We mark the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide this year. Despite warnings of imminent violence made by Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, the head of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda, the world failed to act and some 800,000 people were murdered within 100 days in 1994. President Bill Clinton later reflected on the U.S. government’s failure to respond: “If we’d gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were lost... it had an enduring impact on me.”As long as genocide remains a threat, we must continue to ask ourselves about the consequences of action—and of inaction. That is how we strive to fulfill the promise of Never Again. Please post your thoughts about the film we watched in class.
19 comments:
I was very impressed by Paul. In the beginning of the movie his mindset was that family came first and he could not help everyone. As the film went on, I saw him work cleverly and diligently to protect everyone he could. It’s a horribly violent film but I think it does a great job of portraying the tragedies in the Rwandan genocide twenty years ago. One man with the support of the influential people around him and his unmatched wit was able to save so many lives. America should have done something, considering it is now the world's only superpower, and willing to fight for less noble causes. Rwanda was a very sad and shameful situation for all of the rest of the world. Hundreds of bodies just lying there on the streets and the fact that people would prefer to jump of a roof and commit suicide than me hacked to death by the machetes. The radio station had so much influence that one word from them and hundreds more could be killed. The whites were all evacuated and even the little orphan children were forced to stay and be slaughtered. Just like the Holocaust, bodies became commonplace. I think the film did a great job revealing all of the emotional turmoil going on.
I've seen Hotel Rwanda once before, but this time I watched it I got really upset. Seeing all the children suffer and watching them being hacked to death made me feel horrible that the rest of the world just stay back and watched this event happen. I don't know what I'd be able to do if I was alive 20 years ago, but I would like to think I would try to help. I felt so much sympathy for Paul since he tried to hard to help everyone he could. He left his family so that he could stay with his hotel and help the people there.
I have never seen hotel Rwanda before. I have heard that it is a great movie and was always encouraged to see it but just never have. It is awful what the Militia would do the Tutse descendants. They would slaughter them in the street like animals. It was horrifying seeing the people just laying In their front yards after being brutally murdered. I cannot believe that none of the European countries would send help to intervene but they sent troops just to rescue their own people. I find it disgusting that they just stood by and watched as a genocide played out.
I have seen this film three time now, each time understanding something new. This story is amazing because it displays how one single person stood up for what is right. Instead of following the crowd, one man refused and successfully was able to make a great difference. Being Hutu himself, Paul was safe from being killed by the Hutu's and Rwandan military. Yet Paul still accepted many Tutsi people into his safe haven at the hotel because he knew it was the right thing. Paul's courage, ability to buy time, and refusal to accept the common opinion of the crowd helped his family and him survive. Its sad to think what could have happened, had the world stepped in and helped the innocent people of Rwanda. It is also amazing how it has been 20 years yet the country is still in a state of recovery from the events. One thing that can be taken away from this story is that history repeats itself. Many events which took place in this genocide also took place in Nazi Germany with the Jews.
After watching the film for the second time in a week I learned more now than I had the first time. The first time wacthing it, it was a horrific scene to see people being slaughtered in the streets and treated like animals, but the second time watching it I understood what was going on. I was unaware of what happened in Rwanda 20 years ago until this film. I think the movie helps a lot of people understand that genocides were possible and how awful they are. It raises many questions that don't always have easy answers. It helped me understand better how the Holocaust was possible along with other genocides.
This film was yet another example of hatred and humanity. Paul did not care about his family or himself, instead his first priority was saving lives. I was also depressed that the hatred at any place, any situation leads to mass destruction. The genocide in Rwanda is yet another example of irrationality among people and inhuman act as an outcome of that. The film was a great way of bringing everybody's attention towards the emotional and physical torture given to the innocent souls.I am really looking forward to watch the end of this film.
This film allowed me to have a much stronger understanding of what had happened in Rwanda 20 years ago. I never thought about how many people 800,000 really was until I had seen this video. Seeing thousands of people being slaughtered and being called "cockroches" was something I could never imagine. I and suprised to see that this is still possible today and this film couldn't make me any more appreciative of what I have and why my family gives me. I do not like the genoside but I liked how the movie showed both sides and the reality of it all, it allows me to get an enhanced idea of all that happenedn and what went on.
This was the first time I had ever seen hotel Rwanda. I couldn't believe some of the images that I saw when watching the film. Prior to the movie I had heard of the genocide but seeing the movie made it much more horrific. Also when I was watching the movie it made me so angry that the Belgian army came in and only took the whites but would not help the Africans. Paul's attitude an kindness during the movie was very inspirational. It was not his job to take care of all those people but he knew that he couldn't leave innocent people to die and he did everything in his power to save the individuals at the hotel.
