'Hotel Rwanda' Explores Genocide

Watching Hotel Rwanda was one of the hardest and yet most sincere moments that I had ever experienced. By the end of the movie, everyone in the theater was weeping with the deepest grief. This is not a movie that anyone can walk away from without feeling strangely changed. It is not a movie you shrug off as "just another movie." It captures your sympathy and your heart goes out to the victims of the genocide that happened ten years ago.

The films story is based on the real-life experiences of Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle), a Hutu manager of the Hotel Des Mille Collines in Kigali, who narrowly escapes death several times as he struggles to keep his family (his Tutsi wife Tatiana and children) and over a thousand refugees safe. Using bribes such as money, jewelry, and whiskey, he insured the safety of many until he ran out of all resources and had to take some desperate measures.

All the Westerners, those staying in the hotel that Paul manages as well as others in the country, abandoned and left them to rot and die in the hands of brutal mass murders who wanted to wipe out humankind. Rusesabagina becomes frustrated and angry at the United Nation's inability to act to provide them safety and takes matters into his own hands.

Hotel Rwanda does not show many of the atrocities actually being done; it concentrates more on the feelings of the people with the main focus on Rusesabagina, his family, and their struggle of survival. But the movie is still so powerful, terrifying, haunting, violent, and brutally real that you will be left defenseless wishing this scar in the history of our world never took place. And if you're a person enjoying the freedom that you have by being in the Western world, you are sure to be reminded that not everyone in this world has it as good as you do.

Most people were not aware of what happened in Rwanda during the civil war between the Hutus and the Tutsis. I am ashamed to realize how uninformed even I was of this event when all the time I also was in Africa and these were my brothers and my sisters who were being killed without shame. The whole world turned their backs and a blind eye on this event and I doubt anyone will ever come to a reasonable answer as to why this was.

As one character in the movie said, "If people see this footage, they'll go, 'Oh my God! That's horrible!' then go on eating their dinner." You would think people make mistakes once and don't let it happen again, but this can't be any further from the truth. What happened in Rwanda isn't an isolated example. Conflicts everywhere reinforce the notion that mankind is incapable of learning from history.

The real Paul Rusesabagina will be speaking on April 19, 2005 at Grafton-Stovall Theater at JMU. Doors will open at 7 p.m. and admission is free to the public. Everyone should take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity.