Why do people resort to violence to uphold an identity?

In her article, Sara E. Brown investigates the role of women in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of the Tutsi minority were massacred by the majority Hutus. Women have historically been largely absent from the narrative surrounding the genocide, when in reality, women did play a part in the genocide, and a large one in some cases. Brown finds that while women were more likely to be involved in indirect violence (like exposing hidden Tutsis) instead of direct violence like murder, that women did play a much larger role than historically discussed. Brown explains that one problem with the omission of women from the record of the genocide is the implication for Rwanda's future; a large group of genocidaires may have gone unpunished and/or unreformed, and young Rwandans may be subject to extremist opinions as they come of age, which could lead to future violence. 

People resort to violence to uphold an identity when they believe that their identity is in danger, whether or not that is true. Specifically, when members of an identity group believe that their membership in that identity group puts them at risk of harm, they are likely to resort to violence. In Rwanda, the Tutsi minority had been in power in the colonial days, despite Hutus making up a large majority of the country's population. Anti-Tutsi rhetoric had been circulating in Rwanda for some years before the genocide, and indeed Hutu-Tutsi conflict had broken out in neighboring Burundi prior to 1994. Hutu extremists were behind the propaganda against Tutsis in Rwanda, much of which was circulated on radio stations and in print publications, as Brown explains. The event that triggered the start of the genocide was when the Rwandan (Hutu) President's plane was shot down near Kigali. Hutu extremists blamed Tutsis and the genocide began shortly after; Hutus, including those who did not hold extremist anti-Tutsi views, were made to believe that they were in danger of being targeted by violent Tutsis. Mobilization was prompted largely by fear, as Brown points out. In some cases, that fear was for the safety of Hutu identity. In other cases, the fear was less to do with identity and more to do with Hutu extremists threatening fellow Hutus if they did not participate in the genocide - this narrative is present throughout the literature on the Rwandan genocide. When it comes to identity, though, it is perceived or actual threats to their identity that cause people to resort to violence to uphold that identity. Identity protection, however, is not the only reason people of a certain identity will resort to violence. 

The use of violence to uphold an identity is still unfortunately common in today's world, even in the United States. A contingent of Americans are white supremacists, and a contingent of them are willing to resort to violence for their cause, with rhetoric usually spewed about protecting white identity. Of course, the presence of minority groups in America is not actually a threat to white people, but these violent white supremacists believe otherwise. The El Paso shooting in 2019 is a prime example; a white nationalist drove many hours to El Paso, which is on the US-Mexico border, and entered a Walmart where he specifically targeted and murdered Latinos. White nationalism is probably the greatest domestic terror threat of our time, and white nationalist terrorism is a prime example of a perceived (imagined) threat to identity that has sparked senseless violence. There are uncomfortable parallels between between Rwanda in 1994 and the U.S. today in that respect. US government officials rarely call for violence against citizens, and usually do so with masked language when they do, in contrast to open calls for violence against Tutsis by some government officials in Rwanda in 1994. Still, the fact that the President of the United States referred to people who chanted "Jews will not replace us", some of whom literally carried the Nazi flag, as "very fine people" in Charlottesville in 2017 should be viewed as extremely alarming, especially when viewed in the context of a growing white nationalist terror threat that existed before President Trump's election. Signaling implicit support for white nationalists from any level of government, let alone from the White House, is extremely dangerous. Things can only get worse from there.