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Is intermarriage with Bahororo women part of a political game?

Politics is the art of gaining and retaining power by any means. In the great lakes region (southwest Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and eastern DRC), intermarriage between Batutsi, Bahororo, Bahima and Banyamulenge (pastoralists) on the one hand and Bahutu and Bairu (cultivators) on the other hand was extremely rare in pre and colonial times. On those rare occasions, a king or chief would give a woman to a good warrior or promising leader from cultivators as his wife. The husband would then be ‘tutsified’ and abandon his ancestral roots. The main purpose of this intermarriage was to deprive cultivators of men of leadership quality. Cultivators would thus remain leaderless and politically powerless.

Before proceeding with the story of intermarriage with Bahororo women, let me explain the relationship between Batutsi, Bahima, Bahororo and Banyamulenge, and the term ‘tutsified’ which appear to have caused confusion in my previous articles.

1. Batutsi is an umbrella word from which Bahima, Bahororo and Banyamulenge spring. According to Gerard Prunier (1995) and Linda de Hoyos (1997) Bahima are a clan of Batutsi.

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The politics of birth control

Politics is the science and art of getting power and how to use it to stay in power. Thus, politics is essentially about conflict or struggle among groups or social categories which allow those who get power to hold on to it and benefit from it. In these circumstances, politics by and large serves to maintain the privileges usually of a minority against the majority. The minority group uses power to disarm opponents (M. Duverger, 1966).

The minority knows that numbers matter. It tries various ways to weaken the numerically superior group. Strategies include dividing the majority group, reducing numbers through conflict, forcing some to migrate out of the territory or marginalizing the group so much that it becomes politically powerless. In the extreme case, the minority tries to reduce the number of the majority group by launching targeted birth control programs.

At the global level birth control was launched after the Second World War because population in the Third World was growing faster than in the developed countries. By early 1970s the global population had ‘exploded’ from 2.5 billion to 3.7 billion over two decades. This growth took place mostly in developing countries. Developed countries expressed fear that if the population explosion is not controlled it would lead to mass starvation and societal catastrophe. Third world governments rejected that view, stressing that economic and social development would take care of population growth (Critical Trends. United Nations 1997).

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