“When people ask me, good listeners, why do I hate all the Tutsi, I say, "Read our history." The Tutsi were collaborators for the Belgian colonists, they stole our Hutu land, they whipped us. Now they have come back, these Tutsi rebels. They are cockroaches. They are murderers. Rwanda is our Hutu land. We are the majority. They are a minority of traitors and invaders. We will squash the infestation. We will wipe out the RPF rebels. This is RTLM, Hutu power radio. Stay alert. Watch your neighbours.”
George Rutaganda
Is it possible to develop a common sense, even arouse a public opinion against the ongoing wars all around the world, without using stunning mottos and presenting them in a fiction movie? Violence, even as a concept, not arguing on the physical outcomes, already cannot be taken as naïve, but through media we are experiencing a period of consuming small portions of violence in fictional stories and accept it as normal. It is like reading the third episode of a best-seller series and hopelessly laughing at the clumsiness of the main character when one comes across with a shocking sentence uttered by a United Nations officer like “We don’t provide peace, we protect peace”. Hotel Rwanda is full of similar “realities” that is expected to provoke anger inside us, but being exposed to so much fake violence by the media causes great insensitivity and we finally become not responding to the calling needs of the world.
Hotel Rwanda narrates the civil war between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda with a script based on the true life story of Paul Rusesabagina. Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is a hotel manager, who himself is a Hutu, and his wife is a Tutsi named Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo), at the time when the genocide begins, suddenly, but after a 32 years old history. The film shows the beginning of Rwanda's troubles with the aspect of the European colonial powers established nations that ignored traditional tribal boundaries. For years in Rwanda under the Belgians, the Tutsis ruled and killed not a few Hutu, but after Rwanda’s liberation from Belgium, the Hutus took control, and armed troops prowled the nation, killing approximately one million Tutsis.
There is a United Nations "presence" in Rwanda, represented by Col. Oliver (Nick Nolte). He sees what is happening, informs his superiors, asks for help and intervention, and is ignored. Paul Rusesabagina informs the corporate headquarters in Brussels of the growing tragedy, but the hotel in Kigali does not seem to be the chain's prior concern. These are the facts of the war reflected in a drama. Although it is true that Rusesabagina saves more than one thousand refugees’ lives in the time of the genocide, the film looses its critical point of view by giving a heroistic mission to the two man, Paul Rusesabagina and Col. Oliver, to save those lives.
Hotel Rwanda has been called an African Schindler's List. Each movie portrays one imperfect individual who uses his social position, interpersonal skills, and quick wit to rescue thousands of lives from a holocaust. This resemblance can be uttered as the personification of the subject matter, a subject that drew attention of many critics. Hotel Rwanda was generally criticized for making little effort to depict the genocide as a whole. Despite the emphasis of the arguments being on the narrative structure, the film was yet able to bring up crucial questions on social and political issues.
Issues of racism against black people, insufficient efforts of UN to handle the problem, and the timid approach of the media were the main themes of the film. There is a similar pattern in the film conveying its critical standpoint on the attitude of the UN, Red Cross and the media. These organizations were reflected as irresponsible by comparing their efforts to that of the individuals’ in the battle field. This approach of the film leads to the questioning of the actuality of war for the people who are observing it from a distance.
Hotel Rwanda comes up with a subtext of people becoming easily ignorant to the still images of the wars reflected by the media, which are far distant from the sense of reality. It implies that these images are even used to stimulate fear over the public, as fear being the first medium used by the media to control the consumption habits of the public. The viewer, unaware of the intentions of the media, first, feels sorrow for what is going on for some time and then starts worrying for possible threats to his security. By that way, reflecting the selected scenes from a reality causes media to maintain its power. Just like the media’s so called concern for the African people, United Nations’ attitude is reflected as being uncaring as well throughout the film.
This harmony of the heroistic narrative structure, the main theme and the subtext of the film can be found in any diaologe in the film. The quote from Paul Rusesabagina “There will be no rescue, no intervention for us. We can only save ourselves. Many of you know influential people abroad, you must call these people. You must tell them what will happen to us... say goodbye. But when you say goodbye, say it as if you are reaching through the phone and holding their hand. Let them know that if they let go of that hand, you will die. We must shame them into sending help.” is a clear example of the theme, the institutions being ignorant, conveyed in a dramatic narrative.
The film was produced ten years after the genocide, in 2004, and it can do no better than serving as a rememberance for the ones who lost their lives in the genocide. However, it was important in drawing attention to another prolonged civil war between the Arabs and non-Arabs in Darfur, Sudan.
