Review 1

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, it becomes clear after watching this clip that there are many questions surrounding Rwanda that remain unclear. However, it is apparent 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.

         Caught up in the moment of personal responsibilities to his family and supervising a hotel, it is understandable why Paul would not heed to the step brother’s warnings of the Hutu's intentions off a massacre. Amidst the horrific controversy Paul, as a Hutu whose wife is Tutsi, quickly understands the perilous situation he is in. After exhausting his powerful connections, Paul soon comes to the stark realization of his powerless position as an African employed by the former colonial power of Belgium. 

        The mis-creation of the Hutu and Tutsis as an ethnic/racial identity is closely associated with Belgian colonist’s hegemonic strategy of divide and conquer. This strategy has helped Rwanda and much of the African continent in a perpetual cycle of violence. This continued negative Western presence is briefly alluded to in Hotel Rwanda through France's involvement in supplying the Hutu militia with ammunition.

                                       Through a critical review of Hotel Rwanda it's apparent that the intentions of international nation-states such as Belgium, France, and the United States are based on pursuing national economic interests as opposed to fostering global friendships. In other words, powerful Western countries such as the U.S., who possess the power to intervene in the Rwanda genocide, chose not to take action for a lack of economic gain in the African Region.

        Rwandans in political and military power should also assume responsibility. For example, to this day former Tutsi rebel leader and current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, despite denial, is still held accountable for the death of Juvenal Habyarimana and consequently provoking the Hutu's acts of genocide (BBC News, 2008). Still, it is a travesty that the Hutus and Tutsis have been primarily blamed for sparking the genocide (BBC News, 2008). Especially when considering that that the gun powder keg was left in  the form of colonialism and Western hegemonic ideologies of diversity which created false racial identities in Rwanda.

References

(2010, November 13). Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened. BBC News. Retrieved from http://
      news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1288230.stm In-text: (BBC News, 2008).