Main Themes in Film Hotel Rwanda

Introduction

The movie Hotel Rwanda follows the true story of a man named Paul Rusesabagina as he attempts to save as many refugees as possible within his hotel, including his own family, as he is involved in a civil war and genocide that had been brewing after decades of tension between two clans living in the region of Rwanda. The two clans were the Tutsi and the Hutu, and there has been racial tension between the two for generations. This time around the Hutu had seized power in the government. Sometime after, the government signed a ceasefire with the Tutsi rebels at what seemed like the end of a long conflict. Shortly after, the President of the country was killed, after the president’s plane was splashed by a surface-to-air missile. Naturally, the Tutsi rebels were blamed. This caused the fragile ceasefire to fall apart and reignited the war between the two factions. However, the government had sanctioned a civilian Hutu militia to conduct law enforcement and military operations. In other words, the Government was utilizing Mercenaries to harass and exterminate the Tutsi.

The Hutu militia began to systematically massacre Tutsi civilians. Unfortunately, the Tutsi rebels were at a heavy disadvantage as they were fighting Both government forces and a Government backed militia. The Tutsi were receiving no help from the outside, the U.N remained neutral and eventually pulled out of Rwanda as the conflict began to escalate. By the time the Tutsi rebels managed to push the government forces and Hutu militia across the border and into the Congo, hundreds of thousands were lost resulting in the very definition of a pyrrhic victory.

Paul Rusesabagina is a hotel manager tending to local as well as foreign guests before the conflict erupts. Paul Rusesabagina attempts to save as many people as possible by packing them into his Hotel. However, there is nothing truly stopping the militia or government from storming the hotel, and supplies including food run short. Paul Rusesabagina had no choice but to exploit every political connection and partnership he had available. To make matters worse, Paul had come to realize that help was not coming. With the U.N fearing any backlash that accompanies engaging government forces in combat, there was no aid. In fact, the United Nation’s Peacekeepers in the region are evacuated when the event reaches its boiling point. The French Military sends a convoy to extract western citizens but abandons the refugees. Thankfully, Paul was able to save over one thousand refugees, including his family when he finally leads them across the front lines of the civil war and into a refugee camp in Tutsi rebel territory.

Racism

The dominant type of “ism’ in this film was without doubt racism. However, this isn’t subliminal or micro-aggressive racism. The kind of discrimination and racism that we are able to see in this story is extreme and rather violent. It was violent and powerful enough to spark a civil war. However, it is uncertain if one can simply call this a civil war as the government-backed rebels seemed more interested in committing war crimes than fighting.

As with anyone, this had a profound effect on how the main character in this story behaved. Throughout the film, the main character could not be bothered with the concept of race or racial identity, all of those things meant nothing as he was only concerned with saving his family and the people staying at his hotel. Paul Rusesabagina recognized that things such as cultural identity and Race mean absolutely nothing when human lives are at stake. This was an act of heroism that must be truly admired.

Examples and occurrences of racism could be found throughout the film. Overall, Tutsi civilians and their families were alienated and harassed, then slaughtered. What makes this worse is that the government itself funded and sanctioned a militia to harass and eventually slaughter the Tutsi. In fact, I do not believe that there were any subtle examples of racism, they were all quite obvious and blatant, it was so much so that it led to genocide.

The concept of Racial/Cultural Minority Identity Development applies to an extent in this story. This is because it was the Tutsi ethnic minority that was being harassed since the Hutu seized power in the country. The harassment began in government, as they were blamed for the death of the country’s president. However, by what was demonstrated by the movie, it did not seem like the Tutsi civilians cared much about their culture while they were trying to flee for their very lives. In fact, things like gender, and age did not seem to be of much concern to the hostile militia either, as they indiscriminately killed anyone who was not part of the Hutu clan. Thus, for this reason, it is unclear how the Tutsi developed their cultural and racial identities. The main focus of Paul was simply to save his family and as many of his hotel patrons as he possibly could. It did not seem like race or culture were of any concern as he strived to achieve that goal.

