The Muslims role in The Genocide Reflection

During the Genocide of 1994, hundreds of people hid in the Muslim mosques.  They hoped that they would be safe within the religious walls of the Muslim’s prayer place.  A place where many Hutu’s believed was evil, and seldom entered for this reason alone.  But the Tutsi’s were wrong, the Hutu’s did enter, just like they did in the hundreds of churches that scattered the Rwandan landscape.  In one instance a women named Alfonsine and her family were all hacked with machetes until the ringleader ordered the rest of the killers to get out before the Muslims found them.  A man named Rashid, who was a Muslim Hutu himself who had been supplying these Tutsi’s with food and water for weeks and came and saved this women and made a vow that he would protect the Tutsi’s even if need be he would die with them. 

The Muslims were considered less human then even Tutsi’s; they were not given even the lowest forms of education and were not aloud to own land.  Many Hutu’s grew up believing that Muslim Mosques were filled with the devil and the Muslim homes were also filled with devil.  The churches told them that if they opened a Quran they would go mad and that shaking hands with the Muslims is like shaking hands with the devil. 

Today the church rejects institutional culpability for the genocide.  This is shocking to many because of the tens of thousands of Tutsi’s whose lives were taken within those very holy places.  Christianity is the central religion in Rwanda, and to see that the lowest acts of humanity were acted upon within the churches is unforgivable.
I find it inspirational to see someone who is a Hutu himself, rise above the pressure of ethnic loyalty and act upon his religious values to save hundreds of lives. during that time i can only imagine the loss of hope among the Tutsi people and to see at least one sign of hope within the Muslim mosque must have been a small comfort to hundreds of people.  

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZgtlDV3d1c