Some Reflections on Hotel Rwanda

I can remember it clearly. In fact, it is one of the most vivid memories that I have from my adolescence. I was 13 years old. It was a bright, sunny summer day and I had just returned to my parent’s house on the back of an afternoon of 2-on-2 football with my brother and a couple of friends from school. Entering the house, I ran down the stairs into the basement where my parents were watching the CBS evening news. What I saw on the screen was horrifying—giant trucks were dumping countless bodies onto the ground while plows shoveled the deformed, decaying carcasses into the gigantic mass grave. I had just witnessed my first genocide. And all I could think of was, “I can’t believe they’re allowed to show this on T.V.” How very sheltered...how very American…

I’m talking, of course, about the horrific killing that occurred in Rwanda in the early 1990’s when the Hutu’s began systematically exterminating the Tutsis in droves. It is estimated that in the course of the hostilities (“hostilities”—what a sterilized word!), over 1 million people were butchered. The mass grave which I saw that evening on the news was but one of thousands required to cover up and hide from sight this grand display of human hatred and cruelty.

These memories came back to me in force this evening as I watched “Hotel Rwanda,” a recent motion picture recounting the courage of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, who attempts to shield a small group of Tutsis refugees from the murderous intentions of the Hutu militia.

As a teenager, I was not aware of the atrocities which were being committed in Rwanda, nor of the ineptitude of the global community in stopping it, much less even raising a voice against it. As I look back on these tragedies, I am pained to think that such horrific acts could occur in our “civilized” era.

And yet, as I reflect on what occurred, as well as my feelings about it, I realize that I—like most other Americans—am successfully anesthetized to such horror and terror on a daily basis. As I feel anger about what occurred, and the concomitant lack of response to it, I am suddenly checked—the fact that I can sit here and watch a movie about what has happened proves that this does not really affect my life. Sure, I feel bad for a few moments, perhaps I will even have trouble sleeping tonight. However, tomorrow I will go back to work, and the stress of the day will occupy my thoughts. And even if that nagging sense of the other-worldliness that comes from exposure to supreme hatred, to the extreme of suffering—even then, there are other movies to watch, and surely the next one will have a happy ending. It will probably be ridiculous, and pointless. And I will laugh. “This,” I will comfortingly say to myself, “is a good movie!”

Unfortunately the anesthetizing of our culture to the horrors of the real world (I say “real” because America is really a kind of fairy tale in which rich white people don’t get hurt and need not bother about the fact that others are) seeps into the fiber and soul of our country. The lack of response to the horrors in Rwanda was not based on inability; nor was it based on lack of resources. It was based entirely upon a self-consumed, all-encompassing disinterest. Our country has become so inwardly focused that we can turn a blind eye while 1 million people are mercilessly slaughtered; we can make movies (which, by the way, I think is important to call us to remembrance) and pay our 8 dollars to be entertained; we can walk away comforted, assured that this could never happen “where we live.”

Of course, some will say, “Hey, wait just a minute. We do care about others. Look at Iraq.” Leaving aside partisan politics, the so-called “war” in Iraq actually proves my point about the infinite self-directedness of our country and its citizens. While the welfare and “freedom” of the people of Iraq is a popular talking point for the justification of hostilities, this is hardly the driving force behind the invasion. Whether one believes the primary motivation is security or oil, the point is that this was done entirely for America. The freedom of the Iraqi people (if this actually materializes) is simply a “bonus”—the invasion would have occurred even if freedom wasn’t at stake. The point is that human suffering has never been the motivating factor for America—if it was, there are much bigger fish to fry than Saddam. However, until political power is threatened (or, more conveniently, is able to be advanced) American will be content to let the rest of the world kill innocents while it stands comfortably by in its own economically euphoric daze, unconsciously damning the soul of its people through its indifference and inaction. However, I am no politician. Perhaps it is not my place to judge on these issues: after all, I do not know what it takes to sustain a superpower and the world’s largest consuming population. Perhaps in the midst of all of that there is no room for compassion.

In the final analysis, I am haunted by what I saw that lazy, balmy summer’s night. And yet, when I look around at the antipathy which my fellow human beings show towards the suffering of others, I am grateful for the memory. Despite the discomfort it causes me, it reminds me that the world is desperate for love, for compassion, for mercy. In fact, it is only discomfort with easy comfortability that will motivate change and action. The only way in which our nation will ever take a stand against injustice is if it stares it in the face. Oh, the stare down will come. Whether we seek out suffering and injustice, or whether we wait for it to come knocking at the door, it is inevitable that it will come. We have an unprecedented opportunity in history to alleviate suffering, to confront injustice, to spread compassion. If we wait until these attributes become a means of survival, it may be too late; the soul may have become too weak, too used to its self-assured, self-anesthetized security and dislocation from the horror of life in the real world.

May the memories of 13 year-old boys be transformed into a will and a power that alters the world.