Rwanda has banned talking about ethnicity

“IT’S THE nose, they always look at your nose,” says Peter (not his real name), an ebullient Tutsi former soldier mulling over how the majority Hutus still eye up, and in the old days would comment on, the supposedly sharper and longer noses of the stereotypically taller and thinner Tutsis.

These days it is rude—and can even be deemed criminally “divisionist”—to use the labels Hutu and Tutsi in public. “We are all Rwandans now” is the strictly enforced official mantra. Yet virtually everyone is conscious of whether someone hails from a family of “victims” or “perpetrators”.

One must be careful not to ask, or spell it out. “We know, we always know,” says Peter. “We can tell easily in the village; maybe it’s not always so easy in Kigali,” the capital, which is a melting pot. “But you always find it out, maybe in a roundabout way.”

Hutus and Tutsis are not tribes but a complex mosaic of clan, caste and lineage, sharing language, religion and customs, with much social mixing and intermarriage. Some Hutus are tall and lean. Some Tutsis are short and stocky with flat noses. Many Rwandans are in-between.

After a drink, Peter breezily flouts the official edict against ethnic labelling. “The Hutus still make excuses,” he complains. “They say, ‘We were told to kill or we would be killed ourselves’…But how can you kill children and babies? The trouble with Hutus is that they obey, that’s their mentality.”