The plan was set in stone and nothing was going to deter me. I had a purpose and was on a mission. Armed with a vague idea of what the movie was about but with an exception. I was not ready for what I was about to see or the truth that would confront me afterwards.
Interesting title, outstanding reviews, “Shooting Dogs” is latest attempt by a filmmaker to educate us about the Rwandan genocide that played on our television screens a decade ago and the world is hoping such a thing never happens again. “Hotel Rwanda” reduced me to tears because I couldn’t understand what would possess a human being to commit such atrocities. With numerous articles and television documentaries about the country and people of Rwanda, “Hotel Rwanda” and “Shooting Dogs” are only surface materials because when you look in-depth, there are those, whose stories we have never heard and may never hear about and they have to suffer their memories in silence.
The cinema was not packed, just the way I wanted it, no distractions and the chair was very comfortable. I was ready and so the film started rolling, half way through I knew I would leave the cinema a different person; not because I felt or believed I was going out to change the world but because I would be in a somber mood when thoughts about my place of birth came up. We are not different from Rwanda. I come from a place where one tribe deems itself superior to the other and the government is controlled by a mixed group of disgruntled members of a populous ethnic group. I'm afraid when I think about what the future holds, more so when I remember stories I was told about the civil war before I was born.
Rwanda is still fresh in my memory because I just saw history as it was on the big screen, the tears started rolling down my face when a mother and her new born baby were slaughtered. I couldn’t comprehend why one man would dismember another in pieces with a metal object. I call it cutlass but it is mostly known as machete and 12 years ago was the last time I used one. It was Labour Day, I was in boarding school and it was my task was to cut down grass that had grown beyond its boundary. That’s the main purpose it’s for, farming, slaughtering of animals and keeping one’s living environment tidy. This was not the case 10 years ago. It became a “Weapon of mass destruction.” How ironic that, we think it’s only nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that deserve to be categorised as “Weapons of mass of destruction.” Rwanda tells me different. The hands of a man can become the destructive element in society. Give him an object and he will turn it into a weapon, give him a weapon he knows how to use and he will show you how creatively he can use it.
Genocide is a word I have heard over and over but never bothered to find out what it meant because it became synonymous with murder to me. Today was different, I checked for the meaning and the realisation that it is a systematic and planned extermination of an ethnic, political or racial group sent chills down my spine. I know that you don’t need me to define the word for you because we all know what it means but I would have to question that belief. If we did, then why did it go on deaf ears for so long and we kept quite and watched 800,000 people perish like a freight of tomatoes.
Reading the stories of the victims had an effect on me I did not expect. Floral Mukampore for example who lived among the dead in order to survive said, “Can you imagine, people died on the 15 April and I lived among them until May 15.” So much has been written about Rwanda and for years to come, more will be written. We will keep talking about it just like we still talk about the Jewish Holocust. The question is have we learnt our lessons? Have we now become sensitive enough to learn from the past? It takes a man who doesn’t feel to carry out actions that are beyond comprehension, then again, who knows what goes on in the mind of such a man. Perhaps he does feel, so much that his actions begin to resemble those of ours who don’t but how can we tell?
The notion of being sensitive, sensitive to what goes on around us, maybe that’s all it is, a notion. Because on my way home, a group of teenage boys were on the bus and one of them was beating up the other and no one stepped in to help this teenage boy. His eyes were red, his face swollen and he kept using his jacket to wipe his tears. My heart went out to him and I felt angry that no one stood up to do anything and neither did I. Why? I cannot answer but do I feel ashamed? It felt more like guilt because when I got off the bus I wasn’t sure what would happen to him. The teenage boy who beat him up earlier was still threatening to beat him up some more. People are afraid of stepping in for fear of getting hurt. The horror stories of those who stepped in and got killed makes you think about yourself before anyone else. We have become so desensitised that we are afraid of doing what is right. This fear has led to selfishness. If we are okay, then we shut everything else out.
Makes me think about Rwanda again, when Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, the UN Canadian officer, pleaded for International help but his plea was in vain and his troops were rather reduced in numbers. March 2004, a decade to the ills of the Rwandan genocide, the Canadian foreign minister Bill Graham told the United Nations, “We lack the political will to achieve the necessary agreement on how to put in place the type of measures that will prevent a future Rwanda from happening.” That is what scares me the most, the lack of responsibility both individually and collectively. When no one steps in to help a crying teenage boy, not even myself, makes me wonder, who will help a nation?
It all takes me back home, where the stench of tribalism is worse than that of a sewer. March 2006, I received an email that got me curious and so I decided to find out and in the process stumbled on a story. According to the email, one denomination of the Christian community in Nigeria have been warned and told to pray vigilantly for the nation. For this particular Christian community, they were also told to go and watch the movie Hotel Rwanda and pray it doesn’t become the fate of the nation. The writings are on the wall, the signs are there for all to see, tribal wars, religious battles and gradually, men are turning into robots with no feelings.
This isn’t just about a nation or an ethnic community nor is it just about the ethnic cleansing of Tutsis by Hutus for superiority. It is about us as a society and the realisation that so often, we manage to distance ourselves from the situation before us. Thinking as long as it does not affect me, I am okay. We have become desensitised to the point where we no longer feel the pain of a teenage boy, crying like a baby on the bus while grown men and women watch as he is violently beaten up by another teenager without remorse. When did we loose our ability to be our brother’s keeper?
