Sociology

The most shocking experience from watching Hotel Rwanda, though it should be more shocking that nearly one million people were murdered, is that it took a Hollywood movie for so many people to learn about a modern genocide.  That this happened as recently as 1994 and that it took ten years to release the movie reveals some very negative things about the world and its people as they exist today.  First, genocide remains a threat even though most people think of it as something that only happened in the past and as something that cannot happen in a modern, civilized world.  The world is clearly not so civilized.  Second, it is amazing that so many people were being killed and nothing was done by the world community to step in and help the people.  The United Nations peacekeepers were portrayed as being fairly sympathetic in the movie.  They did not, however, have the power or the number of people necessary to stop the fighting.  This is particularly troubling because the very purpose of United Nation peacekeepers, it would seem, is to keep the peace.  If the peacekeepers and their bosses are unable or unwilling to perform their central functions then perhaps the United Nations and the peacekeeping forces should simply be disbanded.  Finally, in a much better way, the movie highlights individual heroism even when outside countries and international organizations are unwilling to help.  This is accomplished through the movies main character, Paul, who places himself at great risk in order to protect his family, many refugees from the fighting, and even people from international organizations fleeing from the fighting.  This paper will discuss the most striking features of the movie and the moral lessons that might be derived from the film.  More specifically, this paper will discuss how tribal conflicts can still lead to genocide in todays world, how the international community seems not to care about genocide if it happens in Africa, and how this movie shows that morality is delegated to individuals because countries and international organizations are too selfish or cowardly to become involved in such conflicts.

Who was Fighting  What were the Casualties  Why were they Fighting
As an initial matter, the movie viewer is confronted with a conflict that seems distant both in time and in place.  People are familiar with conflicts between the races, such as the whites and the blacks in South Africa not so long ago, but this movie presents an African conflict in which blacks are fighting against other blacks.  The conflict is tribal, pitting the aggressor Tutsi tribe against the Hutu tribe.  In an effort to determine to accuracy of the film, the research confirms that During a 3-4-month period, death squads butchered some 800,000 people - old, young, children, infants, and pregnant women. During fewer than 100 days, using machetes, they killed at a rate of 8,000 lives per day or five lives per minute HYPERLINK httpwww.questiaschool.comPM.qstaod5035316611(Richter, 2008, p. 267).  
The reasons for the killings were not entirely clear from the movie.  At one point Paul says it was a war caused by words.  At another point, some of the characters talk about revenge and the fact that the Hutus have too many benefits that they do not share.  All of these seem poor reasons for one killing let alone nearly one million.  The two tribes, in short, are fighting for control of the country and probably its natural resources.  Politics is replaced by war, law is irrelevant, and the killings are indeed a series of slaughters.

Who is to Blame
It is true that primary blame must be assigned to the parties to the conflict.  On the other hand, the movie also seems to highlight the feebleness of the United Nations.  The peacekeepers in the movie seem willing to help, but they are never given any support and are badly outnumbered.  Countries are willing to start wars for oil in countries such as Iraq, as England and America have done, but they are unwilling to prevent genocide.  The movie hints at times that perhaps the outside world does not know or understand about the scale of the atrocities.  This is highly doubtful and the movies writers may have been a bit disingenuous in this respect.  With modern communications and satellite technologies, as well as international peacekeepers directly witnessing the events, it is almost certain that the most powerful countries in the world were aware of what was happening.  They deliberately chose not to become involved in any way.  This is troubling and forces the movies viewer to wonder whether ideals of human rights are empty promises or meaningful principles to be defended.  There was no defense of such principles in the movie, revealing the United Nations and human rights as essentially empty promises.

Is Paul Hopeful or Tragic  Is the United Nations Effective
Finally, and the most powerful part of the movie, the character of Paul illustrated the loneliness of the individual in a chaotic world.  Paul was abandoned by almost everyone and as a result he was forced to make and to defend his own sense of morality.  He was abandoned by his own tribe, the Tutsis, because he had a Hutu wife and because he refused to adopt their murderous perspective.  He was abandoned, if not by the few peacekeepers on the ground, then most certainly by the countries controlling the United Nations.  Consequently, he had to make an individual decision to protect ethical principles that the rest of the world abandoned for their own particular reasons.  The hopeful message is that individuals can make a difference, but this is really a happy Hollywood spin.  In real life, individuals suffer much more than did Paul in the movie.  Heroes are labeled as traitors and jailed, tortured, and killed.  The viewer should not be fooled by the Hollywood happy ending the viewer should be alarmed by the rage and the ferocity of tribal conflict and by the refusal of capable countries to stop such an atrocious bloodbath.  It is true that the movie provided a service in the form of educating the public, but a true education should have begun with the Tutsis first murderous assaults and through governments and the news media rather than through Hollywood.  Paul is a tragic figure and the movie did not portray that deeply enough.

Conclusion
In the final analysis, this was a highly critical commentary on the state of the human being and the countries of the world.  A genocide that happened in 1994 could very well happen again today.   There can be no defense of murders for political purposes or for revenge.  More, there was no mention of a legitimate self-defense and this was a genocide by design and quite purposefully executed.  The Tutsis should bear the burdens of guilt.  The world should bear the shame of malfeasance. It was truly a global rather than localized tragedy.