Never Again?

It’s been about four weeks since a tsunami killed about 200,000 people in Southeast Asia. Although some will criticize the US’s financial contribution to the relief effort no matter how much we give (IE– I asked a UT prof, “How much is adequate?” and the response was basically, “As much as we’re spending on the war in Iraq”), it is undeniable that there has been a strong collective response from the US and many nations across the globe. Locally, there have been benefit concerts, such as one yesterday at the Texas Music Cafe. High school student groups have collected money during lunch. And local merchants have donated a portion of their proceeds to the effort. Nationally, I think we’ve really stepped up. Who knows what the total figure is, but UNICEF, the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and many other agencies have received a significant amount.

We responded very differently to a disaster that left almost one million people dead in Rwanda. In just a few bloody months in 1994, the Hutu tribe massacred the minority Tutsi tribe while the world sat back and did nothing to prevent the genocide from taking place. Even to this day, many people (myself included), don’t know much about what happened and why.

Hotel Rwanda, a powerful new film based on a true story, is about an ordinary man–a savvy hotel manager– who finds the courage to protect about 1,200 people (mostly Tutsi “cockroaches”) in his four-star hotel as the massacre rages beyond its walls. Actor Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina, a man who did just about anything to make sure his guests were comfortable. This included things like bribing sketchy generals to make sure the hotel has an abundant supply of beer and liquor. This is not a documentary and it is not a gore-fest. Rather than shocking the audience with carnage, which would have distracted us from the stirring human response to certain disaster, director Terry George skillfully depicts the genocide as a whole by focusing on one inspirational story. It is hard not to feel ashamed and hopeless while watching Hotel Rwanda. The first question is, How are human beings capable of such actrocities? Frankly, I think “chopping” thousands of people with machetes, and lining them along roads is worse than gas chambers. And we don’t even see the worst of it–such as “16-year-olds drinking beer atop roadblocks made of corpses.” Second, why didn’t the world react? The film suggests that it was mostly because of racism. Nick Nolte, a hapless UN “peacekeeper” tells Paul, “They (the West) think you’re dirt… You’re not even a nigger, you’re an African.” And maybe there is truth in the assertion that since we didn’t have a strategic, security-based interest in the region, we didn’t answer the call to intervene. It also gets tricky when you get into the specifics of reacting. Who exactly do we support? Although the film shows Hutu members butchering innocent, peaceful Tutsis, the Tutsis are guilty of oppressing Hutus in an earlier era. What if President Clinton sent in troops to prop up the Tutsi rebellion and then years later the Tutsis attacked the Hutus? What would the Chomskys say about that? What’s more, Clinton had just come off the Somalia debacle. How would the public respond to more images of troops dragged through the streets? Should the US be the world’s policeman? Etc. Clearly, the UN, the US, Europe–the West–should have done something though. France, for its part, actually supplied and trained members of the Hutu tribe. Some of had said that if one hate-filled radio station, Radio T?l?vision Libre de Mille Collines, had been shut down, it might have greatly limited the killing.

Obviously, there are no easy answers. But everyone who watches Hotel Rwanda will be assured that such crimes must never happen again. We stepped up to the natural disaster in Southeast Asia. But what will do about next catastrophe?

Rwandan genocide resources:

• An overview: Wikipedia
• PBS Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda
• Books
• Radio Netherlands

January 23rd, 2005