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Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak

(Rwanda #2)

Jean Hatzfeld,

Linda Coverdale (Translator)

Susan Sontag (Preface by)

4.02 · Rating details · 2,019 ratings · 176 reviews

During the spring of 1994, in a tiny country called Rwanda, some 800,000 people were hacked to death, one by one, by their neighbors in a gruesome civil war. Several years later, journalist Jean Hatzfeld traveled to Rwanda to interview ten participants in the killings, eliciting extraordinary testimony from these men about the genocide they perpetrated. As Susan Sontag ...more

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Paperback, 253 pages

Published April 18th 2006 by Picador USA (first published 2003)

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Nov 04, 2012 Mariel rated it liked it

Recommends it for: the farmer kills the cheese

Recommended to Mariel by: the farmer kills the mouse

"This gentleman I killed at the marketplace, I can tell you the exact memory of it because he was the first. For others, it's murky- I cannot keep track anymore in my memory. I considered them unimportant; at the time of those murders I didn't even notice the tiny thing that would change me into a killer."

Susan Sontag wrote the preface for Jean Hatzfeld's book Machete Season. She says: To make the effort to understand what happened in Rwanda is a painful task that we have no right to shirk- it ...more

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Jun 29, 2013 Paul Bryant rated it really liked it

Shelves: africa, history-will-teach-us-nothing

With some books you get exactly what you expected, which in this case, was a bunch of ordinary guys from Rwanda talking about killing people with machetes, a lot. They were all interviewed at length in prison.

During the killings I no longer considered anything in the Tutsi except the person has to be done away with. I want to make clear that from the first gentleman I killed to the last, I was not sorry about a single one.

For anyone who needs reminding, the events described in this so easy to ...more

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Dec 09, 2018 Kavita rated it liked it

Shelves: history, 1990s, genocide, rwanda

In 1897, the Germans conquered Rwanda. They brought their burgeoning racial discrimination theories to the country and started applying them to the local population. What for centuries had been not an issue suddenly divided into ethnic differences. The Tutsis, believed to have descended from the biblical Ham, and thus more "Europeanised" than the Hutu population, became the natural favourites to rule Rwanda on behalf of the Germans. The Germans sowed the seeds of racism in Rwanda.

In 1916, In 1897, the Germans conquered Rwanda. They brought their burgeoning racial discrimination theories to the country and started applying them to the local population. What for centuries had been not an issue suddenly divided into ethnic differences. The Tutsis, believed to have descended from the biblical Ham, and thus more "Europeanised" than the Hutu population, became the natural favourites to rule Rwanda on behalf of the Germans. The Germans sowed the seeds of racism in Rwanda.

In 1916, Germany bequeathed its erstwhile colony to the Belgians. The second phase of ethnic division started. The Belgians began to measure the heights and noses of people for their "research" by means of a tool called Vernier Caliper. They also issued identity cards to the population, carefully enshrining their ethnicity in stone (or paper, as the case here). Belgium too followed a pro-Tutsi policy, leading to continuous tensions between the two communities.

When Rwanda erupted in violence, no one realised the extent of the damage. It was only later that the staggering numbers became known, and the massacre was classified a genocide. However, ethnic violence had been constantly mounting since the late 80s and tensions had been around ever since the last Tutsi king died and the Hutus latched on to power.

Hatzfeld wrote three books on this subject, this being the second book in which he talks to the killers about their deeds. It's a good idea and had the potential to throw some light on a rather obscure subject since people are still debating why the genocide even happened. But I don't think this book answers those questions completely, or indeed, at all.

Machete Season offers very little insight on why the killers killed. Though the author offers a good explanation of why he chose people who killed together in a group, this also prevented him from gaining better insights on the diverse types of people who killed during the genocide. The group of people said pretty much the same thing and repeated themselves quite often. They squarely placed the blame on the politicians, and indeed, much of the blame lies there, but I did not get much of a sense of soul-searching from any of these guys. This is where this book fails for me. I would totally read a book by any killer who lays out his thought processes neatly for the world to understand this tragedy. But none of the people chosen by Hatzfeld did so.

