Hotel Rwanda

I have noticed something. The movies that affect me most (count them: 2 so far - Letters to God (first movie that ever made me cry :-) ) and Hotel Rwanda. ) are based on true stories. My theory: I have well-established mental boundaries with fiction. It is a world. It is not my world. I journey there to be entertained, to learn, to enhance my skill, but it is separate, and I am separate from it. But those two movies - those are my world. And they say there is something horribly wrong, wrong beyond my experience of wrong, with the world, and it struggles with the wrong and tries to answer the wrong. And all is not right in the end. Each has an answer(s)... but the answer? (Letters to God is close)


This is me 'processing' the movie - it has a certain logic to it (but kind of rambles), but may not make a great deal of sense if you haven't seen it... you may want to read a synopsis (I encourage you to watch the movie, but you can see the ending coming a mile off - it shouldn't ruin much of the story).
Truly, the only thing remarkable about genocide, from a Christian worldview, is the fact that it happens so infrequently. Yet in the world of beauty in God's common grace, neighbor murdering neighbor with sheer brute force and rage is almost impossible to believe. Yet it occurred.
Yet God's common grace was there too. Paul's transformation from someone essentially selfish, worried only about his family, to the savior of 1200+ people. Paul's placement as manager of two different hotels, giving him the resources and contacts he needed to save those people. Paul's wife Taciana who, quite literally, encouraged him (gave him the heart to continue) (more on her another time). Even the Hutu general who loved Scotch and was therefore bribable is God's hand in the mess. And the care - the Red Cross lady, the nuns who didn't want to leave the children, the love between the families, the UN colonel, the photographers who refused to let tragedy go undocumented - everywhere there is love, there is God "for love is of God"
and that is the answer.

This movie begs "How can people not care???" How can they see these things and do nothing? This question pounded inside my head - there was almost an anger there - and so it drowned out the other question, which burned deeper and quieter, yet circled in the background until I realized that it was what truly bugged me: (would it have made any difference?). Suppose the Western world recognized the situation as atrocity and sent in troops. With whom would they have sided? The Tutsis, who were being slaughtered, or the Hutus, who had been oppressed by the Tutsis for years (and then, which faction of Hutus?)? Or perhaps neither, perhaps they would be a "peacekeeping force" punishing any and all violence. An uneasy peace would be established... eventually... aid would flow in for awhile, trying to get some things to rebuild, get people resettled... guerilla bands would remain, wreaking havoc... and then the world would forget. First the aid would slow, then the governments would feel increasing pressure to bring the troops home. Elections would come around, and there would be promises made - maybe promises kept. Eventually, a token force would remain. The eyes of the world would be elsewhere. And it would begin again. Because there are few things that grow anger like forced suppression of it.
Is this the guarantee of what would have happened? No. There are many other possibilities (most of which involve a form of military dictatorship). But, as a student of history and the human heart, I can say it is entirely possible.
Should the West have done something? Yes.
But would the intervention of the West be the solution? Never.
The West has never solved any of the problems of the third world in all my studies. Don't misunderstand: sometimes it enables the solution, but that is different. The solution is a change of heart. Only God can do that. But it has happened. I read an article recently about forgiveness in Rwanda; rebuilding of community between rapers and raped, murderers and families of those wounded. I do not know whether God is involved in that directly or not, but all I can say nonetheless is "this is the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes"