An evening with Rusesabagina

Paul Rusesabagina, the inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwanda, has just published his autobiography, An Ordinary Man. U of C turned out to be one of his first stops in promoting it. It was a full house--about 500 people--which is pretty remarkable given that I only saw flyers for the event starting last week.

I'm still thinking about his speech, and the question period that followed, and so on. Some links and occurrent thoughts:

1. An NPR story on Rusesabagina and his book: Paul Rusesabagina, No 'Ordinary Man'.

2. From that link, a link to an NPR interview with Lt-Gen. Romeo Dallaire, commander of the failed UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, and a familiar figure to my fellow Canucks (I hope!). I think that NPR interview might be the most recently recorded one I've ever heard. It's very brief and very good, but be warned that parts of the interview involve very graphic description of the events Dallaire witnessed, and he tells it completely straight, pulls no punches.

3. There is a distinct difference in tone between Rusesabagina and Dallaire. On the one hand, Rusesabagina's narrative is strongly centered around himself--his book is, after all, an autobiography. Still, I found it a little off-putting. Dallaire, in comparison, probably isn't too fond of remembering that he was there himself, so the way he recounts events doesn't do much to remind anyone else of that fact either. On the other hand, Rusesabagina is able to pour a level of emotional investment into his words that Dallaire (understandably) can't seem to muster.

Like the book says, Rusesabagina started out as an ordinary man--a mere hotel manager who saves over a thousand lives cannot help but be a hero. Dallaire, on the other hand, started out as the man charged (in his own eyes, if not those of the UN) with preventing the genocide from happening. There is no hint of heroism or success in his self-image. "I failed, yes. The mission failed. They died by the thousands, hundreds of thousands." So maybe the difference in tone is to be expected.

4. In the question period, Rusesabagina backed up Dallaire's claim (which he made to the UN at the time) that merely 2,500 more peacekeepers (about 5,000 total) would have sufficed to prevent the genocide. (As I recall, Dallaire's proposal was also backed up by a UN report made long after the fact.) 2,500! According to Dallaire, there were African states willing to send troops to Rwanda, they just needed someone to donate transportation and equipment. Nobody stepped up.

5. Rusesabagina talks about killings between neighbours, within families, within churches. Dallaire describes the militia leaders as possessed of an unintelligible, inhuman evil. If, as Dallaire says, the people he faced were devils, then that would make the events in Rwanda somehow easier to deal with. But I don't think it's that easy. The evil in Rwanda was a thoroughly human evil. To call it inhuman is in a way to excuse humanity.

6. Rusesabagina also brought up Sudan. As did a student who spoke during the introductory remarks. There is a student movement for divestment from Sudan, probably targeting U of C first, given this story: Bucking trend, U of C will not divest from Sudan. On the way out, I saw a signup sheet for the email list for the group. I almost signed up, but I didn't. I have certain wishy-washy philosophical concerns about consumers or investors engaging in activism qua consumers and investors. And the practical value of divestment is unclear, at least according to studies like this. On the other hand, this group may well have done their economic homework. Or at least I could have asked. I should have signed up.

7. During the Q&A session, someone remarked that, in another ten years, someone will probably make a movie about Darfur, and it will be critically aclaimed, and make people sad, and that will be the end of that. I sort of felt that this guy was coming from a position of formulaic cynicism--but he's probably right.