More fun with Steven Pinker

Here.

UPDATE:  Steven Pierce, Lecturer in Modern African History at the University of Manchester, writes:

One of Herman and Peterson's many dissatisfactions with Pinker is in his treatment of the Rwandan genocide, specifically that he believes it occurred.  Herman and Peterson subscribe to a revisionist school of thought claiming that almost all the killing was perpetrated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, then an invading army and now the country's ruling party, and that the majority of the casualties was Hutu rather than Tutsi.  The RPF, to their minds, is nothing but a tool of U.S.-led western imperialism.

That claim is monstrous. Even if one were willing to discount the testimony of hundreds of thousands of witnesses, the account is incompatible with the basic outlines of Rwandan history, nor does it make any logistical sense.  Very few reputable academic commentators have any great respect for the RPF, but none would dispute the culpability of Hutu Power extremists for the majority of the killings.  The genocide began after the assassination of President Habyarimana, as the Rwandan army was slowly losing to  the invading RPF, a group of Tutsis who had gone into exile when the Hutu majority came to power in 1959. Much of the violence seems to have taken place because of propaganda circulated through organs like Radio Milles Collines, which was under the control of Hutus much more radical than the president and his cronies.   The RPF committed atrocities in its conquest, and its regime continues to be very problematic; however, the bulk of the killing targeted Tutsis and moderate Hutu.  I'm not competent to judge some of the more rarified questions such as who shot down President Habyarimana's plane. (I'm a Nigeria specialist), and perhaps I'm showing guild loyalty in siding with commentators I trust rather than Herman and Peterson. Nonetheless all reasonable evidence supports the standard account.

Fortunately, there are enough other uncontroversial errors and ideological blinders at work in Pinker's account that the linked critique is still instructive, even if their view on this issue is, at best, contentious.  (Rwanda occupied one paragraph in their lengthy critique.)