The Rwandan Genocide in The Film, Hotel Rwanda

The film “Hotel Rwanda” tells the story of Paul Rusesabagina and his family, and how his actions saved over a thousand refugees during the Rwanan genocide. During the early 90’s, tensions between Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups in Rwanda are rising. Crisis seems to be averted when the president signs a peace treaty, but shortly afterward, he is assassinated. This event is the final straw for the Hutu rebels, who begin brutally attacking all Tutsi families, especially children. Paul is able to bribe soldiers into letting him take his family and neighbors to his hotel, where they can be under the protection of the U.N. The U.N. evacuates the foreigners who are staying at the hotel, but not the Rwandans. With violence increasing and time running out, Paul tries desperately to provide supplies and protection for all the people who are now stranded at the hotel. He is finally able to get the hotel evacuated, and escape to Tanzania.

The events of the movie took place in 1994, and I couldn’t help but realize that I was about the same age as Paul’s children at the time. I can’t imagine the things that they must have seen; things that I would only see in a horror movie. At one point, a character asks how people could be so cruel, and Paul answers “Hatred... Insanity... I don't know...” which seems about as close to a reason that there could be. America has many issues regarding diversity that need to be worked on, but compared to the events that happened in Rwanda, our problems are trivial.

An organization or a society can interfere with a person’s ability to act in a moral way. In “Hotel Rwanda” ethnic extremists are the aggressors, as they believed that the Tutsi were traitors, and less than human. They also attacked Hutu who helped Tutsi, so for many, they had to choose between killing or being killed. In most circumstances the choices are not that extreme, but societal influence can still have a negative effect. For instance, in America, the homeless are typically ignored, or the source of jokes. This is a fact that prevents many people form acting when on their own they would likely help. An organization like a business can prevent people from following their conscience too. For example, a salesman at an electronics store is likely to try and sell a customer an expensive, fancy HDMI cable, when a simple affordable one would work just as well. The salesman might not agree with this kind of dishonesty, but when it comes to making a quota, he has to do what the company says.

I have mentioned before that I work in a bakery, and although now I mostly do baking, when I waited on customers there was a fairly common occurrence that might have qualified as a choice between what was expected and what was right. The situation would play out like this: A customer comes and wants to order a cake. She might be old or young, black or white, a regular or a newcomer, the only thing they had in common is that they were women. I suspect this is only because women tend to do more cake ordering than men. In any case, the customer begins explaining how they want their cake to look. They give unusual attention to small details, like exact color shades (example: very light red, not pink), specialty fillings or icings ( fudge icing, but not too sweet), or very long inscriptions. Being familiar with this process, I would take the order as precisely a possible, and explain any possible points of confusion to the decorator who would be making the cake. We would make the cake to the exact specifications, and when the customer comes in, they put on a show. The customer complains that this is not what they wanted; that we forgot to add something or that we misquoted them. “This happens every time,” they will say or generally just insult the decorators. At this point, have to bring a manager over who will give them the cake for free, and then everything is okay.

I’m sure it happens in other areas of retail stores; customers taking advantage of stores that focus on customer service, but at Publix it happens frequently. And every time it happens, no matter how obvious the act, we have to apologize and give something away for free. The customers that do this are a drain on everybody else; the less money the store makes, the more we have to charge, which hurts everybody. In my opinion, the correct thing to do would be to do anything to make them happy with the exception of giving away something free. But that would go against company policy, and so every time, I have to go along with the approved process.

Since learning about diversity issue, I have somewhat more resolve to act responsibly. Although I can’t do what I consider to be the right thing while at work, I always make an effort to do the right thing on my time. The Mclean clan motto is “virtue mine honor”, or my virtue is my honor. I believe very strongly in that, enough so that I had it tattooed on my arm. I believe the most important things to have when dealing with other people are empathy and forgiveness, and that by using those two things, any groups of people can get along. In “Hotel Rwanda” a journalist is asked why he doesn’t think people will help Rwanda even after seeing the footage of the atrocities. He responds, “I think if people see this footage they'll say, "Oh my God that's horrible," and then go on eating their dinners.” That line is especially true today, with news available instantly from all around the world, we know about disasters and atrocities as they happen. There are almost always things we can do to help, and ignorance is no longer an excuse.