Genocide and Us

Last night I went to see Hotel Rwanda, which opened here in Houston last weekend. I'm always a bit wary of "big event" or "big issue" movies, because they can have some problems. First, they can make major events seem small. Second, they have a tendency to let us off the hook, as viewers and as citizens. They do this by offering up the heartwarming story that takes the focus off of the events or issues that are the backdrop to that story. They often throw the audience a hook to feel better about themselves and their own community and its relation to what is depicted on screen.

Hotel Rwanda suffers from neither of these flaws. It's unflinching in presenting the horror of the Rwandan genocide of the 90s, and simply offers up the historic facts; when mass killing on an unprecedented scale began in Rwanda, the rest of the world turned its back on the small African nation and allowed hundreds of thousands of people to be brutally murdered - most often hacked up with machetes. The film makes no attempt to answer the question of how this could happen in 1994, and how Europe and the United States could make no serious attempt to intervene. It doesn't particularly dwell on it, either. We simply see these events unfolding as the film follows the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who is trying to keep his family and the people who have taken refuge in his hotel alive.

It's a powerful film. It doesn't overreach; it simply follows one story amidst the horror that was unfolding, and does so with outstanding performances by all. It's one of the few times I've seen a film in a theater and no one in the audience has uttered a word for the entire two-hour length. When the credits rolled and we left, a number of people were visibly shaken, including a teenage girl who seemed to have attended with her parents who looked as though she'd just witnessed the death of a family member.

It helps to know more background of the genocide when watching the film. The film doesn't attempt to tell that whole story (which would be impossible in this type of movie anyway). There's an excellent book on the subject that I read some years ago, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch, that painstakingly documents not only the genocide itself but the factors that led up to it, from the time of Belgian colonialism in Rwanda to the present. It is not easy to read but it is well worth your time. It will leave you angry and frustrated at our own government, which not only failed to intervene despite clear evidence of what was going on, but actually because an impediment to anyone in the western world taking action. It was a failure of the Clinton administration that, in my mind, tainted everything about their time in Washington and while it lacks the the sheer malfeasance of the buildup to the Iraq war, in many ways the outcome is even more horrifying. For me, Rwanda is one of the reasons that as awful as I think our current government is, I can't look back all that fondly on the time before Bush.

Why is it that the United States ignores events like the Rwandan genocide? Each time we think it's an isolated mistake, but in fact the US has never taken serious action to quell genocide. We've come in at the tail end to clean up, but even when we've clearly known what was happening, we don't seem to do anything about it. It's a pressing question right now, considering that just days ago Colin Powell was simply declining to answer questions about the apparent genocide in Sudan.

It's easy to say "Because they're Africans" but that really doesn't answer it. What about Bosnia? What about the Holocaust? What is it about human nature - or American nature, I don't know which it is - that makes us want to help Asian victims of the tsunamis, but not African victims of genocide? Is it natural versus political disasters that make us react differently? (But then why don't we respond similarly to the horrible death toll of malaria - something that, relatively speaking, would be easier to deal with?)

I don't know the answers. I doubt they are simple. The ever-helpful Amazon recommendation engine popped up with this when I searched for the Gourevitch book: "A Problem from Hell" : America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power, which explores these kinds of questions. I'm going to have a look at it.

In the meantime I recommend Hotel Rwanda, as a good movie and as something to make you ask yourself hard questions about the role of the US in the world.

Fighting Back Against the Box

Marc Fisher, Metro section columnist at the Washington Post, has always been one of my favorite writers at that paper. He's also one of the few who seems to get passionate about the city, and give me hope that someday they might decide to actually cover local events in DC with something more than the perfunctory crap they publish now. He also strikes a good balance between writing about the city and about general topics, such as in this recent column: Better to Zap One TV Than To Curse the Din

If you ever feel like public spaces are being overrun by video monitors, the idea of TV-B-Gone is appealing. I would have loved to have had one the last time I was at the airport. I was happy to wait for my flight while reading my book, but it was quite difficult; it's one thing to tune out the din of people, but the sound of television can just cut through all that and demand your attention. It's one of the reasons I can't stand to have an unwatched TV on in the house; it's like an insistent and particularly bratty child that demands that you stop and look at it.

Admittedly, the TV-B-Gone puts you in an ethically gray area; do you have the right to turn off televisions that others are watching? Perhaps not. But for a society in the thrall of the video beast, this could be seen as guerrilla warfare to save our soul.

I wouldn't use it in the airport, though. It seems to me that any slight misbehavior in an airport is all too likely to be called "terrorist activity" and get you in way too much trouble. I wouldn't mind arming some kids with them, though, to try to put a stop to the utterly evil Channel One, which is designed to give advertisers a great opportunity to start training American kids to be good consumers right there in the classroom. (Teachers are forbidden to turn it off in the classroom; it's part of the contract to have the equipment. I'd love to see students taking the matter into their own hands.)

Must See TV

The UK has always had a really weird system of television licensing, where everyone who owns a TV pays a license fee to support public broadcasting (rather than just burying it in the national budget somewhere). So what if you don't own a television? Better be prepared to prove it, the New York Times reports.

I'm pretty sympathetic to the no-TV folks though I'm not one of them. (Very much not one, I guess, since I have a TV, Tivo, and a satellite dish.) But this made me think about how people watch TV.

I watch TV the way I read books or go to movies. When there is something I want to watch, i turn it on and watch it. Otherwise, it's off. I find a TV on just to be on irritating, and channel surfing gives me a headache - I have to leave the room if someone's doing it. I love Tivo because it lets me watch things on my own schedule.

When I was a kid we pretty much weren't allowed to watch much TV, which was great (in retrospect) because both my sister and I read like fiends. To this day a television on while it's still light out feels kind of wrong to me.

I think this is not typical modern American behavior, however, and I have lots of smart, articulate friends who use their televisions in ways that are completely distressing to me and would make me leave the house if I lived with them.

My problem with the no-TV approach is that I think it makes you culturally illiterate in a way. For better or worse, what's on TV is part of our national culture. I already feel out of it because people will talk about TV shows when I'm around and I have no idea what the hell they are talking about. "What do you mean, you have never seen 'Full House?'" Um, sorry. I think if I had no TV I'd be so out of touch with the people around me that it would become a problem.

What I do works for me, but again, I'm quite aware it's not typical. Do you have a TV? Do you watch it? How? If not, why not? Do you see any downsides to a TV-less existence?