One of the things that did strike me was that this appeared to be a very male operation. Wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters were mostly left at home to deal with the daily grind and fill the stomachs of those who returned after a satisfactory killing and looting session. Apparently, even the organisers of the genocide told the women to stay home. The men easily blamed the women for wanting more loot and claimed that their wives wholly supported them. What utter bullshit! This in itself shows there is little remorse and even less honesty. I would be very interested to know what all the women in Rwanda think of their male relatives who have killed. Did they even have an opinion? Were they allowed to?

A second thing that came out consistently was how every Hutu had to kill or be killed himself. I don't know how far this was enforced. Was it just in the countryside or in the cities as well? And if this were the case, how far were men who were forced to lift their machetes be blamed for putting their own lives over others? But again, this was not explored in detail.

The most annoying thing about Machete Season was its insistence on bringing up the Jewish Holocaust at every opportunity. This is just another manifestation of colonisation where a tragedy can't be discussed without comparing it to the Holocaust, an European event. I was also flummoxed at how easily Hatzfeld dismissed the Bosnian genocide as not being a genocide because the women were not systematically murdered. Another strange theory of Hatzfeld was that colonisation did not have a big part in the Rwandan genocide. Are you kidding me? Personally, all this made me lose faith in the author as someone who is aware of history in its proper context, despite his credentials.

I think there are much better books on this subject, but I don't regret reading this one because of its unique perspective. I just wish that the sample size were larger and the subjects were explored in more detail and in depth. ...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Regina Lindsey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

"Ours is appallingly, an age of genocide, but even so, what happened in Rwanda in the spring of 1994 stands out in several ways. In a tiny, landlocked African country smaller than the state of Maryland, some 800,000 people were hacked to death, one by one, by their neighbors. The women, men, and children who were slaughtered were of the same race and shared the same language, customs, and confession (Roman Catholic) as those who eagerly slaughtered them." (pg 5) All this in twelve weeks.

"Ours is appallingly, an age of genocide, but even so, what happened in Rwanda in the spring of 1994 stands out in several ways. In a tiny, landlocked African country smaller than the state of Maryland, some 800,000 people were hacked to death, one by one, by their neighbors. The women, men, and children who were slaughtered were of the same race and shared the same language, customs, and confession (Roman Catholic) as those who eagerly slaughtered them." (pg 5) All this in twelve weeks.

Hatzfield, has a collection of work on the Rwanda genocide. After completing Into the Quick of Life Stories from the Rwandan Marshes, which is a look at events from the perspective of survivors from the commune of Nyamata, questions posed by readers prompted Hatzfield to explore the story from the killers’ point of view. Gaining permission from the Rwandan government and prison officials, Hatzfield successfully convinced ten member of a gang from Nyamata to share their stories. The members ranged from those of various ages (early 20’s to 60’s at the time of the killing) and standing in the community (students, teachers, police officers, and political leaders). In my opinion, Hazfield produces one of the most chilling, educational, and jaw dropping accounts of work I’ve read in quite some time.

One of the things I most appreciate about this work is the way in which Hatzfield finally connected the dots for me. I have read a little on the period and I have seen multiple documentaries at the Houston Holocaust Museum on the subject. It is always so difficult for me to wrap my mind around the cause of this event. If you follow my reading at all you know I’m an avid World War II reader. There is such a breadth of work analyzing everything from the cause of the hatred of the Jews, to the political landscape leading to Hitler’s rise to power, to the world’s non-response, to the psychology of Germans that allowed events to take place. With Rwanda I could never understand what happened beyond the plane crash of President Habyarimana. But, Hatzfield provides an excellent timeline at the beginning of the book beginning in 1921 and takes the reader through important events through 2003.

It is always tempting to compare any event like this one with the Holocaust, but events in Rwanda are vastly different. Rather than falling into that temptation, Hatzfield uses the Holocaust as a contrast, which I find quite effective. What follows is a deeply disturbing understanding of what I’ve missed. This was not a well-organized campaign carried out by soldiers and law enforcement personnel with registrations and demarcations, "The killers did not have to pick out their victims: they knew them personally. Everyone knows everything in a village" (pg 67). Of course they did. This was neighbor killing neighbor, teacher killing student, soccer teammate killing teammate, and family member killing family member. "The first day, a messenger from the municipal judge went house to house summoning us to a meeting right away. There the judge announced that the reason for the meeting was the killing of every Tutsi without exception. It was simply said, and it was simple to understand." (pg 18). With that order Hutu members of the village picked up machetes and spent twelve weeks attempting to irradicate every single Tutsi from the village.

