Hotel Rwanda

I saw "Hotel Rwanda" last week, and it was one of the best movies I've ever seen. Great story, great acting all round.

For those of you who've lived in a cave the past few months, the movie is about the civil war in Rwanda in 1994, when hundreds of thousands were killed in various horrible ways. The movie is based on the true story of hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, who opened his Belgian-owned hotel to refugees and managed to save more than a thousand lives at great personal risk to himself and his family.

There are many interesting aspects to the story. One is how the hotel manager applies all of his "people skills" to bribe, trick and flatter his way around the dangerous militias, army units and madmen threatening the refugees he is hiding. It is a miracle how he is able to convince the aggressors time and time again that it is really in their best interest to leave him alone, and how he manages to put himself in a position where he can be of value to them in the future. Businessmen and politicians alike would do well to study the psychology of this movie.

There are also some interesting political aspects. Although the movie makes some sweeping simplifications as to the historical roots of Rwanda's ethnic conflicts it also shows the many contradictions in that country's society. Rwanda has a clear majority of "Hutus" and a minority of "Tutsis". To many, this division seemed artificial and they mingled freely with each other. Indeed, Rusesabagina is a hutu, but he is married to a tutsi. At the same time, there is a strong hutu militia, with deep popular support, who wants to do away with all tutsis - which is what they attempted to do. In addition they killed thousands of moderate hutus.

The international society is duly criticized in the movie. There was a small contingency of UN soldiers in the country at the time, but they had little equipment and even less authority. When the going got tough they were evacuated. It tells you something about their desperation that they were actually rescued by FRENCH troops. In a surely historical moment in cinema and world history, the French are hailed as heroes upon their arrival at Hotel Rwanda. The cheering goes on for about two minutes, before it becomes clear that the French are merely there to evacuate the UN, thereafter to flee, in normal French fashion, without engaging in any military action as such.

Parallels have been made between Rwanda and the ongoing civil war in Darfur, Sudan, and while the scope is currently much smaller in Sudan I think the case can be made that the west should act in a much stronger way than they have so far. I won't go further into this here, as I have some thoughts on the more general subject of interventions which I will share with you in a post whenever I can find the inspiration for it (don't hold your breath).

As always, there is lots more to be said, but instead of ruining the movie for you I'll just ask you to go see it. As with Der Untergang you won't be disappointed, and probably you'll be quite a bit wiser.