Rwanda

Philip Gourevitch’s book, We wish to inform that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda, begins with what appears to be a messy knotted ball of yarn, the 1994 genocide of nearly one million Rwandan Tutsis which, even when acknowledged, has been dismissed by the West as the outcome of an age old ethnic conflict that has resulted in the death and displacement of large numbers of both Tutsi and Hutu Rwandans. Gourevitch carefully pulls this mess apart, seeking to reveal not only the genocide itself, but how Western understanding of the non-Western world shaped the decision not to intervene.

The book contains many discussions between Gourevitch and Paul Rusesabagina, whose story was made into the film Hotel Rwanda. I appreciated the film for sharing Rusesabagina’s story, for depicting the 1994 genocide, and for emphasizing the lack of international intervention along with the ineffectiveness of the UN peace keepers’ presence. Watching the film with my husband, who has not read Gourevitch’s book, I began to realize that the film perpetuates some of the same patterns of Western perception of the non-Western world described by Gourevitch. There were several different groups of armed people in the film. My husband kept asking me, who are they? What side are they on? The film aims to depict the genocide and ignores the politics. Gourevitch discusses the significance of the Western world not seeing the politics involved in conflicts throughout the non-Western world and in particular in Rwanda. The West chose to see ethnic conflict, instead of the political ideology of Hutu Power. The first basis for understanding Rwanda allowed the West not to intervene and not to call the murdering of the Tutsis genocide. Although the film clearly takes the position that genocide was committed, it is very unclear about the political organization that desired the genocide.

Gourevitch argues that one of Hutu Power’s objectives is to equate ethnicity with political identity, which was not true in Rwanda before 1994 or after 1994. The Hutu Power propaganda described a civil war between Hutus and Tutsis that did not exist. There was never and is still not an organized group in Rwanda of Tutsis whose aim is to exterminate all Hutus. This is why in the film Rusesabagina does not believe the president was assassinated by Tutsi rebels. However, the film never tells us that Rusesabagina is right.

Through the stories of survivors in the book, we learn about neighbors killing their neighbors, school teachers killing their students, doctors killing their patients, clergy killing their congregants, and the list goes on. Gourevitch presents the horror of these betrayals during the genocide and in its aftermath as victim and murder are left to reside in the same community. In the film, we are in the safety of the hotel and are not witnesses to intimate betrayals. I don’t think the film represents the genocide accurately by ignoring the religious and civic leaders who lured large groups of Tutsis to their deaths by pretending to provide safe havens for them. Reading the accounts about clergy who welcomed Tutsis into their churches and then left them to be slaughtered or participated in the killing, left me horrified. How could these religious men possibly justify the killing of their own congregants?

The majority of Rwandans are Christian’s, but you would never know that from the film. This bothers me. The only religious figures, nuns and a priest, we see in the film are white missionaries who arrive with orphans and then get on a bus and run away. The only hint at religion from Rwandans is the cross on Rusesabagina’s wife’s necklace.
The non-religious depiction of Rwandans ignores that Tutsis and Hutus shared the same religion and share the same religion as the majority of people in the US and Europe.
I think it is part of a Western desire both to disassociate with the victims and the killers, part of keeping Rwandans as others in order not to get involved.

Throughout the book, Gourevitch returns to identity. We see how the US and Europe identify Africans. We see how Belgians impose an identity on Rwanda’s Hutus and Tutsis. We see how Ugandans see Rwandans. We see how many different Rwandans view themselves and their people. The book is filled with all the effects and collisions of these different ways of seeing and being seen. The film hints at this in the scene when the UN officer tells Rusesabagina that there will be no intervention because the West doesn’t care about Africans. And these multiple perceptions are present later when Rusesabagina shares with his wife that he feels foolish for believing he was seen as part of the West’s world. Perhaps a film cannot get at these complexities the way a book can.