The other contrast, when you read WWII accounts, while you spend some time in dredges of human darkness, there are amazing tales of bravery. Unfortunately, according to Hatzfield, that is not the case in Rwanda, "And at the end of the war (WWII) we were dumbfounded to learn about the thousand and one touching anecdotes we could never have imagined. In Nyamata, however, we find not one comradely impulse among teammates, not one gesture of compassion for helpless babies. No bond of friendship or love that survived from a church choir or an agricultural cooperative. No civil disobedience in a village, no rebellious adolescent in a gang of budding toughs. And not a single escape network, although it would have been easy to set one up in the forty kilometers of uninhabited forests between the marshes and the Burundi border" (pg 103)

I think the reader needs to beware, this is a difficult read. It is only about 250 pages in length and written in very concise paragraphs but the sterile nature in which the killers discuss their actions and the obvious lack of remorse is simply disgusting, "I want to make clear that from the first gentleman I killed to the last, I was not sorry about a single one." (pg 54). Those that do discuss “forgiveness” do so only in terms of how the prisoner can return to life he once knew one day with little regard to what his return will do the survivors.

Big thanks to Isabelle for bringing it to my attention! ...more

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May 01, 2012 Cristobo De rated it really liked it

Amazement. That`s my reaction to this book. So this journalist visits a Ruwandan prison and gets six of the Hutu executioners during the 1994 genocide to speak freely about their crimes. This time it is not a novel writer doing his best to sound spooky, this time it is not some sane, decent person like Primo Levy describing mass murder from the victim`s side. This time you get to the other side, as close as you can get to the real core of horror. What these men did goes so far beyond my ...more

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May 11, 2009 Maureen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: anthropology-sociology, history, non-fiction, africa

I noticed that one of my Goodreads friends who is a Holocaust librarian was reading this book, so I decided to follow his lead. Words cannot begin to convey the depth and complexity of emotions which this book elicits. More than anything else, it is devastating, and insightful: giving the reader a glimpse into the minds of the Hutu killers during the Rwandan genocide.
All I can do is provide you with one small, chilling example of what one Hutu farmer thought when asked about the word genocide:

...more

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Jul 06, 2018 Peter rated it it was amazing

Shelves: rwanda

Note: This review is for the full four-part series.

French reporter and longtime resident of the African continent, Jean Hatzfeld, documents the Rwandan Genocide in more detail than any other historian or journalist. But don't look to his series for a complete historical context or a full examination of the motives of the killers or the previous crimes of the Tutsi people and the colonialists. Other books, like Philip Gourevitch's excellent We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed Note: This review is for the full four-part series.

French reporter and longtime resident of the African continent, Jean Hatzfeld, documents the Rwandan Genocide in more detail than any other historian or journalist. But don't look to his series for a complete historical context or a full examination of the motives of the killers or the previous crimes of the Tutsi people and the colonialists. Other books, like Philip Gourevitch's excellent We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families informs and educates the reader more thoroughly on context, motivation, and history.

Hatzfeld instead offers direct contact with the killers and the survivors. He tracks life in one small village as it progresses over 24 years from the 100 days of the "cuttings" of the genocide, through the forced return and imprisonment of the escaped Hutu killers, to the killers' pardon in 2003 to live side by side with the survivors, and finally to the legacy of the genocide for the next generation of children, the children of both the killers and the survivors. Hatzfeld's series of four poignant and well-written books focus on the lives of the people of the Bugesera, a modest-sized district in the southeast of Rwanda--a place where Hutus slaughtered an estimated 100,000 Tutsis. Hatzfeld is detailed in his dispatches, following the same small group of people, gaining their trust by breaking through a haze of trauma and for the killers by passing through prison walls. It's doubtful any other reporter or historian will even gain similar access and intimacy with all the players. What is missing, for the most part, is the role the government of long-time President Paul Kagame plays in their lives.

Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak introduced us to the Rwandan voices, the survivors of the Bugesera, men, women, children, all who ran from the blades for 100 days until the Tutsi army-- led by Paul Kagame, refugee turned General turned President--could reach the marshes and the hillside of the district. It is here that Hatzfeld first introduces the reader to the victims and survivors of evil.

Hatzfeld's second installment, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak is a short and dark tome offering up direct testimony and confessions of one small group of "cutters" who terrorized their small community for 100 days, they a part of a larger group that murdered thousands using mostly machetes, killing more efficiently than the Nazi death camp apparatus killed Jews. Reading Hatzfeld's commentary on his meetings in the crowded Rilima Prison, I detect little joy in his work and note his reticence during interviews of genocidaires.

The Antelope's Strategy: Living in Rwanda After the Genocide, book three, titled because the victims of the genocide, when they could run, ran like the Antelope, staying in their herd, knowing that the Hutus would "cut" the slow, the old, the infirm, and those who carried their babies first. On the hilltops of the Bugesera in 1994, the comfort of the pack helped Innocent Rwililiza only so much. Out of the thousands that sought safety above the village, just a few dozens survived--the rest cut down by their Hutu neighbors and the Interahamwe. If it was possible to report a more dark and horrifying version of the genocide than that provided in books one and two, Hatzfeld finds it, as he documents Innocent's Rwililiza's story of survival.

In Blood Papa: Rwanda's New Generation, Jean Hatzfeld introduces readers to the children of the genocidaires and the survivors. While much of the book is spent with the children, Hatzfeld researches the community or Gacaca courts organized in Rwanda to free up the enormous backlog in the traditional court system. He tells the story of one particular case, a "cutter," a man whose confession Hatzfeld documented in Machete Season, a man who served seven years in prison and was then pardoned by President Kagame along with many other second-tier offenders in 2003, and a man who committed a crime so atrocious and evil that in 2010 his community's Gacaca court immediately dispatched the offender to life in prison. ...more

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Aug 15, 2009 Jen rated it it was ok

This book is absolutely horrifying as it deals with first hand accounts of several killers from Rwanda during the genocide. I think I was looking for some kind of insight into the mentality of these killers, and how seemingly normal people could commit such acts of evil. Ultimately the complete banality and lack of remorse these killers felt, both during and after, the atricious murders of babies, neighbours, pregnant women etc., just left me feeling devasted.

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Feb 10, 2012 Joel Arnold rated it really liked it

This book is largely comprised of interviews from the men who perpetrated the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I definitely enjoyed the authenticity of hearing from e men themselves. The author also inserts some background information and occasional observations about the nature of genocide.

I enjoyed several things about this book:
1. It gave me a great understanding of the historical background for the events in Rwanda.
2. It gave me a small sense of what it would have been like to be there during the This book is largely comprised of interviews from the men who perpetrated the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I definitely enjoyed the authenticity of hearing from e men themselves. The author also inserts some background information and occasional observations about the nature of genocide.

I enjoyed several things about this book:
1. It gave me a great understanding of the historical background for the events in Rwanda.
2. It gave me a small sense of what it would have been like to be there during the events - The book recorded mundane details like the killers' daily routines.
3. It probed the psychology and social mechanisms that would allow something like this to happen. One factor, for instance, was the fact that people had to be personally involved in the killings or be perceived as sympathetic to the Tutsis. In some cases they killed in order to avoid being killed. This dynamic in turn, seemed to develop because the killers wanted the guilt to be distributed. They wanted everyone to be equally liable.
4. It probed the psychology of someone trying to escape the guilt of terrible things they have done. it exposed the fact that many of the killers were not ultimately sore for what they did so much as they sought to minimize the consequences. As the book recorded it, true repentance was hard to find or nonexistence. Even after the fact it seemed like the men were trying to rationalize their actions and under the same circumstances would be fairly likely to do the same thing again.

An excerpt from Pio (one of the killers):
"Seeking forgiveness is a natural thing. Bestowing forgiveness is a huge thing. But who today can decide this forgiveness? Those who did nothing, like the whites and such? those who arrived too late, behind he soldiers of the RPF, coming home with their savings and their memories of revenge? those who happened to elude death by sneaking into the papyrus? Even the mama of the child who was cut, what can she forgive in the name of her little one, who is no longer here to be questioned?

I see too many difficulties for us to exchange forgiveness on the hills. Too many bad memories will grow again on the fine words, like the Bush in the middle of a plantation. Someone who grants you forgiveness on a day of mercy, who can say he won't take it back some other day in anger, because of a drunken squabble?

I can't imagine any forgiveness capable of drying up all this spilled blood. I see only God to forgive me—it's why I asked that of Him every day. Offering Him all my sincerity, without hiding any of my misdeeds from Him. I don't know if he says yes or no, but I do know that I ask Him very personally" (206-207). ...more

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Jun 11, 2017 Sebastien rated it really liked it

"If killers come to church to pray to God on their knees, to show us their remorse, I cannot pray either with them or against them. Real regrets are said eye to eye, not to statues of God. The accommodation of killers is not my concern." - Gaspard, a survivor.

This book opens up a real big historical and philosophical can of worms. Hatzfeld interviews a group of friends in prison who actively participated in the Rwandan genocide. The most anti-Tutsi of them killed the least. The man who had never ...more

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Mar 14, 2018 LibraryCin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, africa, rwanda, genocide, interviews

The author first wrote a book where he interviewed 14 survivors of the genocide in Rwanda. I haven’t read it, though I've read plenty of other books about it. It was only later that he thought to interview some of those who killed during the genocide. In this book, the interviews were interspersed with history, sometimes a description of interview process and how it came about that the author decided to write this one, sometimes the voices of some of the survivors are included.

The killers just ...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Jen added it

Shelves: nonfiction-history, 2013

Since

"In a tiny, landlocked African country smaller than the state of Maryland, some 800,000 people were hacked to death, one by one, by their neighbors. The women, men, and children who were slaughtered were of the same race and shared the same language, customs, and confession (Roman Catholic) as those who eagerly slaughtered them." (p.vii)

and

"When there has been one genocide there can be another, at any time in the future, anywhere -- if the cause is still there and no one knows what it is"

...more

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Mar 18, 2010 FiveBooks rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fivebooks-on-rwanda

Writer Philip Gourevitch has chosen to discuss Jean Hatzfeld’s Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Rwanda, saying that:

Hatzfeld wound up going back to Rwanda and the whole group of killers who had been pursuing the survivors he’d been writing about in his first book were all in one prison nearby. And he arranged to meet with them on a regular basis, individually and collectively, to hear their stories. And it’s the most direct (I ...more

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Sep 07, 2015 Daniel DeLappe rated it really liked it

A very disturbing book that should be read by everyone. It is amazing to see these people try to excuse their behavior. Of course they were not responsible for their behavior and of course the people they slaughtered were some how at fault in their deaths. Two things that really stand out in this book. These murderers actually are a bit put off that their victims families did not forgive their transgressions and a few of these shit stains are actually walking around free today. Read this book ...more

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Jul 22, 2010 Angela Wade rated it liked it

Shelves: history, rwanda

The layout of this book was awful, and the stories got repetitive. I feel like the author stayed away from the tough questions with regard to the men who killed, instead allowing them to tell only what they wished with no real challenge as to their frames of minds.

I may have learned a little more of the how, but I still don't really understand the WHY.

The tidbits related to culture were what kept me reading, but in the end they couldn't save this book, and I can't really recommend it, as there ...more

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Feb 09, 2015 Renée Wyman rated it it was amazing

Difficult to read, but a narrative that everyone should. The stories and perspectives of Rwanda's worst were not at all what I expected. The realities this novel depicts are ones we all should face in order to prevent history from repeating itself.

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Nov 23, 2015 Nick rated it really liked it

Shelves: very_thought_provoking, non-fiction

Crazy. From horror to the banal and matter-of-fact accounts, this collection is key for anyone wanting to get a better grasp of what happened in Rwanda.

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Oct 04, 2018 Dipesh Mistry rated it it was amazing

Rwanda has always been close to my heart. Back in 1994, I wondered and asked my dad, why are there so many refugees walking on a narrow, lonely, long road to Congo? Back than I was too young to understand the tragedy that had gripped the people there.

"Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld" is a tough book to read!, it lets the killers speak for themselves, why they did what they did. Reading their stories, made me angry towards them, but sometimes helpless.

