Though not always elitist, movies are excellent at reflecting the reality and human history, just as poetry and prose are. The movie industry was being developed over the 20th century while the human civilization was being shaken by major military collisions, be they regional or conflicts of world proportions. There was no way the movie industry could sit sluggish in the circumstances, with film directors addressing the most vital social issues of the day. Genocide is one of grimmest crimes committed during the conflicts. Atrocious was the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and Jews in Nazi Germany – the list goes on and on. A genocide was a typical racial or ethnic purification of marginalized groups in the 20th century. It was a social problem, a woe of whatever nation bore the signs of distinctions in its genetic lineage. This was a type of lustration by means of the physical elimination of ethnic groups qualified as impure.
One of the underlying motives for ethnic brutality used to be the purity of the major ethnic group free from the members of foreign ethnic minorities. The Rwandan genocide that was nothing else but fratricide was about similar rationales more or less. While Tutsis did not belong to foreign minorities, they represented the social elites, the upper class singled out by Belgians to have locals stand proxy to their interests. When in the middle of life threatening ethnic purging, people do explore every avenue to avoid being killed or having relatives and family members killed, which forces them into spending all their earnings to bribe their way out of detention or making strange alliances with powerful people of questionable moral beliefs. Some individuals turn out treacherous collaborators cooperating with the oppressing punitive administration or military force in exchange for survival. A life-threatening conflict always puts the question of survival point-blank leaving the genuine human nature bare. Though claiming to be a decent and morally firm individual a person may appear an ultimate opportunist seeking every opportunity to stay alive in the thick of a blood shed. The protagonists of Rwandan Hotel choose their own paths of survival revealing topical social problems, of which the Rwandan Genocide remains focal.
The Political Conjuncture in Rwanda over the Timeframe Covered in the Movie
Hotel Rwanda is a 2004 traditional historical drama depicting in retrospect one of the darkest pages in the history of human civilization, the Rwandan ethnic genocide unfolding in the African state in the 1990s. The massacre of one of local ethnic groups was the side effects of European colonial regime spanning several centuries. Hymowitz and Parker (3) suggest that the Belgian colonial authorities conducted the division of the monolithic population of Rwanda into ethnic groups, such as Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa. To do so, Belgians elaborated a rigid system of racial classification on the basis of the color of eyes and the size of noses. Being under the impact of racist ideas, both Belgians and Germans, their predecessors holding the territory until the WW1, believed Tutsi to be a dominant ethnic group based on the whitish complexion and associated similarity to the titular race, the Europeans.
Belgians placed the newly made supreme social group into authority positions infringing on the rights of Twa and Hutus. Making up a total of 85% of the overall population the Hutus used not to enjoy the right to own land, receive higher education, attend schools, and occupy positions in the government (Hymowitz and Parker 3-4). Barring access to higher education is a traditional tactics of colonists, which allowed keeping the “unwashed masses” checked; only this time, the artificially made elite was a part of the oppressing machine, and a source of resentment to come. Hymowitz and Parker (5) suggest that the first genocide in 1959 resulted in Hutu changing places with the Tutsi and retaining the system of identity classification.
Escalating tensions fueled by racial splitting and ethnic oppression paved the way for the bizarre events that had place in 1994. The Hutu authority figures were arming civilians and drilling militias composing and distributing the lists of Rwandans who were up for elimination. Hate messages were broadcast over the radio calling on Hutus to murder Tutsis and the opponents of the current regime, the former depicted as rats and cockroaches. What provoked the annihilation of civilians was the presidential plane being presumably shot down by Hutu extremists who did not want the president to sign the truce (Hymowitz and Parker 6). Rosenberg (n.p.) notes that Hutus applied such genocide instruments as death lists, assassinations, demonizing, hate propaganda, rape, and civilian militias, which claimed the lives of one million people and deprived a quarter of million women of their dignity over a hundred-day period (qtd. in Hymowitz and Parker 6).