The only challenge to the theory that I discovered was the severity of the conflict. In other words, the genocide was so violent and abrupt that the people caught in the immediate chaos had no time to ponder anything other than survival. For this reason, racial and cultural identity development in these individuals is unclear. It also seemed that the savior complex was completely absent in all involved parties. Even the United Nations, the organization world renown for being peacekeepers, decided not to fight even in the face of such circumstances.

Political and social issues

This event was the result of a very complex conflict spanning back to when this part of Africa was under European occupation. However, it seems like the spark that lit this fire was politically driven. It is apparent that the government and the militia they hired on as mercenaries used the mysterious death of the country’s president to justify their actions. Of course, this happened right after a delicate cease-fire had been signed by the Government and Tutsi militia. Prior to the writing of the cease-fire, when the Hutu seized power in Rwanda, they immediately began to abuse that authority. They did so by blatantly disenfranchising and alienating the Tutsi through horrendous and dehumanizing propaganda. In fact, the propaganda that occurred during the Rwandan genocide was nothing short of animalistic. One scene showed Paul Rusesabagina in a car listening to the radio on his way to meet with a business partner. During the car ride, the voice over the radio spewed dehumanizing propaganda against the Tutsi clan. This is only one example of the horrible things that were already unfolding prior to the genocide.

There was no part of this event that was not disturbing or very unfortunate in some way. However, the most unfortunate part of this event is definitely the genocide, obviously. It is one thing to fight against and injure or kill hostile combatants. However, the systematic annihilation of unarmed civilians is extremely revolting and leaves a bitter taste in one’s mouth.

The movie Hotel Rwanda was an extremely touching movie that seemed to appeal to my very being as an aspiring social worker. The movie was composed of extremely powerful moments, one after the other, for the most part, I felt anger, hope, and sadness. However, there was one scene in the nonfiction film that impacted me the most, and not in an emotionally positive way. This was the scene where the French sent an armored convoy into the U.N checkpoint in the hotel. The frightened refugees misunderstood the French military’s intentions there. As it turns out, the French was not there to provide aid, This made me feel a complicated mix of emotion. Above all I feel bad for the innocents involved, I understand that feeling pity is degrading but I simply cannot help it. This movie brings out many emotions in me, especially as I watched it for the first time. One of the most prominent emotions that consistently swelled up as I watched this film was anger. Sometimes, it can be hard to believe that people can be capable of such horrendous acts. I also feel somewhat disappointed that the U.N turned out to be useless, although I always suspected as much. The U.N also made it easy for this to happen by looking the other way when the Hutu began their onslaught. They decided to remain neutral when the fighting broke out, and innocent people were slaughtered by the thousands. The United Nations had the opportunity to save people, yet they chose to avoid conflict.

Implications to multicultural social work practice (Micro/Mezzo/Macro Implications)

It is my belief that this movie was extremely relevant in terms of the many aspects of social work. Particularly Micro and Macro practice. This affects the Tutsi culture as a whole due to the fact that they are not only being harassed and used as scapegoats, but they are also being physically hunted and live in constant fear of being shot or arrested, and hung on sight. That is why this event is highly relevant to macro-level social work practice. This is obviously relevant to micro-level practice because this affects the individual in a significant manner. The individual makes up society After all, and if the cultural group is being prosecuted a hunted, it is obvious that the individual will be suffering. This teaches social workers a lot about race relations and how to help those suffering from oppression. By observing events such as the Rwandan genocide, we can learn, and study the patterns and triggers that led to the conflict. By doing so we can prevent this from happening again, I believe that social workers have the tools to save many lives if they try.

When it comes to the film Hotel Rwanda, Social Work and social justice are something that one can draw a lot of content from. One could make the argument that not one scene, but the movie depicts violation upon violation of social justice. In fact, I believe that this was the worst and largest genocide in modern times. It is the very purpose of the social work field, whether it's in mezzo micro or macro practice to fight against oppression and anything that impedes social justice. This film is relevant to the field of social work because it demonstrated that evil and injustice can occur anywhere in the world, and in varying degrees. By understanding this, a social worker can be better prepared to face things like this, although this is one of the more extreme examples of course. In a way, watching this movie gave me a degree of hope, it showed me that aside from social workers, there are good people out there willing to do the right thing even at the risk of their own well-being.