There are two extremes that live within us, ...more

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Oct 11, 2019 Chase rated it it was amazing

We are such a wonderful species... Jesus. The most shocking thing about this book is how nonchalantly the killers refer to their role in the genocide as just another job...similar to that of farming but with greater reward and less work. Sickening. Be wary all who enter this book. It might be one of the most hopeless things I've ever read.

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Mar 19, 2015 Todd Wilhelm rated it really liked it

This book is a compilation of interviews with Rwanda Hutus who participated in the genocidal killings of the Tutsis. At times it was chilling to read, but I pressed on as I was curious to see what drives average people to become crazed genocidal killers. There are no easy answers. What frightens me is the possibility that all of us have this darkness lurking deep down in our hearts.

"To kill so many human beings without wavering, we had to hate with no second thoughts. Hatred was the only emotion This book is a compilation of interviews with Rwanda Hutus who participated in the genocidal killings of the Tutsis. At times it was chilling to read, but I pressed on as I was curious to see what drives average people to become crazed genocidal killers. There are no easy answers. What frightens me is the possibility that all of us have this darkness lurking deep down in our hearts.

"To kill so many human beings without wavering, we had to hate with no second thoughts. Hatred was the only emotion allowed for the Tutsis. The killings were too well managed to leave us room for any other feelings."
(p. 221) Kindle Edition.

"Although they are not disturbed by their killings, they often seem befuddled or overwhelmed by them. They assert that they were carried away in a tumult, an uproar, a commotion— words they often use. They dread facing the consequences of the genocide, and never inquire about what they might be. More important, they are afraid to learn the reasons and motives behind the upheaval and see no point in trying to understand it. They seem intuitively to understand one danger in particular, which Pio outlines this way: “In some years’ time, setting foot once more in the marshes, where we left our footprints— that can be possible if we step carefully. But forcing memory back into our innermost thoughts and the disastrous broodings of childhood … a mind can lose itself that way. Especially if the soul has gone astray as ours have.”"
(p. 215) Kindle Edition.

"I can’t imagine any forgiveness capable of drying up all this spilled blood. I see only God to forgive me— it’s why I ask that of Him every day. Offering Him all my sincerity, without hiding any of my misdeeds from Him. I don’t know if He says yes or no, but I do know that I ask Him very personally."
(p. 207) Kindle Edition.

"Élie and most of the others in the gang do not ask for forgiveness. They offer their apologies in more or less loud voices to survivors who are free to hear, accept, or refuse them—rather like the way one says “Sorry” to somebody one has just jostled on a sidewalk. Or like that German soldier in the strange parable told by Simon Wiesenthal in The Sunflower, they ask for pardon with the certainty that this request, because it is humiliating and expresses sympathy, deserves in itself a positive response."
(pp. 199-200) Kindle Edition.

"I feel more at peace since I began to speak. After I have endured my punishment, I see nothing to prevent me from returning to my wife, my place in society, my six children, even if they have grown up without me and no longer recognize me. I must point out something, however: there is now a crack in my life. I don’t know about the others. I don’t know if it’s because of my Tutsi wife. But I do know that the clemency of justice or the compassion of the stricken families can never fix this crack. Even the resurrection of the victims might not fix it. Perhaps not even my death will fix it."
(pp. 192-193) Kindle Edition.

“When you have experienced a waking nightmare in real life, you no longer sort through your daytime and nighttime thoughts the way you did before. Ever since the genocide, I always feel hunted, night and day. In my bed, I turn away from shadows; on a path, I look back at forms following me. I fear for my child when I meet a stranger’s eyes. Sometimes I see the face of an interahamwe near the river and tell myself, Look, Francine, you’ve seen that man before in a dream, and I remember only afterward that the dream was in real time, wide awake, back then in the marshes.”
(p. 184) Kindle Edition.

"Through killing well, eating well, looting well, we felt so puffed up and important, we didn’t even care about the presence of God. Those who say otherwise are half-witted liars. Some claim today that they sent up prayers during the killings. They’re lying: no one ever heard an Ave Maria or the like, they’re only trying to jump in front of their colleagues on line for repentance. In truth, we thought that from then on we could manage for ourselves without God. The proof— we killed even on Sunday without ever noticing it. That’s all."
(p. 147) Kindle Edition.

