Diversity as Difference: Movie Review of Hotel Rwanda

          Hotel Rwanda is a Hollywood produced movie based on the true story of horrific events surrounding the genocide which occurred in Rwanda from April to June 1994. This movie tells the story of antagonist Paul Rusesabagina, who courageously saved the lives of his family and more than a thousand others from a massacre of Hutu Rebels. Despite realistically conveyed feelings of suspense and tension, Hotel Rwanda demonstrates the difficulty of serving justice to one hundred days of bloody history in less than two hours. Consequently, a viewer without prior background knowledge of Rwanda's colonial history may regard this movie as a confusing and incoherent sequence of events.

               In this short clip from the movie, Joaquin Phoenix, as photographer Jack Daglish asks what the actual difference is between the Tutsis and the Hutu. According to a Tutsis journalist named Benedict, we are told that it was Belgian colonists who created the division.  Tutsis are taller, more elegant. They pick people with lighter skin and measure the width of people’s noses. Benedict then goes on to explain how the Belgians used the Tutsis to run the country, and then when they left they gave the power to the Hutus, who of course took revenge 

    on the Tutsis for years of depression.

           Despite briefly addressing the impact of Belgian colonialism, there are many questions surrounding Rwanda that remain unclear. However, it is apparent through the movie that the Hutu and Tutsis are neither distinct nor separate cultural ethnicities. Rather they are the product of hegemonic ideologies associated with Western colonialism. In this respect, it may be said that the Rwandan genocide demonstrates how the discourses surrounding diversity may be misappropriated to the determent of establishing and maintaining national unity. Read more>>