It Can Happen Again

My husband and I recently finished watching "Hotel Rwanda," the story of how Paul Russesabagina personally saved 1200 Hutu and Tutsi refugees during the horrific outbreak of violence in 1994. Before viewing "Hotel Rwanda" I was woefully uneducated on the atrocities committed in this country and the reasons behind them. Like most Americans, I knew "something like genocide" had occurred, but I had never taken the time to fully research the events. This film helped remedy that situation and struck an emotional chord with me that still resonates.

Some of the issues raised in the film that stuck with me are as follows:

1. I can't believe that the whole situation was started by the Belgians. While "colonizing" Rwanda, the Belgians chose those natives with lighter skin, narrower noses, and taller physiques to be in charge of various governmental arenas. This group was called the Tutsi and was given complete control over the other group, called the Hutu. Before the Belgians made this distinction, the native peoples of Rwanda were not divided into these classes. Like any beginning psychology student will tell you, the Tutsi, once given power over their former "equals," quickly began to abuse that power. Once the Belgians left, the Hutu regained control and quickly began repaying the Tutsi for years of mistreatment. Damn Belgians. As if Africa didn't already have enough problems. That years of violence and racial hatred were artificially created due to European standards of beauty astounds me.

2. Going back to the issue of my ignorance, I realize I am not alone in this. In the film, Joachim Phoenix portrays a cameraman named Daglish who comments that people in the United States will see the pictures of the atrocities being committed in Rwanda and do nothing in response. He says, "They'll look at the screen and say 'Oh, that's terrible' and go right back to eating dinner." He was right. I think back to my days as a college student in 1994, and the genocide being committed in Rwanda received little attention on the evening news. Our entire country ate dinner while a million people were slaughtered.

3. I teach a unit on the Holocaust in my Sophomore English classes. We talk about "The Final Solution," the plan to completely eliminate European Jewry; the dehumanization of Jews by the Nazi party; and the apathy of the public which allowed the Holocaust to take place. We even briefly mention Rwanda. One of the final questions that I asked my students this year was whether or not an event like this could ever take place again. With very few exceptions, the majority of my students claimed that the United States would not allow such an event to happen again. They justified their response with such reason as the availability of information, the increasing goodness of the United States, and the ever-popular view that people are more tolerant these days.

Bullshit.

If we as a country truly cared about those around us, Africa wouldn't have the largest number of AIDS patients in the world. The genocide in Rwanda took place in 1994. I don't think the world has changed that much in 10 years. The United Nations was fully aware of what was going on and refused to step in. The information was out there, and no one acted on it. As a result, one million people were killed in a four month period.

One million people. Four months.

4. Finally I was struck by the politicized use of the word "genocide." The United States and other countries are now frightened to even use the word because they are compelled to act on their knowledge of genocide. We now get bogged down in semantics, and doublespeak phrases such as "acts of genocide" are used instead so that countries can turn their backs on these atrocities. I'm not sure what the exact difference is between "genocide" and "acts of genocide," but I do know that in both of these, people die. When will we finally learn that even one "act of genocide" is enough for us to step in?

The images from this film are still with me a few days after watching it. If you have not yet seen "Hotel Rwanda," I suggest you do so as soon as possible. If more people are made aware of what is going on in world around us, then maybe we can prevent something like this from happening again. Until then, I'll keep watching the news a little more carefully.