5/14/07 "An Ordinary Man":
This is the title of a book I recently read. I hesitated to order the book, upon which the movie 'Hotel Rwanda' was made. Like some Americans I was familiar with the basic stats of the situation and had written an earlier musing about the genocide in Rwanda. So it seemed pointless to read a book probably about the gory details. I don't even like movies with a lot of blood and senseless cruelty. I don't even watch the 'Sopranos' with the implied violence. I don't watch a sport like boxing where the purpose is essentially to produce enough brain damage to knock someone out. It pleases me that very few young people ever take up boxing. But I ordered the book anyway since at the price I pay for these books, it is no big deal if I never read some for whatever reason.
In this little sick episode of modern senseless conflict, 800,000 people were butchered by their friends, neighbors, and countrymen over a period of 100 days. That's eight thousand lives a day. We get at least mildly angry in our own country when 3000 of our young people get killed in Iraq over a 5 year period. But the loss of 8000/day of other people in another country meant little if anything. Bill Clinton admits it is the portion of his Presidency which he regrets the most. The sanctity of life in the modern mindset is pretty much compartmentalized irrespective of race, religion, sex, economic status, or country of citizenship---some sort of twisted version of family values, a kind of only me and my kind count. I think most all of us are infected to varying degrees. I sense it is defensive: if we were to admit the reality of much of what goes on, we would be depressed.
Briefly, which is difficult for me, the situation over in Rwanda was as follows. It really all started in 1885 when representatives from Austria-Hungary, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Spain, the United States, Portugal, Holland, Sweden, and Norway met to partition up Africa. The invented borders had no relationship to reality including geography, linguistic considerations, tribal compatibilities or anything else. At the time the British Prime Minister remarked, "We have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where they were." Germany won Rwanda but Germany pretty much ignored the place, so little changed, it continued to be just a lot of local self sufficient agricultural villages run by the local elders. After Germany was defeated in WW1 Rwanda was given to Belgium. Of course the Western World would have had zero success is controlling any of these African areas except, like the case with the American Indians, the Europeans had guns. But even with guns there were so few whites compared to blacks in these regions that to control the populations it was necessary to divide the population in order to control it.
Thus in 1933 all Rwandans were given identity cards labeling them either Tutsi or Hutu.
Wealth in Rwanda back then was determined by the number of cows and goats a person owned. Essentially the wealthier Rwandans were labeled Tutsi and the poorer ones were labeled Hutu. The wealthier ones were given governmental type jobs and guns and were put in control of the country under a appointed King. In any situation like this the number of people with money and power are outnumbered by those without money and power so there were a lot more Hutus than Tutsi. Despite the guns and policies of divide and conquer, the African countries proved too difficult to politically control from Europe and so the African countries, rather quickly at some point, began to gain their independence. In the 1950's Belgium was forced to give Rwanda independence and set up elections. It really was not a hell of lot different than the recent elections in Iraq. Guess who won the elections? Yep, the Hutus. It would be not much different than letting the slaves suddenly vote to see who runs the plantation or letting the prisoners suddenly vote to see who runs the prison. What is good for the gander is good for the goose and suddenly it was the Tutsi who could not attend schools, could not hold important jobs, and at the slightest provocation were slaughtered. Many sought refuge in neighboring countries, many managed to move to another part of Rwanda and forge a new identity card. Remember, Rwandans can't tell one Rwandan from another by looking at each other, it is only the identity cards which can do that.
Things eventually settled down a bit and the two groups managed to coexist, much as is true with minorities in many other countries. Since the two groups were indistinguishable from each other outside of the identity cards there was a lot of intermarriage, they coexisted as neighbors, kids eventually went to the same schools etc. Then came economic hard times, the specifics of which I know nothing about, and the government leaders, to stay in power needed a scapegoat. Minorities are always convenient scapegoats and tickets to re-election. Things would be better, it always goes, except 'we have these useless scumbags causing problems which are dragging us all down". This sort of logic is simply inherent in human nature.
The government sanctioned radio stations started playing modern Western music and mixing it in with a lot of 'shock jocks' Rwandan style. This meant the Tutsi were increasingly the brunt of belittlement, accused of secret sabotage planning, and ever slowly increasing warnings from these radio broadcasts that if the Tutsi were not 'eliminated' they would one day 'eliminate' the Huti majority. To exascerbate all this, the Tutsi who had earlier fled the country after the elections had organized a rebel army in neighboring countries in the pattern of an Al Queda like operation. While this rebel army was numerically much smaller than the Hutsi army in Rwanda it was much more motivated, much more organized, and thus slowly began to recapture certain areas of Rwanda. Then suddenly the President of Rwanda's plane was shot down as it was landing in the Capital. While to this day no one knows who did it, the shock was sufficient to push the majority population over the edge. Add to the mix was the fact that France sided with the Huti because the Huti were more fluent in French while Belgium favored the Tutsi who were more fluent in English. The Catholic Church was for the Huti since they tended more to be Cathlolics and the Hutsi had been oppressed earlier in history by the Tutsi. What happened next is surreal. Suddenly the govt sanctioned radio stations ordered all Hutsi to go out an kill all the Tutsi. This was no sudden impulsive reflex action in that the govt had already ordered hundreds of thousands of machetes from China for just such a crusade. Just like in the Balkans with Serbia and Croatia and Bosnia, neighbors did just that. And not just kill them, but in the cruelest possible way, hack them to death. This was easy enough with close neighbors as you knew who the Tutsi were. But on a grandeur scale roadblocks were set up for those Tutsi who tried to escape and if they could not produce an identity cared stating they were Hutsi, then they were killed and the bodies piled next to the road.
