An Ordinary Man
The True Story Behind ‘Hotel Rwanda’
By Paul Rusesabagina with Tom Zoellner
(5/5)
Non-Fiction / Autobiography
First Published in 2006
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Click to buy this book (free delivery)
Book Synopsis:
Paul Rusesabagina’s extraordinary courage inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, which received 3 Academy Award nominations and starred Don Cheadle.
“The killer would not look at me.
In that one small turn of the face, I saw there might be some room for me to maneuver. I saw that I had a small chance to save the lives of thirty-two of my neighbours who were huddled in the cars behind me.
All I needed was to find the right words. Everything now depended on my words…”
During the Rwandan genocide of 2004, Rusesabagina used his position as general manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines to protect over twelve hundred Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus. Though a delicate balance of diplomacy, smooth talking and cautious trickery, he managed to maintain the Hotel des Mille as a safe house, while the madness raged beyond its gates.
Rusesabagina transports the reader to those 100 days of cold-blooded murder, to the torment of those who witnessed their loved ones murdered before them. He relates how he felt as he served liquor and cigars to killers by the hotel’s pool, when just above them, he was attempting to hide as many of their potential victims as he could in the upstairs rooms.
What’s more, he describes his feelings of betrayal and deep disappointment when the international community chose to ignore the genocide.
Rusesabagina’s autobiography reveals the racial complexity of his personal life being a Hutu but married to a Tutsi and his attempt to address the question: What causes a whole nation to go insane?
The strength of Paul Rusesabagina’s character is clear, but more importantly, he was an ordinary man who stepped up and acted with true courage and humility during an extraordinary time.
My Book Review:
Where do I start? This is the personal story of a man who did what he could amidst the unthinkable. 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda in just 100 days, the fastest and most efficient genocide in history.
The hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina, is the most admirable man I have ever had the privilege of encountering. In the face of brutal chaotic killers, some of them his neighbours, who blindly hacked apart friends, children and the elderly, Rusesabagina, stood calm and rational. He used every word in his power to protect the 1,200 people who were hiding in his hotel.
Rusesabagina begins by explaining the history of Rwandan racial politics. How the disparity of power and apparent facial structure built up over the years, split Rwanda into two, The Hutu’s and The Tutsi’s, eventually erupted into anarchy and frenzied killing.
The autobiography is divided into 3 parts:
• The history behind Rwanda’s racial politics
• The 100 days during the genocide when Rusesabagina and the refugees were living in the hotel, constantly fending off imminent slaughter and
• Rusesabagina’s life and view of Rwanda after the genocide.
I found I had to distance myself from the descriptions of the horrific killings that are described in the book, in order to sanely get through reading it. Despite the almost unimaginable events, this was surprisingly a very easy book to read.
Easy to read for 2 reasons:
1) Rusesabagina is an amiable and humble man, with unmatchable integrity.
2) Because it is important. It is important to know this history that is so recent we should consider it the present. It is important to see and respect men like Paul Rusesabagina and know that words and non-violence really can work in real life.
I thought The Holocaust would have been lesson enough, but this is the list of genocides from Wikipedia that have occurred between 1951 to 2000:
Australia (1900-1969), Zanzibar, Guatemala, Bangladesh War of 1971, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Cambodia, East Timor, Argentina, Sabra-Shatila in Lebanon, Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iraqi Kurds, Tibet, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Azerbaijan, West New Guinea/West Papua and Sri Lanka.
It would be so easy to write these mass killings off as ‘things of the past’ or ‘things that only happen elsewhere’. We live privileged lives in cushy 1st world countries, and as we discover in An Ordinary Man, it was countries like ours who could have put a stop to the mindless slaughter. But we didn’t. The world did nothing. Even with 2,700 UN troops stationed in Rwanda, Rusesabagina says:
“In my opinion the UN was not just useless during the genocide. It was more then useless. It would have been better off for us if they did not exist at all, because it allowed the world to think that something was being done, that some parental figure was minding the store.”
Rusesabagina made endless calls and faxes to government bodies, including the White House, but was ignored every time. There is a passage in which he describes a conversation he had with a woman at the White House. It will make your blood boil.
Paul Rusesabagina speaks plainly and sincerely. Watch the movie and read the book. This is present and possibly continuing history.
“There will be no rescue, no intervention
force. We can only save ourselves. Call
any foreigner you know, tell them what… See More
will happen to us. Say goodbye but when
you say goodbye, say it as though you’re
reaching through and shaking their hand.
Let them know if they let go of that
hand, you will die. (silence) We must
shame them into sending help.”
——–
highly emotional that scene.
You should read Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil. He’s the general who alerted the US that genocide was happening while Bill Clinton’s officials ignored his pleas for help.
(same genre, different countries)
i will check out: shake hands with the devil! i am a slow reader and books are wilting…waiting for me to read them