hotel rwanda

it is funny how events that unfolded itself when i was a twelve-year-old pre-pubescent re-emerged in the last month. it was the euphoria of the tiger cup victory at the national stadium last sunday which brought back memories of a bygone footballing era back to the fore -- albeit for only a short while.

this afternoon, the 1994 genocide in rwanda that killed a million tutsi's came back to haunt me as i watched terry george's 2004 film, hotel rwanda.

i distinctly remember being in primary six then. i was probably pouring over the tonnes of assessment books that my mom dumped on me as the cracky radio was fixed to 88.9fm. yes. the bbc world service.

over the next few weeks, as i got my dosage of live english football coverage on saturday nights, news of the genocide peppered those moments of joy. the numbers were mere satistics to me. i knew it was sad for so many people to die. i remember feeling distinctly helpless as a 12-year-old current affairs nut-case. but it was just that.

life went on as usual for me. but by the time i was done with my psle and flung my books into the air celebrating the freedom that greeted me on the october friday at the end of my higher chinese paper, about a million tutsi people in rwanda were murdered and millions more displaced in a mere 100 days earlier in the year. the senseless killings ensured a refugee crisis in the west african region for the better part of the decade that ensued.

but i didn't know that the world abandoned the rwandans the way we did as depicted in the film.

the film revolves around the raw courage of a hutu man named paul rusesabagina played by the indominatable don cheadle. as a prominent employee of the belgian-run milles collines hotel in the rwandan capital of kigali, his contacts were far and wide reaching. at the first outbreak of racial violence, the belgian owner of the hotel left the hotel and left the day-to-day running of the hotel to paul, his hotel house manager -- who lives up to the conviction of his Biblical namesake. and in the words of the un peacekeeping chief played by nick nolte, "the smartest african man in the land."

married to a tutsi woman named tatiana played by sophie okonedo, paul's intelligence and street-smartness surfaced as he saved the day for many of his wife's people. the lives of his neighbours and his family were only saved because he had the presence of the mind and the moral courage to call a huge bluff by bribing his way through the ranks of the hutu extremist military and utilising his hutu contacts built up over the years.

he eventually housed the whole gin gang that hid in his home at the hotel. he ended up housing over a thousand hutu and tutsi "cockroaches" in his hotel he was put in charge of -- which included children from a tutsi orphanage and people taking refuge in a church congregation led by a french pastor who risked everything as he led his people to the hotel thinking that the developed west sent their troops to fortify the hotel as a fortress.

he couldn't have been more wrong.

that french pastor was powerless to save his people as the west came into rwanda with only the sole task of evacuating their nationals on their minds. as the ang-mos packed the buses that transported them to the airport, they represented how oblivious their governments were to the plight of the rwandans. they were obviously distressed, but you sense that their being on the bus is more telling of their selfish endeavours. as they left, they took snapshots of the dispairing rwandans left behind -- as if to remind themselves of their inhumanity.

there was not going to be any intervention force sent to restore law and order in the country. there was not even going to be a reinforcement of peackeeping troops in the land. all there was was the order to evacuate every known non-rwandan as soon as possible.

it shattered paul's hopes. it shattered what was left of the illusion that the united nations existed to prevent such human tragedies. the world's petulant refusal to help, and to stand by and watch the rwandans kill each other was akin to parents refusing to intervene when their children start playing with knives and proceeding to kill each other.

yet their evacuation was only possible at the exaultation of the one man that ensured their safety. that the hotel remained "an oasis in a desert." paul ensured that they had their scotches and whiskeys and their nightly fine dining even as the rest of kigali was being massacred at the hands on the hutu people.

when the ang-mos left and the united nations abandoned the hotel, leaving the hotel vulnerable to the hate of the hutu people, paul's resourcefulness in calling the hotel headquarters in belgium was remarkable just as it showed the fortitude against adversity he possessed. his chilling "goodbye sir and thank you for all we have to done. we are going to die." phone call had its obvious effects -- it prompted those armchair big wigs to make calls to the french president who supplied the hutu militia to prevent the certain deaths of the refugees he housed.

he later taught the remaining africans to use the hotel's telephone facilities to contact the people they knew in the west. their friends in high places. to exercise their influence. to say their goodbyes the way he did. to say goodbye like "you're holding their hands and make them feel as though they cannot hang up on you." paul appealed to the people remaining to appeal to the outside world to help. if the pictures broadcasted to the world was not going to be enough to move the world, they were going to make sure shame did.

the news finally filtered through, yet only a handful were lucky enough to be granted asylum by some developed countries. although paul's family was one of them, his sense of duty ensured he abandoned his wife and kids. he was almost made to regret his decision as the secret united nations convoy was exposed by a rouge hutu employee of the hotel. the chosen few never made it to the land of their suddenly benevolent benefactors.

although the convoy came to no harm, what was remarkable was how radio rwanda aided radio t�l�vision libre de mille collines (rtml) which was used by the hutu militia to incite the local hutu population into killing their tutsi neighbours. it was amazing for example to see how real time spy info was incorporated into the radio broadcasts. of how lies about the hutus having to rid of the tutsi to ensure the existence of their own race were being perpetuated. of how powerful the media can be when it comes to mass propaganda.

the movie ends on a triumphant note as paul and titiana finally locates their dislocated nieces at the refugee camp on the side of the tutsi rebels.

but a palpable sense of displacement hits you just as the credits roll.

it is as if the film portrayal of the rwandan genocide of 1994 trivialises the whole tragedy. yet it remains a story that needs to be told. a story that potentially warns that a lack of a genuinely vigilant international community would ensure that socially-created racial divides would eventually cause the end of the human race per se.

this film made it all the more ridiculous. unlike the marked difference between whites and blacks in the past in america, muslims and hindus in the disuputed kingdom of kashmir or even the christians and muslims in indonesia, these africans looked all the same. they were black-skinned and their apparent physical differences was negligible. they were killing each other based on social constructs created by their belgian colonial masters. their basis for death was what they were labelled as under the "race" category on their passports.

the timing of the film couldn't have been more apt at this juncture where the iraqi war pervades, the aftermath of the south asian tsunami and the massive aids epidemic that is plaguing the african continent dominates the international news headlines, it is perhaps a warning not to let the sole superpower dictate the way. that there're really more urgent things than having to buy the pair of nike safaris.

just as hotel milles collines became a micro-scopism of moderate rwandan humanity, decency and bravery at the height of the genocide, let not the legacy of this film be lost in the deluge of the awards that this film may garner.

let the legacy of this film beat those of the european colonial masters. let humanity reign. let sense and sensibility see the light of the day again.

let us make a difference. today.