For 100 days, all across Rwanda, this slaughter continued and, no matter where the Tutsi fled, into Churches or any other sought after refuge, they got slaughtered---often parents forced to kill children, children forced to kill parents, children forced to throw grandparents down wells and covered with rocks, spouses forced to kill each other, priests forced to kill parishioners, parishioners forced to kill priests, and any other horror you can dream up.
The exception was Hotel Rwanda. None of the refugees who fled there were killed over the 100 day slaughter even though the hotel manager was a Hutu.
The managers name was Paul Rusesabagina. He is the subject of this book's title: "An Ordinary Man", much like one might title a book on Lincoln "An Ordinary man" based on either one's roots and background. Neither Rusesabagina or Lincoln were ordinary men. I loved this book because Rusesabagina was so Lincolnesque in his behavior, methodology, and understanding of human nature. Both men understood human nature better than most of us could ever hope to, both had a universal moral compass that stood apart from any segment of humanity whether the segment be based on race, religion, gender, economic status, or any other characterization. Both, with their understanding of human nature, were able to bring out the best in the worst of people in the worst of times. Both calmed the storm, never fanned the flames. Both never wavered from the task at hand even though both knew it meant sure death for them personally. Somehow Rusesabagina lived by afterward fleeing to Belgium, while Lincoln did not escape death. I have claimed Rusesabagina is Lincolnesque. You be the judge as the rest of this will be nothing more than his own words from the book. I am not saying Resesabagina had the breadth or depth of Lincoln's insights nor that he has the literary skills of Lincoln, but given the task at hand to save the refugees holed up in his hotel, 40 to a room, over a 90 day period, Lincoln himself could not have done better. What follows are excerpts from the book:
"Whoever does not talk to his father never knows what his grandfather said..........We (Rwandans) are obsessed with the past..........There is no greater gift to an insecure leader that quite matches a vague 'enemy' who can be used to whip up fear and hatred among the population. It is a cheap way to consolidate one's holD on power. And this is just what the new regime did (does this sound familiar?)............All the impoverished nations on earth, in fact, have these few basic things: a flag, an army, borders, something resembling a government, and at least one luxury hotel where the rich foreign visitors and aid workers can stay. So there is always a demand for a spot of opulence in a nation of mud houses. The cost for a room is usually equal to the yearly income of an average person in that country. I am not saying this is right. But this is the reality of modern Africa. In Rwanda that place is Hotel Mille Collines (Hotel Rwanda).........I was never a prey to bullies or to jealous thugs. I suppose I was adept at using the same skill at negotiation that made my earlier house painting profession such a lucrative business. If anybody tried to threaten me I would simply look him in the eye and ask him in a firm but friendly voice, 'Why?' The bully would have no choice but to engage me verbally, and this made violence next to impossible. I learned that it is very difficult to fight someone with whom you are already talking.................Someone who deals can never be an absolute hard-liner..........most politics is an outgrowth of emotions that may or may not have any relation to the rational.............He was preaching an ideology---and an identity---based on nothing more than a belief in the murderous intentions of the enemy by saying over the airways 'Know that the person whose throat you do not cut will be the one who cuts yours'.............The grand purpose, as I have said, was not really to avenge the slights committed by the Tutsi royal court 60 years earlier. That was merely the cover story, the cheap trick that could rouse a mob into supporting the strong men. And that was the true purpose of all the revolutionary rhetoric: It was all about Habyarimana and the rest of the elite trying to keep a grip on the reins of government. It seemed almost irrelevant to point out that Hutus had been in a position of undisturbed power for 35 years and that the Tutsi were in a position to affect very little of Rwanda's current miserable condition----even if they had wanted to. It was a revolution all right, but there was nobody to overthrow. The Hutu government wanted all the anger in Rwanda pointed toward any target but itself........My only goal was saving the lives of the people upstairs, and questions of my taste in friendship were secondary----if they were relevant at all. If you stay friendly with monsters you can find cracks in their armor to exploit. Shut them out and they can kill you without a second thought. I reminded myself of this over and over...........Facts are almost irrelevant to most people. We make decisions based on emotion and then justify them later with whatever facts we can scrounge up in our defense..........People are never as reasonable as they seem to be----in fact, 'reason' is usually an afterthought, nothing more than a cover story for the feelings inside..............There is no sin that someone should die for it. When you start thinking like that you become an animal yourself.......I dreaded machetes. The Interhahamwe were known to be extremely cruel with the people they chopped apart; first cutting tendons so the victims could not run away, then removing limbs so that a person could see their body coming apart slowly. Family members were often forced to watch, knowing they were next. Their wives and their children were often raped in front of them while this was happening. Priests helped kill their congregations. In cases, the congregation helped kill their priests. Tusi wives went to sleep next to their Hutu husbands and awoke to find the blade of a machete sawing into their neck, and above them, the grimacing face of the amn who had sworn to love and cherish them for life. And Tutsi wives also killed their husbands. Children threw their grandparents