A serious post this time

Tonight we watched Hotel Rwanda that my housemate rented out on dvd. The plot was a bit confusing at first. If you havent seen it and didnt follow the news of Rwanda over the past years, from what I gather, there are two ethnic groups in Rwanda, the Tutsis and the Hutus. When Belgium first colonised Rwanda, they put the Tutsis in power, but after they pulled out of Africa, they gave the Hutus governing rule. Tensions between the two groups escalated and culminated in the assasination of the Hutu prime minister by Tutsi rebels. By the time this film is set, a large Hutu uprising has formed in retaliation and roam vast areas wiping out all the Tutsis they can find. It is further complicated by the presence of the UN, acting as "peacekeepers but not peacemakers", Western diplomats and the Hutu government. The plot however is brought down to a very personal level and depicts the suffering and pain of one group of civilians.

Watching this film has kind of affected me. One of the most poignant moments of the film was when a foreign cameraman caught some harrowing footage of Tutsi villagers being slaughtered, and accidentally showed it to Paul (the "hero" of the film, a Hutu man married to a Tutsi woman, hotel manager who tries to shelter thousands of refugees under his roof). And Paul said, "I'm glad you captured that. Now the world can see for themselves what is happening and they will come quickly to help us". The cameraman was almost afraid to look him in the eye, and said, "Well, i think when people see this, they will say 'That is a terrible terrible thing'.. Then they will go back to their dinners". And sure enough, Western aid soon pulled out of Rwanda as it became too dangerous, leaving civilians to fend for themselves.

What the cameraman said has really bothered me because it is true. The countless times I've seen something awful on the news, was moved and shocked, and then turned back to my dinner, or back to my life. Even after tonight, tomorrow I'll start worrying about my experiment that didnt work and get wound up over that person that I don't like. When I did voluntary missions work for a month in rural Cambodia last year, I did see some terrible poverty and suffering. A young mother crying and begging us to help feed her malnourished baby, an old lady lay dying on the floor for a year now with no money for medication, one of my students' brother-in-law who had a family argument and shot the father then killed himself.. behind every face we met was a tragedy to tell, but did the experience really penetrate into the very core of my being? After I came back I quickly forgot. Forgot to remember, forgot to cry, forgot to help.. People said to me, you live a different life and have to get on with yours. But is it so different? Are our lives worlds apart or are we supposed to be living in the same world?

I also realised from the film that I can be very naive. I always held a very glorified image of being an aid worker or a missionary in a desperate country. To be honest, I always thought I could do something like that in the future. But seeing their portrayals in the film, i caught a sense of what it really means to suffer with those suffer, mourn with those who mourn, to BE one of them. You're no longer the heroic foreigner whose arrives to help, but you become helpless yourself in order to walk with those who are helpless.. and that really takes something.