...more

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Dec 14, 2019 B Sarv rated it it was amazing

In order of publication, the books I am reviewing are:

Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak (2000) by Jean Hatzfeld, trans. Linda Coverdale

Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (2003) by Jean Hatzfeld, trans. Linda Coverdale

The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair (2013) by Michael Deibert

This review is about three books at once because: 1) the topics of all three books are related to the 1994 Rwandan genocide and its aftermath, and 2) writing about the books ...more

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Jan 14, 2016 Aaron Gertler rated it it was amazing

"Some struck slowly from wickedness. Some struck quickly so as to finish up and go home early to do something else. It was not important. It was each to his own technique and personality."

In The Act of Killing , my top film of 2013, genocidal gangsters stage a musical to celebrate their butchery. The raw joy of justified murder also permeatesMachete Season, a series of interviews with Rwandan killers.

Jean Hatzfield, the author, had written a book of stories from survivors. Why, then, talk to

"Some struck slowly from wickedness. Some struck quickly so as to finish up and go home early to do something else. It was not important. It was each to his own technique and personality."

In The Act of Killing , my top film of 2013, genocidal gangsters stage a musical to celebrate their butchery. The raw joy of justified murder also permeates Machete Season, a series of interviews with Rwandan killers.

Jean Hatzfield, the author, had written a book of stories from survivors. Why, then, talk to the murderers? Why would anyone want to listen?

To learn about killing, I suppose. The Rwandan genocide was no Holocaust, with its industrial gas chambers and IBM punch cards. It was a boisterous hunt, as Hutu men young and old gathered each morning in the local soccer field to pick up machetes and dash into the jungle. Hunters of animals turned cheerfully to the work of hunting humans. Even if reluctant, they killed for pragmatism -- to earn extra food or avoid scolding from their wives. Killing became their work and their play:

"The more we cut, the more cutting became child’s play to us. For a few, it turned into a treat, if I may say so. In the evening you might meet a colleague who would call out, “You, my friend, buy me a Primus or I’ll cut open your skull, because I have a taste for that now!”"

Germans had the Final Solution, a grand plan to complete the millennia-long work of Jewish extinction. One Hutu calls his own work "the perfect solution": No grandeur, just convenience. (You get the Tutsis' farmland and animals, so why not do as the radio says?)

That's what Machete Season gives us: A vision of murder without remorse, without excuse, without history, without future. Just the removal of inconvenient animals who were neighbors last year, and who laughed at your jokes about killing them all someday:

"What [the Hutus] said was so cleverly put, and repeated so often, that we Tutsis as well, we found them funny to listen to. They were clamoring for the massacre of all the cockroaches, but in amusing ways. For us, the Tutsis, those witty words were hilarious. The songs urging all the Hutus to get together to wipe out the Tutsis—we laughed out loud at the jokes."

As for the book itself: Hatzfield asks a lot of questions and keeps out of the way. That's all that needs to be done. ...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Morgan rated it it was amazing

Jean Hatzfeld interviews ten Hutus who participated in the Rwandan genocide while serving their terms in jail. The book is divided into sections of direct quotes made by the killers and some survivors and Hatzfeld's own challenge to understand how the killers' explanations fit into a larger context of genocides, politics and human nature. The killer's discussion about why and how the genocide happened and how they came to participate in it, and what they think of it now is nothing short of Jean Hatzfeld interviews ten Hutus who participated in the Rwandan genocide while serving their terms in jail. The book is divided into sections of direct quotes made by the killers and some survivors and Hatzfeld's own challenge to understand how the killers' explanations fit into a larger context of genocides, politics and human nature. The killer's discussion about why and how the genocide happened and how they came to participate in it, and what they think of it now is nothing short of astounding. Naturally, the book raises intriguing questions about human nature, forgiveness, prejudice and religion's role in the killers' minds. Here is a favorite excerpt:

"Their friendly solidarity, their disconnection from the world they soaked in blood, their incomprehension of their new existence, their inability to notice how we see them--all this makes them more accessible. Their patience and serenity, and sometimes their naivete, finally rub off on our relationship and touch particularly on their mysterious willingness to talk. They don't give a hang about bearing witness for history; they have no complexes to work off and no hopes for any clemency from these pages. They are probably opening up because for the first time they can do so without feeling threatened.

