There is a fine line between presenting history simply and oversimplifying history, but it is a boundary that Paul Rusesabagina carefully navigates in his book An Ordinary Man.
Rusesabagina is perhaps the most well known survivor of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, thanks mainly to Don Cheadle's Oscar-nominated portrayal of his efforts to protect some 1,200 potential victims within the walls of Hotel Rwanda -- the real life Hotel des Mille Collines. Since the film's release in 2004, Rusesabagina has been hailed as a hero the world over, has been traveling the United States sharing his tale and, last year, was even awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Rusesabagina's slim book, much like the movie, gives a rather limited perspective of the horrors that unfolded over those 100 days in 1994 as it is focused almost entirely on his experience during the genocide. But that is not necessarily a drawback as Rusesabagina manages to deftly weave Rwanda's pre-genocide history, as well as the genocide itself, into his narrative. Whereas the rampant slaughter that engulfed the tiny nation seemed to exist mostly somewhere “out there” in the movie Hotel Rwanda, Rusesabagina conveys the sense that the massacres only remained “out there” thanks to the illusion of impenetrability the hotel provided -- an illusion that existed, in large part, only because Rusesabagina worked tirelessly to create and maintain it.
Prior to the genocide, the hotel was, he explains, a spot “of opulence in a nation of mud huts” with an aura around it “that prevents any peasant from ever thinking of going inside.” The hotel catered to Western relief workers and rich tourists and the pool at the Mille Collines became the “shadow capital” of the country -- the place where power brokers met to have drinks and do business. When the killing started, it was the simple impression that the hotel was an outpost of Western civilization that saved those inside.
During his years of service, Rusesabagina kept meticulous notes of all who passed through his doors and personally catered to those who held the reins of power. It was to those men that he turned once the genocide began and from whom he received a limited amount of protection. But the few police officers and U.N. soldiers on hand were really no more than “a wall of tissue paper standing between us and a flash flood” of mass murder. But miraculously, it managed to hold for 76 days.
Rusesabagina presents the somewhat complex history of Rwanda simply and succinctly -- from the arrival of the Belgians following World War I and their ethnic identity cards to the Hutu revolution of 1959 and the thousands of Tutsi refugees it created. He deftly explains the history of the tensions that existed between the Hutus and the Tutsis and how they manifested themselves over the subsequent decades in Rwandan politics. Rusesabagina makes clear that the genocide was not a violent flare-up of ancient “tribal hatreds,” but rather an effort to maintain power.
In early 1994, as negotiations between the Rwandan president and the Rwandese Patriotic Front rebels slowly moved forward under the auspices of the United Nations and the Arusha Accords, local radio broadcasts were becoming more and more anti-Tutsi, until it reached a point where all debates took place between two sides: “the extremist and the even more extremist.”
Into this mix strode a few thousand U.N. soldiers to assist in the implementation the Arusha peace process and, soon after the genocide began, 10 Belgian soldiers were tortured and killed by the Rwandan army. Nearly the entire mission evacuated and Rusesabagina is justifiably harsh in his assessment of the U.N.'s performance during the genocide, calling it “cowardly, bureaucratic, and incompetent.”
In addition to condemning the United Nations itself, Rusesabagina singles out the U.N. Force Commander Romeo Dallaire for specific criticism. Once the genocide began in April, Rusesabagina says, Dallaire should have disobeyed the “foolish orders from New York” not to get involved and “should have done more to put his men in between the killers and their victims … if he did not have the stomach to do this then I think he should have made a spectacle out of resigning in protest.” He concludes that the U.N.'s presence was actually “worse than useless” in that “it allowed the world to think that something was being done” and, for Rwandans, “created a fatal illusion of safety.”
There is much validity to Rusesabagina's view; the U.N. undoubtedly failed Rwanda miserably, as did Gen. Dallaire, who has repeatedly admitted as much. Though while Dallaire could have done more for the people of Rwanda, Rusesabagina's criticism seems somewhat unfair, as similar criticisms could probably be leveled against just about everyone, including himself.
Even during the genocide, Rusesabagina writes that he continued to meet and share drinks with high-ranking members of the Rwandan government, many of them directly responsible for the hundreds of thousands of murders taking place throughout the country. He justifies it by saying that “in order to fight evil you sometimes have to keep evil people in your orbit.” That may be so, but the point is that Rusesabagina obviously felt he had to do whatever was within his capability in order to protect himself, his family and the 1,200 people in his protection.
By the same token, Dallaire undoubtedly did what he felt was within his capability in order to protect the greatest number possible. Even before the genocide began, his troops were poorly equipped and trained. Following the murders of the Belgians, his force was cut by nearly 90 percent, leaving him just a few hundred troops to protect the entire nation. Had he put his troops “in between the killers and their victims,” he would have risked not only their lives, but his entire mission, as well as the lives of the tens of thousands of innocent people his remaining force was protecting all over the country.
Early on in the book, Rusesabagina makes a startling admission that, in the face of a genocide that was taking lives at the rate of one every twelve seconds, his actions at the Mille Collines managed to save only four hours worth of victims. Yet none would dare criticize Rusesabagina for not saving more lives. By the same token, while Dallaire arguably had a greater responsibility to the people of Rwanda than did Rusesabagina, the estimated 30,000 lives his force saved is no small accomplishment.
Throughout the ordeal, even as they ran out of food and were reduced to drinking water from the Mille Collines' swimming pool, it was Rusesabagina and the list of contacts he kept in his “little black binder” that made the hotel one of the few safe havens in the country. While some 800,000 people were murdered beyond its walls, 1,200 others managed to survive, thanks to Rusesabagina's skillful words, well-timed calls, occasional false bravado, and understanding of the human psyche. Through cajoling, bribery and occasional threats, he managed to keep the genocide at bay until the middle of June, when the hotel was finally evacuated.
Many of his friends and family had been killed -- and others had become killers. Yet he stayed in Rwanda for two more years, until he eventually moved his family to Belgium, where he probably would have lived out his life in obscurity had screenwriter Keir Pearson not heard his story and turned it into Hotel Rwanda.
It has been more than a decade since the horror unfolded in Rwanda and yet the Western world knows very little of what transpired in that tiny African country. Hotel Rwanda certainly generated much-needed attention and hopefully Rusesabagina's book will generate even more. It is well-written, insightful, and easy to read, and while it is short and could easily be read in one sitting, it provides a solid and engaging introduction for those who are looking to learn more about the Rwandan genocide.
Perhaps the book's greatest contribution is Rusesabagina's repeated insistence that he was just “an ordinary man” who sought to maintain his moral standing amid unimaginable butchery. The lesson is that “human beings were designed to live sanely, and sanity always returns.” In the end, it is up to each of us to try and maintain that sanity, even if our whole world has gone mad.
Kyle Mantyla is a policy analyst with People For the American Way. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.