down pit toilets and heaved rocks on the top of them until the cries stopped. Unborn babies were sliced from their mothers' wombs and tossed about like soccer balls. Severed heads and genitals were on display. It had become killing for killing's sake, killing for sport, killing for nothing. It raged on, all around the hotel................UN member states signed a treaty in 1948 threatening criminal penalties for the leaders of any regime found to have conducted an extermination campaign against a particular religious or racial group. But the U.S. dragged its feet, fearing the encroachment of a world government telling it how to act. It was not until 1986 that the U.S. Senate finally ratified the agreement. As Harvard Univ. scholar Power has pointed out, the world's foremost superpower, America, has almost never acted to stop a race of people from being exterminated, even when confronted with overwhelming evidence. And, of course, there was not natural resource in Rwanda that anybody cared about either, only human beings in danger........Even a proposal to jam the frequencies of the RTLM was rejected on the grounds that the Army National Reserve airplane required for the overflights cost $8500 an hour to fly. If that plane had been kept aloft for every second of the genocide it would have worked out to about $24 for each life taken that might otherwise have been saved.......All I wanted to do anymore was the work in front of me; I had lost the desire for everything else. At some point in that strange twilight of the genocide I had taken leave of myself as a sentient person. Death no longer frightened me......My earlier life had showed me how to respect myself by respecting others......War is hell, and ugly things happen in its midst. I know this. But they always create permanent resentments that have a way of erupting later in history.........I tasted, in that moment, the poison and self hatred in my country's bloodstream, that irresistible fury against a ghost, the quenchless desire to make someone pay for an unrightable wrong............I was enormously disappointing to me that so many priests and pastors caught the hateful virus in 1994 and refused to do anything for those who were begging them for help. The church remained mostly silent when it should have been speaking out in a loud voice as the hateful propaganda prior to the genocide was being broadcast. Its failure to stand strong in this critical hour was equivalent to complicity.......Nearly half a million children were left parentless by the murders. What happened? Hitler's final solution was supposed to have been the last expression of this monstrous idea, the final time the world would tolerate a deliberate attempt to exterminate an entire race. But genocide remains the most pressing human rights question of the twenty-first century........A sad truth of human nature is that it is hard to care for people when they are abstractions, hard to care when it is not you or somebody close to you. Unless the world community can stop findings ways to dither in the face of this monstrous threat to humanity those words NEVER AGAIN will persist in being one of the most abused phrases in the English language and one of the greatest lies of our times..........We have changed the dancers but the music remains the same. We never talk about conflicts. We just steal what we can whenever our turn comes around...........We get duped by the cheapest tricks in the books. Human beings were designed to live sanely, and sanity always returns. The world rights itself in the long run. This is why I say that the individual's most potent weapon is a stubborn belief in the triumph of common decency. It is a simple belief, but it is not all naive. It is, in fact, the shrewdest attitude possible. It is the best way to sabotage evil. Quiet, ordinary people are often the only people with the real ability to defeat evil.....Except in extreme circumstances it very rarely pays to show hostility to the people in your orbit. And so when evil dropped by for a drink I was able to have a conversation. I could find weaknesses and seek out its soft spots. I could see vanity and the insecurity and even the ghost of common decency inside the minds of killers that would allow me to save lives. I could quietly flip evil's assets against itself. What happened at my hotel was the most extreme form of pragmatism. We would go to any length and do whatever it took to save as many lives as possible. That was my basic ideology. That was the only ideology. ......'What is your life: You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.' (From the Bible). Our time here on earth is short, and our chance to make a difference is tiny. For me the grinding blocks of history came together in such a way that I was able to take what fragile defense I had and hold it in place for 76 days. If I was able to give much it was only because I had some useful things from my life to give. I am a hotel manager, trained to negotiate contracts and provide shelter for those who need it. My job never changed, even in a sea of fire. Whenever the killing season should next begin and people should become strangers to their neighbors and themselves, my hope is that there will still be those ordinary men who say a quiet no and open the rooms upstairs."
Afterward: Rusesabagina had the chance to leave Rwanda when the killing started. Other hotel management did and were flown to Europe. Rusesabagina refused to leave and even though a Hutu he opted to try to save as many Tutsi as he could. When the killing stopped he had to go to Belgium as he was a wanted man by bitter Huti. I don't know what his present life is since the book and The movie. But prior to either he was simply a cab driver in Belgium. I guess that is the final irony. For all he did the only reward available to him was to be a cab driver. Wow. I guess no hotel chain thought him worthy of being a Hotel Manager in their chain of Hotels. Maybe now, after the book and movie he doesn't need a job. You know, if I owned some multimillion dollar corporation he would get the best title, the biggest office, and the largest salary of anyone in the corporation. He would probably be the only one in that category who had earned the right to such salary and perks.
BUT A CAB DRIVER?