The Reflection of Social Events and Issues in Rwanda Hotel
As shown in the movie, the social turmoil began when a radio news broadcast announced that the president plane had crashed following an assassination attempt. Thus, the scriptwriter was very accurate in depicting the starting point of such uncomfortable social issue as genocide unleashed shortly after the physical removal of President Juvenal Habyarimana. Members of the Rwandan Armed Forces barging into the private residence of Paul Rusesabagina, the main protagonist and the senior manager of Hotel des Mille Collines, wanted him to help unlock a safe in one of hotels. In the meantime, they checked his identity by inspecting the passport, in which ethnic group was specified on the first page. By including the episode with Paul’s passport that had the ethnic stamp of Hutu, the moviemakers conveyed the problem of social division into classes that was at the root of the Rwandan genocide.
The movie accurately rendered the instruments of the genocide. Thus, for example, hate messages broadcast over the radio called on Hutu to kill Tutsis tagged as “cockroaches,” “to cut down tall trees,” and to rape Tutsi “whores.” The Armed Forces arrived to the hotel, in which refugees found a temporary shelter, demanding that the list of guests be composed. These were the death lists of Tutsi who were in the running for elimination. While on his way back from his supplier, Paul discovered the evidence of mass killings, namely the corpses of Tutsis decomposing in the open. Before that, Paul had arrived to his friendly supplier to buy products for refugees taking cover in his hotel, only to see Rutaganda’s paramilitaries raping and mistreating Tutsi women. Therefore, moviemakers depicted the whole scope of the social problem by accurately showing hate messages, assassinations, death lists, mass killings, demonization, rape, and civilian militia called Interahamwe.
In Hotel Rwanda, moviegoers can witness social contrasts and the unequal distribution of wealth between social classes depicted through rather poor neighborhoods and luxurious hotels, in which they served the finest dishes of European cuisine and the most exclusive alcoholic beverages from around the world. Paul himself was shown buying Cuban cigars from pilots in the opening scene. From his friendly supplier he would buy Heineken, Carlsberg, Scotch and other brand alcoholic drinks. George Rutaganda, Paul’s supplier, was a Hutu who seemed to be living a wealthy life running a business of his own, which shows the outcomes of the genocide of 1959 like ethnic transitions, by which both ethnic groups swapped places. Beyond that, Paul may be seen in his microbus alongside the driver passing poor neighborhoods en route to the hotel. Paul himself is a wealthy man wearing an expensive watch and finger rings.
Another societal issue raised in the movie is social conformity of separate Africans seen in their behavioral and attitudinal changes in attempts to adapt to dominant groups and their malicious strive for westernization and luxury. Wealthy Rwandans like Paul and Rutaganda live white men lives being the classic examples of cultural and social assimilation and the loss of identity, which are hazardous social problems fraught with the forfeiture of national sovereignty in the long run. The French and British first names of protagonists like General Augustin Bizimungu, the commander of the Rwandan Armed Forces, Paul Rusesabagina, and his subordinate Gregoire show the fruits of assimilation. Cultural and national Westernization holds particularly true for the general who happens to be a fan of Scotland, local golf, and Scotch, as became obvious in one of the final episodes of the movie, in which Paul was pleading the general for military assistance to save the refugees of the hotel besieged by Hutu paramilitaries.
There is more to social issues than that. Close to assimilation is collaborationism, or the willingness of locals to cooperate with oppressing regimes. Now seen wearing Interahamwe neck scarf, Gregoire appeared to have leaked the whereabouts of refugees to paramilitaries that flooded the hotel. They would have killed civilians by the time Paul arrived save for the troops of General Bizimungu whom Paul had blackmailed promising not to give evidence against once he would be tried for war crimes. Upon arriving to the hotel, Paul rushed along the hall in search of his family. It was after Gregoire saw him running that he pointed his finger at Paul enabling his detention. Much to the displeasure of the traitor, Paul was allowed to go after general’s soldiers disarming militiamen.
