrated with well meaning people using it for current genocides. Don't use euphemisms. Call it what it is. Euphemisms just muddy the waters.

A very enlightening and important series of episodes. Kudos guys.

I find this to be the bleakest episode. It doesn’t even get better towards the end. It just ends, with few held responsible and no lessons learned. also I read Paul Russesabagina’s book that some of the trials were from informal communal courts. Which were designed for stuff like land disputes, and whose goal was for reconciliation. And that this kind of justice was not designed for reconciling the murder of someone’s entire family.

Cute animal fact- Honduran White Bats makes little leaf tents to protect themselves from the elements and they love to eat figs.

An uncle of mine, a doctor, went to Goma, Zaire/DRC in 1995 to assist all of the Rwandan refugees. When he came back he told of having such limited resources that part of the triage meant that dying babies and their mothers had to sit outside in front of the hospital and wait to die. He let out a weird “laugh” when he told this. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized it was a trauma response, to keep himself from breaking down. He was a young doctor, only used to working in supply-rich American hospitals. Understandably, he experienced Major Depression and PTSD when he returned.

Well done series y’all. I’m always impressed by how in depth and accurate Joe goes on topics that could be easy to reduce to pop history narratives. Such a refreshing and academically rigorous approach! And the respect/understanding y’all bring to such dark stuff

For the fourth week in a row I say, why do I this to myself?

Once again, FUCK France.

Yes! Just got married to my best friend Thursday and part 4 dropped today!! Truly a great week!

As a french it's so infuriating.... We don't learn any of this at school ofc...

All jokes aside; this series has made for brutal listening but I’ve learned a lot about something I was honestly pretty misinformed about. Good work to Joe and team