Analysis Of Hotel Rwanda Opens With A Black Screen And A Broadcast Of The Hutu Land

Viewing the perpetrators of vile deeds as motivated merely by evil is a gross oversimplification. In the introduction, Jean Hatzfield states that the story will follow the lives of the killers: the Hutu men who perpetrated the Rwandan genocide and murdered their Tutsi neighbors en masse. The narration style switches between chapters written in third person omniscient style and chapters composed of many short sections of first person narratives from the perspectives of the Hutu men interviewed by the author. The third person chapters provide context for the stories of the Hutus, while the numerous stories themselves add a personal element that reveals the thoughts and mindsets of the Hutu’s who participated in one of the largest and most

The first issue involves the conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsi people of Rwanda. Per the movie the Belgians created the two groups before leaving the country at the end of the colonization period. Catherine André also backs up this claim in her article as well. Thus, the two groups experienced different lifestyles. The Tutsi were the “chosen” people while the Hutu’s suffered.

Paul Rusesabagina is a Hutu and his wife a Tutsi, when the vicious killings begin, Paul's Tutsi all look for his family to shelter them to safety in which Paul main focus is to protect his family. Hesitantly, Paul takes them in and begs a Rwandan army officer to let him bring them to the hotel. In total, the number

As a Hutu, Paul is expected to despise the Tutsi’s and to be a part of the violence and

In Hotel Rwanda there are two sides to the community. The Tutsi and the Hutu, a division made by Belgian colonizers. Apparently the lighter and taller Rwandans were treated better in the duration of the Belgians visit, these were the Tutsi. But after leaving, this conflict continued on for the rest 20th century and well into the 21st. But to some, the division is pointless, given that they were and will always will

The loss of government control allowed Hutus to take control of the country. Lists of Tutsi targets were prepared and radio stations called Rwandans to murder their neighbors. These lists of Tutsi targets contained names, addresses, and even license plates. Through the radio, Rwandan people

Hotel Rwanda tackles a recent event in history where the Hutu extremists of Rwanda initiated a terrifying campaign of genocide, massacring approximately

Rwanda is a country located in Central Eastern Africa, with an extensive history of colonization, after Belgium attained control in 1924. Belgium’s rule however also marked the beginning of a lengthy ethnic rivalry between the Hutu and the Tutsi people. Belgium favored the Tutsi the minority at 14 percent of the population over the Hutu, the majority at 85 percent, simply because the Tutsis were more resembling of the Europeans. “Colonial policy helped to intensify bipolar differentiation between Tutsi and Hutu, by inscribing “ethnic” identification on identity cards, by relegating the vast majority of Hutu to particularly onerous forms of forced cultivation and corvee, and by actively favoring Tutsi in access to administrative posts, education, and jobs in the modern sector,” (Newbury, 12). Belgium’s control fueled the Hutu’s resentment towards the Tutsis because the Tutsis received superior treatment for decades. Thus, when Rwanda finally acquired independence in 1962, the Hutus fought for control over the government, highlighting the first warning sign of the genocide to come. Many Tutsis were killed afterwards, while many others fled to neighboring countries to escape the violence.

On the day of April 6th 1994, the mass murders sparked a ferocious wave of bloody reprisals as thousands of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered over the next three months, killing almost 10,000 people everyday. Hutu extremists were told to load up on weapons like knives, guns, axes, whatever they could find so they could kill tutsis. They could do whatever they wanted to the Tutsis. The Hutu government said “Spare no one, especially the babies.” The Hutus goal was to kill every Tutsi in Rwanda. As told by Border guards, people have been floating down the river in hundreds everyday for weeks. Many bodies had their hands tied behind their backs. They were either shot, hacked, clubbed, burned, or drowned.

