published in Eckert. Die Schriftenreihe Studien des Georg-Eckert-Instituts zur internationalen Bildungsmedienforschung, Vol. 141, V&R unipress GmbH, Göttingen, 2016, pp.221-242
Around the world, attempts at dealing with different nations’ violent pasts have proven to be highly contentious. A history of collective violence and abuse has often led to conflicting memories and polemic confrontations around the historical “truth.” [...] This chapter aims to contribute to the field of education and peacebuilding by offering novel insights into the politics and practice of teaching history in contexts of protracted, identity-based conflict and peacebuilding processes. Its particular focus is on the Great Lakes Region of Africa, one of the most unstable and conflict-ridden areas in the world, where history is deeply contested and politicized. The chapter draws on the distinct experiences of neighboring Rwanda and Burundi, two countries with many similarities, both recently emerging from civil war following decades of ethnocratic rule and internecine conflict and violence. In Rwanda, war raged between 1990 and 1994, ending with the military victory and assumption of power of a Tutsi-dominated rebel movement after three decades of Hutu majority rule; in Burundi, the civil war, lasting from 1993 until 2003, ended through protracted negotiations and multi-party elections, which led to the political victory of a former Hutu rebellion after a long history of Tutsi minority rule.
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