After watching the movie, Hotel Rwanda I got a much better understanding of what happened 20 years ago. It baffles me how 800,000 were killed. I think Paul is an incredibly character. He wanted to help everyone that he could. The names that the hutu's called the Tutsis were mean, "cockroaches". They wanted to kill all of the kids so they wouldn't have another generation be brought up. It made me realize how quickly change can occur. Its scary to think that this was only 20 years ago. That is very recent and devastating
I have seen this movie before and every I watch it, it has an impact on me. I can't believe something so horrific happened to all of those innocent people. It really made sad that the Hutu tribe wanted to get rid of all of the Tutsi tribe by killing all of the children so there won't be another generation of Tutsi. I thought Paul was very brave for standing up for Tutsi even when it meant he was putting his life in danger.
Hotel Rwanda was a very difficult movie to watch for me. Before viewing it in class, I had very little background knowledge on the genocide that occurred in Rwanda 20 years ago. I had heard about it but I never knew what happened or why it did. This movie allowed me to understand the events that played out during this time. It's so hard for me to understand how someone can have such an intense hatred for someone else to the point where they brutally murder them with a machete. I can't ever imagine having such a strong hatred for someone else. I think Paul is such an inspirational character. He is very heroic and brave to stand up for what he believed was right. I admire the fact that he wasn't only concerned with the safety of his family and himself, but he also cared for the safety of others around him who were in danger.
After watching this film for a second time, I was able to understand more of what was going on during the genocide and I was also unhappier with what had happened in the past. All the other countries refused to help Rwanda because they were thought of as inferior to the European countries and none of the other countries wanted to admit that genocide was occurring in Rwanda. The hotel and how they managed to keep that many refuges safe for that long of a time given the certain circumstances impressed me. Something that stood out to me in the beginning of the film was when the two women at the bar was asked if they were Tutsi or Hutu and one of them was Tutsi and the other was Hutu. The man replies by saying that they looked exactly like twins. This shows how unfair the genocide was and how many innocent lives were taken when it was pretty difficult to tell the difference between the two groups.
After watching Hotel Rwanda for a second time, I learned a lot more about the situation. During the film the one scene that really got me was when they were driving the hotel supply van over the dead bodies. What they thought were bumps in the road were actually hundreds if not thousands of dead bodies. I thought it was truly insane how people could just be killed so brutally and left on the road in a way to make sure everyone in the country saw what was happening.
I had known that there was a genocide in Rwanda before watching the film, but I didn't know any of the details. The movie was very good at portraying the slaughter that happened to hundreds of thousands of innocent people and how no one did anything to stop it. One part in particular that really got me was when the UN Colonel says that the government isn't going to help the Hotel because the manager is "just a black African." The movie was great at showing how stressful it must have been to be living in Rwanda at the time, due to the chaos and the lack of help from outside sources to stop the chaos. I'm glad that I could see this film and get a true understanding of what happened in Rwanda in 1994.
I have seen Hotel Rwanda a couple of times before, this is the first time I have watched it after traveling to Rwanda. This movie does a great job showing what families went through during the genocide and how harsh and ruthless the Hutus were during the Genocide. It amazed me that a country as small and faithful as Rwanda could let something so horrific occur. It angered me that other countries and other militaries weren't offering to step in and intervene to help stop the killing and the violence that was occurring. In Rwanda, after visiting several Genocide memorials I have a better understanding of what and why things happened but i still cant wrap my head around 800,000 people dying in one hundred days. The number of families torn apart and killed is unfathomable to me. But also what is crazy to me it going there today, you would have no idea that a genocide took place in Rwanda, they are some of the most happy cheerful people I have ever met and they are trying hard to not forget, but to learn from it and move on.
I've seen this movie many times, and i remember the first time i watched it how much some of the parts shocked and disturbed me. I can't believe close to 800,000 people died, and that it happened only 20 years ago. It's amazing that the world didn't make a larger effort to intervene. In the movie, I thought Paul was a very strong figure. I don't think many people would undertake the responsibility he took, and I don't think many people could go through such sorrow, fear, and hardship and come out as okay as he did. I think i'm starting to look less at this and say 'this happened', but instead i'm saying more of 'this happens.' I don't mean to say that I think and embrace the fact that this is as a rare phenomenon of human history; bound to happen again, but i do mean that I now know that we humans are capable of this slaughter. That knowledge is a little terrifying, because although i'm learning more about the world, i'm also learning how much i don't know about the world.
Absent.
Prior to seeing the film Hotel Rwanda in class, I had read some information about the Rwandan Genocide in the past, but seeing the events acted out on screen in the motion picture gave me another perspective on the violence. It is appalling to see that Rwandan society allowed for this massacre of innocent Tutsi's by the larger Hutu population, and that figures of authority in the country seemed to do nothing to stop it. While watching the film, I admired the heroic acts of the protagonist Paul, and his protection of Tutsi's and Hutu's who were targeted by the Hutu power group. I'm glad I got the chance to watch this film, as it did a brilliant job of portraying both the terrible violence of the Rwandan Genocide as well as the honorable actions of the protagonist to save the lives of over a thousand innocent Rwandans.
I was absent due to the choir field trip.
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