Before Rwanda became an independent African run country, it was under Belgian control. In the 1930s Belgium imposed indirect rule and put Tutsis in control of government. The Belgians did not invent the two ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsi, but colonial intervention enforced a new meaning for the two ethnicities and thus engrained a hierarchy among the Rwandans . The Tutsis could be determined by their taller slighter build, lighter skin and thinner noses; in conclusion, they were the whitest Africans . By 1994 the two groups were visibly indistinguishable because of mixed parentage. This is portrayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda when a journalist asks two women what ethnicity they are; he discovers that one is Hutu and the other Tutsi. The journalist replies that the women could be twins. In the 1950s the newly established United Nations began to pressure Belgium to vacate Rwanda. Belgium introduced reforms to increase Hutu representation in politics, so from the 1950s until 1962, when Rwanda achieved independence a Hutu movement was born. The Hutu movement was gaining momentum and national recognition; the violence conducted during this period forced thousands of Tutsis to leave the country. In 1961 Belgium sponsored the federal election and a Hutu man, Gregoire Kayibanda was elected to power. This Hutu revolution excluded Tutsis from government and military. Kayibanda’s successor,

Maria Kizito and Hotel Rwanda are true accounts of two isolated events that took place in Rwanda during a genocide in 1994 where nearly one million innocent people lost their lives. Maria Kizito is a play that focuses mainly on the trial of a catholic nun, Maria Kizito, who was charged and found guilty of promoting and facilitating the murder of seven thousand refugees who sought shelter from Hutu extremist at a local convent (Kizito 178). Whereas Hotel Rwanda focuses on the life of Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan manager, and Hutu, at a Belgian-owned luxury hotel in Rwanda 's capital, who saved not only himself and his family but also 1,268 refugees from the same extremist. Despite their differences in location and characters, the play and the film, both develop narratives that tell the same story about how the genocide in Rwanda is a direct result of colonization, how the international community failed to intervene, and that a plane crash ignited in what was the worst genocide after the holocaust. Before analyzing how Maria Kizito and Hotel Rwanda depict Colonialism, it is important to first understand the history of Colonialism in Rwanda.

On the lines of many movies subjected on ethnic discrimination and massacre, Hotel Rwanda focuses on Paul Rusesabagina and his family in Rwanda during the genocide of the Tutsis by the ruling Hutu tribe in 1994. The movie incorporates many aspects its subject in a thrilling and sentimental fashion. New York Times critic Stephan Holding’s problem is that the portrayal of violence and sentiments are not accurate. Considering the fact that this movie is meant cover a wide range of audience and its subject, the proportions of violence and sentiment are not balanced for the purpose of creating the most impact and arouse its viewers to the

In summary, Hotel Rwanda is about the mass genocide of the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda during the mid-90’s. It is estimated that nearly one million people were killed in the efforts of the Hutu people to completely eliminate the Tutsi population. The tension began because of the Belgium government colonizing Rwanda, and them putting the Tutsi people originally in charge. Later on the Hutu people took control of the government and were getting back at the Tutsis for the years of oppression. With rising tension, the Rwandan president, who was a Hutu, was going to sign a peace treaty to allow the two groups to live in harmony. However, he was assassinated by a “Tutsi rebel” which caused mass chaos, resulting in this mass genocide. A hotel, managed by Paul, who had great authority with the United Nations and the Rwandan Army, was able to protect 1,100 moderate Hutus and Tutsis from being killed by the Hutu rebels. Multiple times throughout the film the forces broken into the hotel complex and greatly threatened the life of the refugees. With the protection from the UN and bribery, Paul was able to protect the refugees and get the them to safely in Tanzania.

A group of Rwandan people known as the Hutu want to eliminate another Rwandan group, the Tutsi, and they get very close to succeeding. About one million Tutsi people were murdered in the Rwandan Genocide in a time span of 100 days. Hotel Rwanda is a movie about a hotel manger, Paul, that saves a thousand Tutsi people by keeping them in his hotel. He saves the refugees, mostly, by giving the Hutu rebels his money and alcohol in return for leaving the Tutsi people alone. The movie is trying to send the message that helping others is equally important as helping one’s family.

Soon after, most of the white people that can legally leave Rwanda are forced to leave. Rwanda is being ignored by the rest of the world, and they are not receiving much help. The hotel has become a large refugee camp, and more people seem to keep coming. The hotel is almost overflowing with refugees. The supplies at the hotel are being used up very fast, so Paul and Gregoire, an employee at the hotel, leave to go get more food and other supplies needed. They go to George Rutagando and he tells them that soon all of the Tutsis will be dead. He sends them on a different road, and they drive into thick fog. The road starts to get very bumpy, and Paul tells Gregoire that they will drive into the river. Paul gets out of the car, and he sees hundreds of dead bodies lying on the road. Paul realizes that George sent them on that road purposely, and tells Gregoire that he must not say a word about what they saw.