Interesting title, outstanding reviews, “Shooting Dogs” is latest attempt by a filmmaker to educate us about the Rwandan genocide that played on our television screens a decade ago and the world is hoping such a thing never happens again. “Hotel Rwanda” reduced me to tears because I couldn’t understand what would possess a human being to commit such atrocities. With numerous articles and television documentaries about the country and people of Rwanda, “Hotel Rwanda” and “Shooting Dogs” are only surface materials because when you look in-depth, there are those, whose stories we have never heard and may never hear about and they have to suffer their memories in silence.
The cinema was not packed, just the way I wanted it, no distractions and the chair was very comfortable. I was ready and so the film started rolling, half way through I knew I would leave the cinema a different person; not because I felt or believed I was going out to change the world but because I would be in a somber mood when thoughts about my place of birth came up. We are not different from Rwanda. I come from a place where one tribe deems itself superior to the other and the government is controlled by a mixed group of disgruntled members of a populous ethnic group. I'm afraid when I think about what the future holds, more so when I remember stories I was told about the civil war before I was born.
Rwanda is still fresh in my memory because I just saw history as it was on the big screen, the tears started rolling down my face when a mother and her new born baby were slaughtered. I couldn’t comprehend why one man would dismember another in pieces with a metal object. I call it cutlass but it is mostly known as machete and 12 years ago was the last time I used one. It was Labour Day, I was in boarding school and it was my task was to cut down grass that had grown beyond its boundary. That’s the main purpose it’s for, farming, slaughtering of animals and keeping one’s living environment tidy. This was not the case 10 years ago. It became a “Weapon of mass destruction.” How ironic that, we think it’s only nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that deserve to be categorised as “Weapons of mass of destruction.” Rwanda tells me different. The hands of a man can become the destructive element in society. Give him an object and he will turn it into a weapon, give him a weapon he knows how to use and he will show you how creatively he can use it.
Genocide is a word I have heard over and over but never bothered to find out what it meant because it became synonymous with murder to me. Today was different, I checked for the meaning and the realisation that it is a systematic and planned extermination of an ethnic, political or racial group sent chills down my spine. I know that you don’t need me to define the word for you because we all know what it means but I would have to question that belief. If we did, then why did it go on deaf ears for so long and we kept quite and watched 800,000 people perish like a freight of tomatoes.
Reading the stories of the victims had an effect on me I did not expect. Floral Mukampore for example who lived among the dead in order to survive said, “Can you imagine, people died on the 15 April and I lived among them until May 15.” So much has been written about Rwanda and for years to come, more will be written. We will keep talking about it just like we still talk about the Jewish Holocust. The question is have we learnt our lessons? Have we now become sensitive enough to learn from the past? It takes a man who doesn’t feel to carry out actions that are beyond comprehension, then again, who knows what goes on in the mind of such a man. Perhaps he does feel, so much that his actions begin to resemble those of ours who don’t but how can we tell?
The notion of being sensitive, sensitive to what goes on around us, maybe that’s all it is, a notion. Because on my way home, a group of teenage boys were on the bus and one of them was beating up the other and no one stepped in to help this teenage boy. His eyes were red, his face swollen and he kept using his jacket to wipe his tears. My heart went out to him and I felt angry that no one stood up to do anything and neither did I. Why? I cannot answer but do I feel ashamed? It felt more like guilt because when I got off the bus I wasn’t sure what would happen to him. The teenage boy who beat him up earlier was still threatening to beat him up some more. People are afraid of stepping in for fear of getting hurt. The horror stories of those who stepped in and got killed makes you think about yourself before anyone else. We have become so desensitised that we are afraid of doing what is right. This fear has led to selfishness. If we are okay, then we shut everything else out.
Makes me think about Rwanda again, when Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, the UN Canadian officer, pleaded for International help but his plea was in vain and his troops were rather reduced in numbers. March 2004, a decade to the ills of the Rwandan genocide, the Canadian foreign minister Bill Graham told the United Nations, “We lack the political will to achieve the necessary agreement on how to put in place the type of measures that will prevent a future Rwanda from happening.” That is what scares me the most, the lack of responsibility both individually and collectively. When no one steps in to help a crying teenage boy, not even myself, makes me wonder, who will help a nation?
It all takes me back home, where the stench of tribalism is worse than that of a sewer. March 2006, I received an email that got me curious and so I decided to find out and in the process stumbled on a story. According to the email, one denomination of the Christian community in Nigeria have been warned and told to pray vigilantly for the nation. For this particular Christian community, they were also told to go and watch the movie Hotel Rwanda and pray it doesn’t become the fate of the nation. The writings are on the wall, the signs are there for all to see, tribal wars, religious battles and gradually, men are turning into robots with no feelings.
This isn’t just about a nation or an ethnic community nor is it just about the ethnic cleansing of Tutsis by Hutus for superiority. It is about us as a society and the realisation that so often, we manage to distance ourselves from the situation before us. Thinking as long as it does not affect me, I am okay. We have become desensitised to the point where we no longer feel the pain of a teenage boy, crying like a baby on the bus while grown men and women watch as he is violently beaten up by another teenager without remorse. When did we loose our ability to be our brother’s keeper?
2 comments:
if you cried when you watched Hotel Rawanda...
You MUST see Sometimes in April.
I have seen it many, many, many times...and I cried like a baby.
Just a thought.
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