How Did Paul Rusesabagina Build Refugees In Hotel Rwanda

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

In the words of Aristotle, “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self”, meaning that the true battle is the one waged inside ones’ soul (Aristotle). Amidst the inhuman slaughter of the Rwandan Holocaust Immaculée Ilibagiza found herself facing such a struggle as Aristotle spoke of. In the year 1994 Hutu extremists finally took action against the Tutsis after a plane carrying the Hutu president Habyarimana was shot down. In less than a year more than 800,000 Rwandans were killed and, for Hutus and Tutsis alike, life would never be the same. In her book, Left to Tell, Immaculée Ilibagiza discovers how to keep her faith in a time when doing so seems impossible as well as how to forgive the killers who took everything from her.

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

Helping 1,268 people survive is not easy especially when it is during a brutal genocide. The streets, a pool of blood and corpses,were your normal scenery when driving through the country of Rwanda. An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina is about the Rwanda War between Hutus and Tutsis and the mass genocide that broke out, and how Paul, just an ordinary man with a hotel, saved many people's lives who did not even fathom they would live to tell about the war. Paul Rusesabagina had many past upbringing and experiences that helped him ensure his survival and the survival of others that were in his life, such as how Paul's dad was Hutu and his mom was Tutsi, managing the Hotel Mille Collines,

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.

Tom Zoellner, writes in his bibliography “An Ordinary Man” about the period of the Rwandan Genocide. Its impact and repercussions on the people, and how one hospitality-employed leadership figure by the name of Paul Rusesabagina saved 1,268 Tutsis through goodwill and courageous negotiations, are chronically ordered and told in detail. Ominously, the author introduces you into a standard of life that to us seems inexistent.

Unfortunately, this peaceful life style was corrupted when German and Belgian colonizers first came to the state now known as Rwanda. When looking at the early creation of the neo-states there was little to no care about the indigenous people; there values, tradition, and own forms of government were ignored, “while states were conveniently put together to further European metropolitan economic interest” . This meant that the imperial Belgium was now in total control of the territory, they had little to no interest in the indigenous population. The only interest the Belgian leaders did show in the indigenous population was in finding a way in which the population would be best subdued and controlled. This started with the distribution of identification cards, “These cards, which were to be carried from the age of 16, stated the bearer’s identity in terms of their belonging to the Hutu, Tutsi

The author throws light on historical background of Rwanda which clarifies the circumstances that gave spark to the huge extermination of

The continent of Africa has been continually engaged in civil, tribal and cross national conflicts from colonial independence up until present day. What historians regard as the most ‘efficient genocide’ in history, occurred in a mere 100 days in the small central African country of Rwanda. The Hutus and the Tutsis, two ethnic groups within Rwanda, have been at continual unrest for the past half a century. During the 100 day massacre of 1994, a murder occurred every two seconds; resulting in 18% of the Tutsi population being killed. A decade after the war, in 2004, the film Hotel Rwanda was released. The film followed the story of a Hutu man; Paul Rusesabagina as he housed over 1200 Tutsi refugees in his hotel. The Hotel De Milles

What very few know is that Hutus actually killed president Juvenal, not what people thought that the Tutsi did, but they needed an excuse to slaughter the Tutsis because they had such hatred towards them. This horrible mass slaughter and genocide lasted over 100 days, and the United States didn’t do a thing about it, we left Rwanda to deal with their own problems. Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of a hotel called De Mille Collines, continued doing his duties as manager during times of crisis. His calm way of reacting to the situation helped him save 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees that he allowed to stay in his hotel. Paul’s father was a Hutu and his mother a Tutsi, so Paul never cared about the segregation of Hutu and Tutsi;, this is why Paul’s decision to not side with the Hutus came so natural to him. Paul grew up most of his life not knowing what a Hutu or a Tutsi was, but when he figured it out he thought of everything so different. Paul says “It was the first time I became aware of myself not as “Paul,” but as “Hutu” “ (page 21,

The many tears that stream down my face cry for the generations of my kids to come. I sit here as an innocent victimized Tutsi woman, to tell you my story of the Rwandan genocide and how it impacted my people. Through many years of pain and suffering I sit here before you to relieve my anger and install my knowledge of why the Belgium through colonization only installed more love in me toward my people and hatred towards me for not being able to help my people. My name is Immaculee Ilibagiza a Tutsi woman and this is my survival, comfort story.

The Belgians also decreed that Tutsis should be the only ones in power and thus removed Hutus from positions of power and excluded them from higher education (Arraras). “By assuring the Tutsis’ monopoly of power the Belgians set the stage for future conflict in Rwanda” (Arraras). The Tutsis were enjoying their status as being superior to the Hutus but all that changed in 1959 with the Hutu revolution and so in 1960 and 1961 the Hutus won the elections. Since then, ethnic tensions had always been brewing between the Hutus and the Tutsis. However the tensions escalated when Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down above Kigali airport on April 6, 1994. I consider this to be a form of political violence because someone or a group that opposed this President which represented only the political interests as well as the viability of the Hutus had to be killed in order for another group possibly the Tutsis to fill the vacuum of power left by the Hutu president. The Hutus blamed the assassination of their president on the Tutsis and in turn sparked an all out massacre waged on to the Tutsi people.

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.

The Rwandan genocide was different than many others that occurred during the 20th century. The genocide unraveled before the eyes of national media. This meant that journalists and News reporters would cover the events in person. This was, until the violence became too intense and all foreigners were encouraged to leave immediately. But still there are many people guilty of being bystanders, including France, Belgium, and the United States. After refusing to send any more help despite the warnings about the Hutu’s plan for

When studying international relations there are six main theories to look at: realism, liberalism, Marxism, social constructivism, poststructuralism, and postcolonialism. These six theories take different approaches to explain various regimes, actions, and events that have occurred around the world throughout time. Not only do these six theories vary by regimes, but also by individuals. For instance, looking at the Rwandan genocide of 1994, it can be argued that the overarching theory to explain it is realism, but notions of liberalism, constructivism, and postcolonialism can also be seen from individuals experiencing it. These four theories are represented in the movie, “Hotel Rwanda.” “Hotel Rwanda” is based off of a true story of a man named Paul Rusesbagina and the hotel he manages, Hotel de Mille Collines. Although not everything depicted in the movie is a real-life event, one is still able to understand how world views can differ from person to person depending on what they were going through during that time. Concepts presented in the movie are concepts that tried to stick to the real events as much as they could. The movie clearly distinguishes the feud between the Tutsi tribe and the Hutu tribe within Kigali. Furthermore, characters Paul Rusebagina, Colonel Oliver, Georges Rutaganda, depict motivating world views. When viewing these three characters and Kigali as a whole, it is evident that not everyone experiencing the same event will view it in the same way.