Hotel Rwanda
Last night I saw the film Hotel Rwanda. It was an intense and distressing film. It's a film everyone should see just to feel humbled. To feel like your problems will never really amount to anything of importance. To realize that the spirit of western civilization can still mean something even if the practice is something about which we should all be pretty much embarrassed.
I recently also saw Love, Actually, which was this sort of response to 911. How despite terrorism or whatever, love is actually around us. It was an entirely fictional account based on the idea of the arrivals area of airports and how much love you see there. Though the sentiment is nice, it was still pretty unreal and pretty bubble-gum hollywood.
Hotel Rwanda is based on the real events surrounding the Hotel Des Milles Collines in Rwanda during the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Hutu people on the Tutsi (sp?). If the movie was being true, apparently the differences between these two tribes was established by the Belgians. They would actually measure the size of people's attributes and using these measurements would decree who were the "better" people, thus creating the distinction. This distinction created a caste system that stayed in place for many years. Either the Tutsi or the Hutu were considered the better people, and like all groups in power, they abused their power and denigrated the other. The Hutu eventually rebelled in a way that evinced the destruction the Tutsi. It is mind-boggling that this distinction ever happened in the first place and that the distinction lasted even after Belgian occupation became less overt. I dunno. It's just so strange how these things can still happen. And now that we are perpetrating similar things. What's the saying for 05? The best defense is a good genocide.
The ethnic cleansing in Rwanda was allowed to go on because it was Africans killing Africans. Now it's Americans killing...well, I don't even know who were killing anymore. Does anyone? Ugh. I just know I'm going to disappear for writing anti-American shit. Oh well, nice knowing everybody.
I recently also saw Love, Actually, which was this sort of response to 911. How despite terrorism or whatever, love is actually around us. It was an entirely fictional account based on the idea of the arrivals area of airports and how much love you see there. Though the sentiment is nice, it was still pretty unreal and pretty bubble-gum hollywood.
Hotel Rwanda is based on the real events surrounding the Hotel Des Milles Collines in Rwanda during the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Hutu people on the Tutsi (sp?). If the movie was being true, apparently the differences between these two tribes was established by the Belgians. They would actually measure the size of people's attributes and using these measurements would decree who were the "better" people, thus creating the distinction. This distinction created a caste system that stayed in place for many years. Either the Tutsi or the Hutu were considered the better people, and like all groups in power, they abused their power and denigrated the other. The Hutu eventually rebelled in a way that evinced the destruction the Tutsi. It is mind-boggling that this distinction ever happened in the first place and that the distinction lasted even after Belgian occupation became less overt. I dunno. It's just so strange how these things can still happen. And now that we are perpetrating similar things. What's the saying for 05? The best defense is a good genocide.
The ethnic cleansing in Rwanda was allowed to go on because it was Africans killing Africans. Now it's Americans killing...well, I don't even know who were killing anymore. Does anyone? Ugh. I just know I'm going to disappear for writing anti-American shit. Oh well, nice knowing everybody.
posted by Brian at
1:48 PM
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