Each year, as Rwanda and the world commemorate the victims of the Genocide Against the Tutsi, remembrance is often expressed through solemn rituals—names spoken, candles lit, testimonies shared. These acts matter deeply. During these commemorations, there is a dangerous temptation to confine genocide to the realm of the unthinkable—as if it were an eruption of madness, an aberration that belongs to another time, another people, another moral universe. That temptation is false and dangerous.

Remembrance that ends with mourning may end up missing a more disconcerting and necessary truth: genocide is not just a mass murder of a targeted group; it is a criminal condition that is carefully prepared, cultivated, and made socially acceptable. Genocide is not born from insanity. It is built, taught, justified, and internalized. It settles into the human mind so deeply that those who commit the most unspeakable crimes often do so with a chilling sense of righteousness.

The mind that kills and prays

To understand this, one must dare to look into the minds of perpetrators—not to excuse them, but to grasp the full horror of what genocide ideology does to human beings.

Consider the case of Athanase Seromba. A Catholic priest in Nyange parish. A man ordained to serve God, to shepherd the faithful, to protect life, to embody compassion. A church, in Christian theology, is not merely a building. It is sacred.

It is the house of God, the symbol of Christ among believers, a place of refuge, of salvation, of grace. Scripture itself makes this distinctly clear: "My house shall be called a house of prayer” (Matthew 21:13). The Apostle Paul emphasizes this sanctity when he writes: Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). In the Old Testament, the reverence for sacred space is equally emphatic: "Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 20:7).

And yet, at Nyange, that sacred space became a tomb. When thousands of Tutsi sought refuge in the church, they did so because they believed—because they had been taught—that no evil could desecrate such a place. They believed that the walls of the church would stand between them and death. But Seromba saw those same walls not as sacred, but as convenient. Useful. Efficient.

He ordered the church to be bulldozed. Let that sink in. Not burned in rage. Not attacked in pandemonium. Bulldozed—purposely, methodically—crushing over a thousand human beings beneath the weight of a structure that was supposed to symbolize salvation. It was not just murder. It was the calculated transformation of the sacred into a weapon.

And thus far, what is perhaps even more horrifying is not only the act itself, but the mind behind it. Seromba did not see himself as a criminal. He continued to see himself as a servant of God. A priest entitled to offer blessings, to speak in the name of the divine, to mediate between heaven and earth. There was no rupture in his self-perception. No collapse of identity. No immediate recognition of moral disaster.

Such a behavior is the true face of genocide ideology. It does not just permit killing. It sanctifies it. The belief creates a mental universe in which extermination is not only acceptable, but defensible—where the victim is no longer seen as a human being worthy of compassion, but as an obstacle, an impurity, an enemy whose elimination is regarded as necessary, even virtuous. In such a universe, the perpetrator does not feel guilt. He feels alignment—with authority, with community— even with God.

It is the terrifying reality revealed in the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which found that Seromba’s actions were not an isolated deviation but part of a broader system in which institutions, beliefs, and identities were weaponized.

But if the image of a priest turning a church into a killing machine is not enough to shake us, then we must go deeper still—into the most intimate and sacred bond of all: that between a mother and her child.

We know women—mothers—who killed their own children. Not in a moment of anxiety or confusion. But in cold obedience to an ideology that had poisoned their minds so completely that they no longer saw their children as their own blood. These children, carrying Tutsi blood through their fathers, were redefined—not as sons or daughters, not as flesh of their flesh—but as enemies. As disposable.

Please pause and think about what it takes for a mother to reach that point. The natural instinct to protect one’s child is among the most powerful forces in human existence. It is biological, emotional and moral. It is the foundation upon which families—and by extension, societies—are built. To override that instinct requires more than hatred. It requires a complete reprogramming of the mind.

And, genocide ideology does precisely that. It teaches that identity overrides humanity. That blood determines worth. That love must yield to loyalty to a constructed "us.” It drills into the mind, day after day, that the "other” is not merely different, but dangerous. Not merely undesirable, but existentially threatening.

And once that idea takes hold—once it is repeated through media, reinforced by authority, normalized by peers—it begins to erode even the most fundamental human bonds.

A mother looks at her child and no longer sees a child. She sees a category. And categories can be eliminated. This is the point at which genocide ideology reveals its most monstrous achievement: it does not just produce killers; it produces people who believe they are doing what must be done. People who feel reasonable and very innocent.

That sense of innocence is not unplanned. It is engineered. It is built through propaganda that reframes reality, through language that dehumanizes, through authority figures who legitimize hatred, through fear that punishes dissent, and through collective participation that normalizes crime. When everyone is involved, when everyone is complicit, the moral compass does not just break—it is replaced.

Creating mass murderers

To truly honor the victims, we must confront an uncomfortable question: how did ordinary people become perpetrators capable of killing with such ferocity—sometimes even turning against their own children because they carried Tutsi blood?

