|  A
little more than ten years ago, the American world closed
its doors as 1 million people were massacred single-handedly
in the country of Rwanda. Now, ten years later, America
has finally acknowledged the horror from the comfort of
their movie theatre seats. Hotel Rwanda is a stunning and
stark portrayal of a catastrophe that has long been due
acknowledgement. The expansive film reveals all aspects
of the tragedy--from the actual genocide, to the racial
subordination of the African people by Western nations,
to the hate radio and propaganda that perpetuated the cause.
Furthermore, the film features honest and authentic portrayals
by Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo, who were truly academy-award
winning material. Hotel Rwanda documents the life of a real
hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina, without the dryness of
a typical documentary, and documents a true genocide without
an overemphasis of the horror that was present. Hotel Rwanda
is a window into a true genocide through the eyes of a single
man out of the billions that suffered outside the closed
doors of the rest of the world.
The
genocide began as a result from the recognition of ethnic
differences whose creation can be traced back to the colonial
period of "divide and rule" that ravaged the continent
of Africa. Before granting the country "freedom"
from colonial rule, the French, as also revealed in the
film, divided the Rwandan people along arbitrary ethnic
lines, creating two ethnic groups: the Hutus and the Tutsis.
Rwandans with "more European features," such as
thinner, more elongated noses, were designated as Tutsis,
while the remaining Rwandans with broader noses and other
more "African features" were labeled as Hutus.
Thus, as given by their association with the European colonizes,
the Tutsi minority was left with predominate political power.
Soon after the country was left, divided, to govern itself,
power shifted between the two groups. As power shifted,
the civil conflict escalated until final peace negotiations
almost ended the conflict. However, after the peace negotiations,
Hutu political leader and president of Rwanda was killed
after his plane was shot down. Hutu extremists henceforth
saw this terrorist assassination of their president and
leader as a outright attack from the Tutsis against the
Hutu people. Thus Hutu extremists began raging ethnic cleansing
against Tutsis in retaliation. But by 1994, the conflict
and ethnic cleaning escalated to the point where 1,000,000
people were massacred at the hands of machetes and even
more remained displaced, homeless, and terrorized. Hotel
Rwanda documents the life of Hutu hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina,
who hid and rescued thousands of such displaced Tutsis and
others in his upscale hotel with the capacity of only hundreds.
Hotel Rwanda epitomized the transformation of a luxury hotel
into a refugee camp in the midst of war.
Nonetheless,
the film traveled to even greater depths, showing that genocide
is more than just a killing. As the genocide and massacre
rage and the Rwandan citizens and tourists alike await in
the most heightened feeling of desperation for American
military protection, the troops finally arrive only to escort
the white European and American tourists from the hotel.
The audience is shown a scene of American troops wrenching
even white nuns and priests from the arms of the Tutsis
children which they had vowed to protect. Racial segregation
even in 1994 was to such an extent that blacks were even
robbed of their right to protection and life.
Abandoned and neglected, the only reliable entity within
the struggle was the propaganda hate radio that persisted
to escalate the genocide. In the film, Paul Rusesabagina
befriends the radio deejay of the main Hutu radio station,
Radio Rwanda. However, as the film and the genocide progressed,
their friendship was strained, and the radio deejay soon
became one of the primary leaders in the Hutu crusade violence.
He used the radio station to perpetuate the propaganda needed
to incite the Hutus of Rwanda to "kill the tall trees,"
or otherwise, massacre the powerful minority of the Tutsis
that have seemingly left the majority disenfranchised. Radio
Rwanda was backed by the Hutu government that supported
the programs of Radio Télévision Libre de
Mille Collines (RTLM), one of the world’s most prominent
figures of "hate radio" and hate propaganda that
has been used to this day. Hotel Rwanda showed how even
the radio, if placed in the wrong hands, can lead a nation
to genocide.
However, as a motion picture, the film also illuminated
the more personal struggles of individual people. In one
scene, the adolescent son of Paul Rusesabagina is covered
in the blood of his best friend of the same age. Hutu extremists
did not discriminate in their killings as men, women and
children alike were victims. On the premises of the Hutu
radio station, Tutsi women were shown raped and bound in
sexual slavery. Families were separated and scattered, and
the film ends with a shot of twenty wide- eyed children
orphaned, displaced, and homeless.
Yet, the film ends with true resolution, not the morbid
horror of a documentary, nor the romanticized ending of
a motion picture. Paul Rusesabagina was reunited with some
family members, while others perished. Paul Rusesabagina
managed to save over 1,200 people in his luxury hotel, although
his life, his ethnic identity as a Hutu, and his reputation
were on the line. There were even a few American troops
in the film who remained with the Rwandan people against
the orders of their superiors and admonished America for
its failure to respond. The genocide indeed ended but the
country still echoes with the million lives that were lost.
The
audience is left feeling enlightened, yet enraged with a
country that would wait an entire decade to acknowledge
a genocide while possessing the power and capability to
save those lives. Everyone should see this movie. It will
enlighten you and provoke you to action. Although the genocide
of Rwandan has ended true humanitarian terrorism of genocide
and ethnic cleansing, not economic "War on Terror"
terrorism, rages at this present day. Not only from a global
perspective, but from an individual perspective, this film
truly opens your eyes to the power of hate in dividing people
along arbitrary differences. What started as a mere difference
in nose structure ended in genocide; do not allow arbitrary
differences to segregate the people in your world. Segregation
catalyzes hate, which can be fueled by denial and ignorance,
if you do not recognized this perpetuating cycle and seek
to stop in your own life today.
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