This summer and fall I’ll have students read
Paul Rusesabagina’s autobiography for the Rwanda portion of my course. He hid Tutsis at the Hotel Mille Collines
where he served as hotel manager. His
heroism became the inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwanda. The insights I
gained from this book were pleasantly surprising. Rusesabagina’s survival and his protection of
over 1,200 people depended on his ability to negotiate. The power of words got him through this
difficult ordeal, though it didn’t hurt to have other negotiating “tools” at
his disposal, such as alcohol and money.
His earlier training as a pastor had helped sharpen his communication skills. Above all, Rusesabagina
possessed innate political savvy. He
knew how to size up a person and how far he could go in negotiation. He was a shrewd observer of poolside
politics. “Around this small square of
water is where the real business of the Mille Collines is conducted.” He learned how to use charm and work through
the unspoken patronage system that governs relationships and grants favors. This experience provided a valuable education
and came into use during the genocide.
Rwanda was a multilateral failure, and
Rusesabagina calls it like he sees it. The
UN was “worse than useless.” Indeed, any
credible book on the Rwandan genocide is essentially an indictment of UN
peacekeeping missions. The author doesn’t
even spare General Romeo Dallaire, the UN commander on the ground, who was one of
the few third-party officials trying to stop the killing and protect the innocents. He
didn’t do enough, writes Rusesabagina.
While he likes Dallaire on a personal level and acknowledges the
Canadian’s efforts, Rusesabagina thinks he should have disobeyed orders from
his UN higher-ups in New York and intervened in the conflict. “At the very least it would have forced the
UN to beef up its peacekeeping force and send us real fighters instead of inept
draftees from nations who seemed more interested in collecting their per diem
payments from the UN instead of doing anything meaningful.” Whether disobeying orders and engaging
militarily in the genocide would have helped I leave up to the reader.
Rusesabagina has less but equally harsh things to say
about France, “the policeman of Africa.”
The French government was so concerned about English-friendly Tutsi
taking over the country, that President Mitterand sent troops to the southern
part of Rwanda in order to protect Hutus; this “peacekeeping mission” gave
killers “the chance to look like victims instead of aggressors.” Rusesabagina weighs in on Uncle Sam’s role as
well. The U.S. could have jammed the
airwaves of RTLM, the talk radio program actively cheerleading the genocide. He recounts a phone exchange he had with a dismissive
and apathetic White House staffer. In
another passage Rusesabagina sourly comments that President Clinton, during his
mea culpa visit in 1998, never left the airport. Unlike Immaculeé, the hotel manager is more
critical of the United States and Paul Kagame, the current president, a Tutsi
leader who commanded the Rwandan Patriotic Front that ended the genocide. Whether these differences have to do with
their ethnic background—Rusesabagina is Hutu and Immaculeé is Tutsi—is an open
question.
What I most enjoyed about An Ordinary Man was the author’s shrewd assessment of human nature. His observations of Rwandan history taught him that “most politics is an outgrowth of emotions that may or may not have any relation to the rational.” Indeed, that’s how I see the rancorous division in the U.S., especially since the days of Clinton and Bush; the differences stem from visceral feelings and not from reasonable arguments. In another passage of the book Rusesabagina comes back to this idea: “People are never as reasonable as they seem to be—in fact, 'reason' is usually an afterthought, nothing more than a cover story for the feelings inside.” I’ve espoused the same viewpoint on this blog. Where we differ perhaps is on the nature of evil. In the concluding chapter Rusesabagina draws on C.S. Lewis to make the case that common decency is the norm in humanity; evil is an aberration. Finally, the author ends his book on a realistic note. He doesn’t give platitudes about a brighter future or give voice to the hopeful but vapid “Never again!” slogan. No. There will be genocides in the future. All we can do is find strength and take example from those who resisted evil or, in the case of the hotel manager of the Milles Collines, negotiated with it to save lives.
Rwanda was a multilateral failure, and
Rusesabagina calls it like he sees it. The
UN was “worse than useless.” Indeed, any
credible book on the Rwandan genocide is essentially an indictment of UN
peacekeeping missions. The author doesn’t
even spare General Romeo Dallaire, the UN commander on the ground, who was one of
the few third-party officials trying to stop the killing and protect the innocents. He
didn’t do enough, writes Rusesabagina.
While he likes Dallaire on a personal level and acknowledges the
Canadian’s efforts, Rusesabagina thinks he should have disobeyed orders from
his UN higher-ups in New York and intervened in the conflict. “At the very least it would have forced the
UN to beef up its peacekeeping force and send us real fighters instead of inept
draftees from nations who seemed more interested in collecting their per diem
payments from the UN instead of doing anything meaningful.” Whether disobeying orders and engaging
militarily in the genocide would have helped I leave up to the reader.
Rusesabagina has less but equally harsh things to say
about France, “the policeman of Africa.”
The French government was so concerned about English-friendly Tutsi
taking over the country, that President Mitterand sent troops to the southern
part of Rwanda in order to protect Hutus; this “peacekeeping mission” gave
killers “the chance to look like victims instead of aggressors.” Rusesabagina weighs in on Uncle Sam’s role as
well. The U.S. could have jammed the
airwaves of RTLM, the talk radio program actively cheerleading the genocide. He recounts a phone exchange he had with a dismissive
and apathetic White House staffer. In
another passage Rusesabagina sourly comments that President Clinton, during his
mea culpa visit in 1998, never left the airport. Unlike Immaculeé, the hotel manager is more
critical of the United States and Paul Kagame, the current president, a Tutsi
leader who commanded the Rwandan Patriotic Front that ended the genocide. Whether these differences have to do with
their ethnic background—Rusesabagina is Hutu and Immaculeé is Tutsi—is an open
question.What I most enjoyed about An Ordinary Man was the author’s shrewd assessment of human nature. His observations of Rwandan history taught him that “most politics is an outgrowth of emotions that may or may not have any relation to the rational.” Indeed, that’s how I see the rancorous division in the U.S., especially since the days of Clinton and Bush; the differences stem from visceral feelings and not from reasonable arguments. In another passage of the book Rusesabagina comes back to this idea: “People are never as reasonable as they seem to be—in fact, 'reason' is usually an afterthought, nothing more than a cover story for the feelings inside.” I’ve espoused the same viewpoint on this blog. Where we differ perhaps is on the nature of evil. In the concluding chapter Rusesabagina draws on C.S. Lewis to make the case that common decency is the norm in humanity; evil is an aberration. Finally, the author ends his book on a realistic note. He doesn’t give platitudes about a brighter future or give voice to the hopeful but vapid “Never again!” slogan. No. There will be genocides in the future. All we can do is find strength and take example from those who resisted evil or, in the case of the hotel manager of the Milles Collines, negotiated with it to save lives.
