As we all know by now, religious people like to point out that the greatest genocides of the 20th century were committed by atheist regimes, even if those regimes were lead by self-professed Christians, or by radical communists which demanded religious-like devotion from their people. That is a problem in itself, yet perhaps a bigger problem is that, as in most aspects of life, they completely ignore Africa.
Africa had genocides in the 20th century, too. The worst was in Rwanda. Rwanda is a very religious country, predominantly Christian, with a few Muslims and very few atheists. Yet in this highly-Christian country of less than 8 million people, one of the worst genocides in the history of humanity took place.
The death toll of the violence is estimated at about 800,000 people, or about 10% of the population at the time. It lasted a mere 100 days, making an average of 8,000 murders per day. It has therefore been called the most efficient mass-killing since the loving, Christian Americans nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and firebombed the shit out of Tokyo. I guess nobody knows how to kill quite as efficiently as devout Christians. The Nazis, by comparison, were incompetent pussies (despite their Christian leader). Six million killed over roughly 6 years amounts to a mere 2,700 or so murders per day, on average.
What was especially disturbing about genocide in Rwanda is that it was not merely an organised military committing the violence. Ordinary people, including children, picked up machetes and hacked their neighbours, children included, to death. Basic statistics will tell us that the majority of those murderers were Christian.
If you go to the genocide museum in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, you'll find some stories of the great love of Christian priests during all of this violence. When thousands of people fled to churches for what they thought was safety, some priests, perhaps scared for their own lives, or perhaps just hateful monsters, locked the people inside and called in the militia. Up to thousands of people were slaughtered per church, with the priests either actively participating, or just providing guidance to the militias. There are photos in the museum of churches with hundreds of dead bodies visible on the floors and pews.
The next time a religious person tries to argue that the 20th century's greatest genocides were committed by atheists, remind them of Rwanda and the uncanny knack that the religious have for highly-efficient mass-murder.