Overall, the audience can notice the shades of Nazism in the movie that emerge in the form of collaboration, sympathy with militarized squads conducting ethnic purging, social division into upper caste and under-humans or cockroaches that are themes prevalent in the 20th century. What people see in the movie is Nazism incarnate to a degree. Years ago, people had their skulls, eyes, and skin measured and evaluated to determine their belonging, which produced the class society with no peaceful coexistence that spilt into another genocide in 1994. Apart from genocide, collaboration, assimilation, and opportunism, Hotel Rwanda reveals the social problem of racism. First, the Rwandan society was polarized via biological distinctions between social groups. Second, there is discrimination and bias against the group not considered dominant, as per the division. The benchmarks of supremacy, such as skin color and the size of noses, make it racial discrimination while the denial of economic opportunities and subsequent poverty make the one in Rwanda economic discrimination.
Europeans were discriminators themselves because they were evacuating foreign locals only leaving indigenous children to the tender mercies of militant brigades. In an episode in a bar, Colonel Oliver, one of the UN Armed Forces commanders, suggested Paul to spit in his face, for French and Italian forces had received the order to leave the region. It appeared the “superpowers,” as the colonel called Western political heavyweights saw no interest in protecting people suffering in the genocide. Here is where movie audience can see a discriminating division of the world into First, Second, and Third World countries.
Corruption is, perhaps, one of the easiest to notice social problem plaguing the country as was pictured in the movie. In the episode when the fighters of the Rwandan Armed Forces wanted to kill “Tutsi cockroaches” after Paul’s retrieving keys from the safe, he offered a bribe in exchange for the lives of his family and neighbors. To this end, he had to give his golden finger ring, watch, one thousand dollars, and one hundred thousand franks as well as collecting jewelry and money from his neighbors. A squad commander greedily charged a high price of ten thousand franks per each hostage, yet he accepted one hundred thousand franks after his private had ensured that they would better release the captives to catch them again later and thus receive profit on another occasion.
Genocide was a bloody business that showed the corrupt inside of the Rwandan military men. However, the one who personified corruption was General Bizimungu who accepted gifts from Paul multiple times. When it came to answering in kind by saving refugees in the hotel from the army of paramilitaries, the general put a what-is-in-it-for-me question to Paul who seemed clueless, as money had all but run out by then. This was when blackmail came into play. This time around, Paul bought general’s aid by means of a verbal promise of not witnessing against the general. Before that, the general told Rusesabagina to rely on the UN since he had neither money nor products for his army to buy their help. In both cases, moviemakers exposed the corrupt nature of the Rwandan military top administration.
Overall, Hotel Rwanda is a very emotional historical drama that recounts the development of the Rwandan 1994 ethnic genocide raising multiple social issues topical in the then society. One of the major problems showed in the movie was genocide pitting Hutus against Tutsis, which claimed the hundreds of thousands of human lives and left several hundred thousand women raped in the process. The social division imposed by Belgians based on biological distinctions generated two antagonizing ethnic groups unequally enjoying social and economic benefits, which caused racism, or discrimination, which is another social issue widespread in the country at the time of the genocide. In evacuating foreign locals only, the European authorities discriminated against locals unable to quit the turbulent region since their skin color did not let them qualify as Europeans.
Frankly speaking, who caused the conflict were European colonizers conducting the social stratification or branding of the once equal Rwandan population. The protagonists of the movie had no scruple about accepting bribes from Paul, whether for protection or in exchange for hostage release. Paul bought the freedom of his wife, children, and neighbors. Seemingly, there was nothing left for him to do but to give money since he did not want his wife killed in the ethnic blood bath. Local people showed the results of assimilation, a threatening social issue, in their habits, love for European food, drinks, lifestyle, hobbies, and countries. They seemed to be losing their own national identity. Some showed readiness to cooperate with oppressing militant groups to survive in the conflict or emerge in leadership positions afterwards. Whatever the reason, collaborationism is a social issue that is ample evidence of the lack of social tenacity. Overall, Hotel Rwanda was a historical drama that accurately portrayed highly dangerous social issues in Rwanda, an African state fevered by the genocide.
Works Cited
Hymowitz, Sarah, and Amelia Parker. Group One: the Hutus and Tutsis. American University Washington College for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. n.d. 1-8. Web. 18 Dec. 2014.