But there is more to it than that. Some of them occasionally reveal that they no longer completely recognize themselves in those men who marched down to the marches, singing, and others seem to fear what they became there. Perhaps their egocentrism is less egotistic than it seems. Perhaps they harbor more self-doubt than their accounts would lead us to believe. Perhaps they feel the need to glimpse themselves as they were, even from this distance, in the stories they tell. Perhaps they are telling their stories to convince us they are ordinary, the ordinary people described by Primo Levi and Hannah Arendt. In some confused way they are also probably trying to emphasize, to all of us at the edge of that exterminating whirlwind, an agonizing truth." ...more

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Jul 13, 2016 L Frost rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Because of the subject matter, it's impossible to say this is a "good" book. But it is insightful, disturbing, confusing, and important. Although I was somewhat curious to hear from these men why they did what they did, I wasn't sure there was really much to learn that you didn't already know from the survivors and scholars. But the psychology surrounding these men plays a much bigger role than imagined. The possible motives were much more complex than what you may initially think. It's ...more

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Jul 14, 2017 Galina Trefil rated it really liked it

A very good read on the collective psychopathy of the mob mentality. It takes care to emphasize that, contrary to more popular portrayals, the genocide did not spring out of nowhere, but had been decades of pogroms in the making. Also compelling to note how it had much less to do with Hutu vs. Tutsi at the root and much more to do with general poverty and a lack of very basic resources, leaving one to wonder how much would have taken place at all if the country were better off financially in the ...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Tariq Mahmood rated it it was amazing

Shelves: african-continent

The educated people were certainly the ones who drove the farmers on, out in the marshes. Today they're the ones who juggle with the words or turn close-mouthed. Many sit quietly in their same places as before. Some have become ministers or bishops; they aren't much in the public eye, but they still wear their fancy clothes and fold framed glasses. While suffering keeps us in prison. Adalbert, a Hutu farmer turned killer in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

What a book. Its a book which is unlike any ...more

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Jun 13, 2017 Armour Craig rated it really liked it

Tough read. Any by that I mean, there are passages of darkness that few humans have ever encountered. That said, and regardless of your thoughts of Susan Sontag, I offer you this excerpt from her foreword. I concur wholeheartedly. There are many parts of this book I was going to offer as an enticement to read it, but her comments sum it up far better than I could:

"Our obligation, and it is an obligation, is to take in what human beings are capable of doing to one another, not spontaneously ...more

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Jul 10, 2017 Kevin Jonker rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

Reading this book, I was reminded of a Holocaust survivor who was asked how something like the Holocaust could happen. The survivor said (I'm paraphrasing here), "Fifteen percent of the people are merciful no matter what, and fifteen percent of the people are cruel no matter what. The rest are open to suggestion." Here are the accounts of ten people who were open to suggestion--or maybe they were cruel. Hard to say at this point; they're murderers.

If you've ever wondered how ordinary people ...more

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Jul 24, 2017 Melanie rated it it was amazing

This book is abhorrent. You may think you can handle it, that you can read it, but you are wrong: you cannot. You will want to read more slowly, because you fear the words, and you will want to read more quickly, because you desperately want it to end. If you read it, as I did, to learn, to try to understand, you will come away disappointed, and more confused. The only thing I came to understand through the reading was the depth of evil which seemingly ordinary humans can contain and express, ...more

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Oct 07, 2017 Benjamin rated it it was amazing

I think it would be exceptionally hard to convince convicted killers to share their stories, yet Hatzfeld manages to persuade a group of friends who participated in the Rwandan genocide to open up and provide some horrific insights into their involvement. An important read for anyone interested in a deeper understanding about the genocide.

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Play Book Tag: Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak / Jean Hatzfeld. 3 stars	1	11	Mar 14, 2018 07:51PM
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About Jean Hatzfeld

Jean Hatzfeld

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Jean Hatzfeld is a journalist. He worked for many years as a war correspondent for Libération, a French newspaper, before leaving to focus on reporting the Rwandan genocide.