The answer lies in a convergence of forces—political strategy, ideological indoctrination, coercion, fear, and opportunism. The genocide was not simply carried out by a small group of extremists; it was designed to implicate an entire population. The Interahamwe militia and elements of the military were deployed into rural areas not only to kill, but to force others to kill. People were compelled to murder neighbors, friends, and even members of their own families. Refusal often meant death.

This was not accidental. It was deliberate. The architects of the genocide sought to ensure that the blood of the crime would implicate everyone. In doing so, they aimed to eliminate the possibility of moral return. When everyone is involved, accountability dissolves, and silence becomes survival.

As Alison des Forges observed in Leave None to Tell the Story; "the organizers of the genocide used the administrative structure to compel participation,” ensuring that killing was not left to zealots alone but became a communal obligation. She further wrote that "many who killed, did so because they feared being killed themselves,” a finding echoed repeatedly in witness testimony before the Tribunal.

The roots of this descent into violence can be traced to political developments in the early 1990s, particularly the creation of the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) in 1992. Though presented as a separate political entity, it operated with the tacit approval of President Juvénal Habyarimana. Its role was to obstruct the peace process and radicalize the political landscape.

At a basic level, the CDR claimed legitimacy as a political party, even demanding ministerial representation. In reality, it served as the voice of extremism. It allowed the President and his party, the MRND, to maintain a facade of moderation while advancing radical positions through a proxy. Habyarimana could appear as a careful mediator while the CDR shifted the political center toward virulent extremism. Over time, this strategy developed a momentum of its own.

On the other hand, political maneuvering alone would not have sufficed without a receptive social base. Extremists tapped into deep reservoirs of grievance—economic frustrations, manipulated historical narratives, and distorted notions of identity. Hutu extremism was not a marginal phenomenon; it was cultivated by those in positions of power. State-controlled media, universities, and administrative institutions were mobilized to normalize hatred.

Ideologues such as Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, Léon Mugesera, Eugène Rwamucyo, and Charles Ndereyehe did more than express grievances—they shaped them. Through speeches, writings, and media broadcasts, they transformed prejudice into intense ideology and fear into justification for violence.

Radio played a decisive role. Both Radio Rwanda and RTLM became instruments of incitement. As established in the landmark ICTR case The Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., the Trial Chamber held that the media "created a climate of hatred and fear that paved the way for genocide” (Judgement, para. 1007), a conclusion later affirmed by the Appeals Chamber (Appeal Judgement, para. 692), which confirmed that RTLM broadcasts constituted direct and public incitement to commit genocide.

The Chamber emphasized that RTLM broadcasts were "a drumbeat calling for action” (Trial Judgement, para. 1022; Appeals Judgement, para. 701). It further documented that announcers "incited the population to hunt down and kill Tutsis,” often identifying specific individuals and locations (paras. 1031–1033).

This was not abstract rhetoric. It was an operational direction, captured in multiple prosecution exhibits. RTLM transcripts entered as Prosecution Exhibits P38A, P38B, and P39 recorded announcers urging listeners to "search everywhere, even in the marshes,” and to ensure that "no accomplice survives.” Exhibit P40 included broadcasts calling on civilians to erect roadblocks and "verify identities,” a practice that directly facilitated killings.

In one terrifying excerpt entered into evidence, listeners were urged to "go to work” and "finish the job,” phrases the Chamber interpreted as unmistakable calls to kill (para. 1025). Another RTLM transcript (Exhibit P45) recorded the instruction: "The enemy is still among you. Do not sleep. Rise up and eliminate them.”

Witness testimonies reinforced this operational role of the media. One witness recounted hearing broadcasts that said: "The graves are not yet full. Who will help us fill them?”

Another testified that immediately after such messages, "people took machetes and went out to kill,” establishing the direct causal link between broadcast and action.

Language itself became a weapon. Terms like "umwanzi” and "Inyangarwanda,” meaning "enemy” or "haters of Rwanda,” were deliberately crafted and deployed. Such labels stripped individuals of their humanity and belonging. Once defined as enemies and haters of the nation, Tutsis were placed outside the moral universe—people for whom no mercy was required.

This process is clearly reflected in ICTR jurisprudence beyond the media case. In The Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu, the Tribunal underscored that genocide occurred in a context where propaganda had already dehumanized the victims. The Chamber noted that "the population was prepared to accept and participate in the killing of Tutsis” (Judgement, para. 673), a finding upheld on appeal (Appeals Judgement, para. 471). It further established that acts of violence were often carried out publicly and collectively (paras. 731–733), reinforcing participation as a social norm.

The same judgement recorded evidence that local officials convened meetings instructing civilians to kill. One witness testified: "We were told that if we did not take part in the killings, we would be regarded as accomplices and treated as such.”

Another witness recalled: "The bourgmestre said the work had to be done by everyone. No one was to be spared.”

