Hotel Rwanda (2004): Movie on Postcolonial Ignorance
-Lotanya Panda
-Roll No. 22/118
Hotel Rwanda (2004) set around Kigali, Rwanda in April 1994 during “Rwanda Genocide”
between Hutu-controlled government and Tutzi rebels. It features the real life story of Paul
Rusesabagina, the then hotel manager of Hotel des Mille Collines, who rescued around 1200
Hutu and Tutzi refugees under him. The movie revolves around a civil uprising which is
believed to get solved by Paul, while it turns into genocide as Hutu President is killed by
Tutzi rebels.
The movie starts with RTLM Hutu Power Radio, where Gorges Rutaganda says, as voice of
Hutu extremists, that why he hate Tutzis is because they were collaborators with Belgium
colonies, and that Hutus are the majority and hence Rwanda is our Hutu land, while Tutzis
are invaders, traitors, and murders. Later in the movie we hear this radio channel again and
again as voice of Hutu extremists. A long dialogue between the Jack Daglish, the American
reporter who came to film the violence in Rwanda, and a Rwandan journalist explains the
arousal of differences and ethnic conflict as follows:
“According to the Belgian colonies the Tutzis are more taller and elegant. It was the Belgians
who created this division. They pick people, those with thinner noses, lighter skin, they used
to measure the width of people’s noses. The Belgians used the Tutzis to run the country then
when they left they left the power to the Hutus, and ofcoursely the Hutus took a revenge on
elite Tutzis for years of repression.”
Tutzis are repeatedly called as “cockroaches” which projects their situation as non-humans
and worse than animals, as Hutus a farming community and Africans as whole find animals
respectful as a part of nature and daily life. While the healthy relations between the Hutus and
Tutzis is shown in the movie, during the Jack Daglish and Rwandan reporter scene where two
women one Hutu and another Tutzi are great friends, the lead hero Paul, a Hutu, and his wife
and driver are Tutzis. This projects perception difference between extremists and locals.
Prior to the colonial era, Tutsis generally occupied the higher strata in the social system and
the Hutus the lower. However, social mobility was possible, a Hutu who acquired a large
number of cattle or other wealth could be assimilated into the Tutsi group and impoverished
Tutsi would be regarded as Hutu. A clan system also functioned, with the Tutsi clan known
as the Nyinginya being the most powerful. Basically Hutu and Tutzi was a socio-economic
status than ethnic groups. Rwanda’s three ethnic groups, the majority Hutu, minority Tutsi
and smaller Twa population shared a common language, religion and culture and the country
was ruled by a predominantly Tutsi monarchy until colonized by Germany and Belgium.
Later based on “Hamitic Hypothesis” Belgians considered Tutzis are supposedly closer to
Europeans and have Ethiopian origins, and hence were provided privileges over other groups,
and with enforcement of identity cards with ethnic identity, it made ethnic mobility more
rigid and likable or understandable to European ethnic identities. As per an article,
“Impressed by the highly developed monarchy and unwilling to accept it as African in origin,
colonists and early explorers called the Tutsis a superior “black Aryan” race. Tutsis were
given privileged positions in the colonial administration.”
UN’s failure in peacekeeping and rescueing locals is another major issue projected in the
movie. In the starting, Paul believes that UN will do something to stop the civil war, but as
movie approaches further Paul finds that international powers have actually forgotten them
while recognizing the genocide. UN’s approach of first evacuating all the whites with the
UN-Belgian troops, leaving the blacks behind without any source of protection as troops
leave, projects European supremacy. UN projected through Colonel Oliver’s voice projects
that UN is even helpless with less support and funds from European and American nations,
who only bother of white lives and not of black lives, and hence were forced to watch as the
genocide unfolds. During the scene when Paul knows that the rescue team is only for whites
and not for blacks, he provides a deep dialogue saying the words “I’ve no history, I’ve no
memory”. It’s a key post-colonial issue of Africa where Africans are devoured of their own
history and memories of community with the European definations, while even Europeans
even don’t consider them their own. Hence, left with no certain identity. They don’t anymore
recall their native identifications, while the European identity is foreign. Later when UN
comes for rescue operation of Rwanda refugees, they reach with very little fund and forces,
which is characterised by a report as “Too Little, Too Late”.