These testimonies align with documentary exhibits presented in the case, including communal directives and meeting records that organized participation at the local level.

Similarly, in The Prosecutor v. Georges Ruggiu, the accused acknowledged the power of propaganda. The Chamber recorded that RTLM broadcasts "inflamed the population and incited them to kill” (Judgement, para. 44), and concluded that they created "a climate in which the extermination of Tutsis was perceived as a legitimate objective” (para. 51). This reasoning was reinforced in the Appeals Chamber’s broader jurisprudence on incitement, which confirmed that media messages need not explicitly command killing to be criminal if their context clearly calls for it.

This dehumanization was reinforced by a steady drumbeat of historical distortion. Extremist narratives insisted that the 1959 "Social Revolution” had been left unfinished—that Tutsis had been "allowed to escape” and were now returning as a threat. This framing turned genocide into a supposed act of self-defense. The killing of children was justified with distressing logic: today’s victims were tomorrow’s enemies.

Here again, Alison Des Forges provides a glaring reminder: "The killing of children was systematic, because they were seen as the next generation of the enemy.” Her research shows that such instructions were repeated in meetings and broadcasts, embedding exterminationist thinking into everyday decisions.

ICTR evidence repeatedly confirms this logic. In multiple cases, including Akayesu and later the Media Case, witnesses testified that militias explicitly targeted children, arguing that they were "future enemies” or "future fighters.” One witness described how attackers said: "Kill them all, even the little ones, so that none will come back.”

Another testified that babies were taken from their mothers and killed "so that the lineage would end,” demonstrating the genocidal intent to destroy the group in whole or in part.

As documented in Leave None to Tell the Story, propaganda did not merely incite violence—it normalized it. She observed that "radio was used not just to inform but to direct,” and that administrative authorities "transformed killing into a duty,” blurring the line between state propaganda and mob action.

The lesson from this history is not commotion, but a criminal system. Genocide was organized, justified, and enforced. It reveals how absolute political power, combined with a cultivated sense of victimhood, can produce a society capable of extraordinary cruelty. The extremists did not simply command violence—they engineered participation.

The ICTR’s jurisprudence leaves no ambiguity on this point. In the Media Case, the Chamber stressed that the objective was to mobilize the entire population, noting that the genocide relied on "the active involvement of civilians on a massive scale” (Trial Judgement, para. 1008; Appeals Judgement, para. 693). This deliberate expansion of perpetrators ensured that guilt would be diffused, complicity normalized, and resistance rendered nearly impossible.

It is our fight

This is the truth that remembrance must confront. To honor the victims is not only to mourn them, but to understand how their destruction became possible. It is to recognize that genocide thrives not only on hatred, but on fear, conformity, and the manipulation of identity.

If remembrance is to mean anything beyond ritual, it must serve as a warning. The conditions that enabled genocide—the politicization of identity, the normalization of hate speech, and the erosion of moral boundaries—remain possible anywhere. Wherever leaders exploit history to divide, anywhere media dehumanizes, anyplace people are compelled to see neighbors as enemies, the seeds of such crimes are present.

"Never Again” is not a slogan. It is a responsibility. And it begins with the willingness to confront, without illusion, how ordinary people were turned into participants in extraordinary evil.

Once the genocide ideology takes root, what remains is a society in which killing is no longer an exception, but a duty. And, this is why the fight against this ideology cannot be selective, occasional or passive. It must be relentless.

Since the same mechanisms that operated then—distortion of history, manipulation of identity, dehumanization through language, the use of fear and conformity—are not relics. They are tools. And tools can be picked up again.

Wherever people are taught to see others as less than human, genocide ideology is at work. Wherever history is twisted to justify hatred, it is at work. Wherever silence greets dehumanization, it is at work. And wherever individuals excuse, minimize, or rationalize such thinking, they become, whether they admit it or not, part of the machinery that makes future atrocities possible.

The lesson is as clear as it is uncomfortable: genocide does not begin with killing. It begins with ideas. And ideas must be confronted early, decisively, and without compromise.

To fight genocide ideology is not an abstract moral exercise. It is a practical, pressing responsibility. The fight requires vigilance in how we speak, how we teach, how we respond to hate. It demands that we challenge not only explicit calls to violence, but also the subtle narratives that prepare the ground for it.

It requires courage—the courage to refuse complicity, to resist pressure, to stand against the crowd when the crowd is wrong.

Because if genocide ideology can convince a priest that crushing his congregation is compatible with serving God, and a mother that killing her child is compatible with survival, then it can reach anywhere. It can take root in any society that allows it.

The victims of genocide are not only those who were killed. They are also the truth, the moral order, and the very idea of our shared humanity. To honor them is to ensure that the ideas that killed them are exposed, challenged, and defeated—every time they appear, in any form.

This is not someone else’s fight. It is yours.