Hotel Rwanda
Better we accept that God is not known to us in a specific way than we embrace a specific idea of God that allows us to give to Him responsibility that is really ours. What is the cost of my idea of God? For me, it is rejecting much of the ideas about God within contemporary Christianity. I am not willing, as some are, to set aside the idea of God entirely. I am willing to set aside any and all parts of the Christian God that gets in the way of us taking responsibility for making situations in Rwanda never happen again.
Hotel Rwanda
We find our voices on the 60th anniversary of the Allied liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The opening of the Holocaust museum in Washington DC raises heads to heaven amid hushed sacred vows that we will not stand idly by and let such evil run loose ever again. Exiting a movie like Spielberg’s Schindler’s List we find momentary courage, vowing after each of these experiences that atrocities like this will “never again” happen. And yet the world folds in on itself in Rwanda, genocide whose only meaningful difference from the Jewish Holocaust is the color of skin and the precision of mass murder. Why do we, not as Americans, but as free-born members of the human race allow such evil to happen again and again? Could it be that we do not really care? And if we do not really care, what does that suggest for our own futures? How long do we think our own indifference to the fate of others can be held off from affecting our own sense of decency? Could it be that we hide behind certain ideas, especially those of religion, in the face of solutions requiring personal involvement? Could our idea of prayer actually impede our responsibilities to make a difference in these people’s lives? Do we pretend to have a specific idea of God when we know that reality is an ambiguous God-experience with a resulting world that is ours to manage, and our responsibility to share? Could it be we are unwilling to look at freedom, law and enforcement as needing to be equally shared, regardless of whether it might require the powerful to stand shoulder to shoulder, knowing no advantage, with those who are powerless? Are we willing to elect governments and leaders who will force us to give up power in the name of global freedom? Are we capable, as individual nations, to believe that what is best and perhaps what is required of humanity is to know real international governance? Or is our indifference wrapped up in the cloistered mindset that says if it does not impact me, then it just does not matter?
A movie like Hotel Rwanda functions on a number of levels. The overarching tapestry of the film is the story of the Tutsi’s and Hutu’s and the murder of 1,000,000 innocent civilians, most of them Tutsi. The history and implications of why the Dutch colonial powers set up the minority Tutsi’s to rule (the Tutsi’s were lighter in skin color and had facial features more like whites) is important, but the impact of this movie may be lost if we drift too far into history. Woven into this magnificent movie are stories about the love of a husband and wife, and of family. The movie also shows the development of a reluctant hero, a man many will be able to connect to. This man discovers his strength gradually. He knew he was competent, but he did not know he was heroic. As the story advances he goes from being a very reluctant hero to being a man willing to pay the ultimate price for the lives of innocents.
While watching the movie, three critical elements came to me: one is spiritual, another is historical, and the last is political. For me, the spiritual story within this movie is most important. This dimension is best seen by the role of God in our search for solutions; specifically, how we abdicate responsibility for making a difference in this world through the venue of prayer and the intangible idea that “somehow” this all makes sense in God’s grand plan. Tell the butchered Rwandan children that God has a plan for your life. Yes my innocent child, hacked to death with a machete, His plan was for you to die with the blunt force of a dull machete, blow-by-blow breaking, chewing, and hacking your body to pieces. You cried to Me, you died screaming out the particular name of Me you were taught. But you were ultimately alone. You died helpless, uncomforted, unknown. Let me tell you the one thing I know about God: He is not here. God is absent from our world in any way that actually makes a difference. Is God real? I do not doubt that; however, I can not prove that to you. What do I know? I know that if children are to no longer be butchered it is up to us. If you hold to an idea of God that accommodates His miraculous intervention in mankind you are murdering these children again. Theologians pull apart the rationalist rejection of miracles on the basis of what they claim are humanistic tendencies to only accept that which is knowable to us, instead of a broader willingness to accept God’s involvement in the world in the form of miracles. What theologians primarily miss is that while this is a part of the rejection of miracles, another just as critical part is that miracles just do not happen when and where they could make the most difference, both temporally and spiritually. The places where they are needed most, the family begging for their lives at the hands of a Sudanese militia, do not get the miracle. The tender child suckling at the breast of his recently butchered mother does not disappear at the prayer of anyone; rather it is murdered moments after its mother dies. Miracles are about hope, which is not a bad thing, but the hope of miracles must be a distant second to the responsibility of actually getting messy ourselves and being the miracle.
http://www.amnesty-usa.org/group/rwanda/index.html
God gave us this world to do with as we are capable of, and we are failing Him and our world. We all, I included, hide behind very specific ideas of God when we know quite well our spiritual experience is utterly ambiguous. Why is this unwillingness to acknowledge the ambiguity of the God-experience critical? Because this honesty stands in the way of us recognizing that if this world is to get better, it is going to get better because we make it so, not because God miraculously intervenes. The church is fairly dead in Europe. Why? Multiple reasons, but foremost is that the church mixed spiritual reformation with politics then lost its efficacy in solving real social problems. As modernity advanced, man began to contrast what he knew about his God-experience with what the church taught. What we actually have in real experience is that if we do not make a difference, the world will never get better. Religion that trades the hope of heaven for the betterment of life in this world should be torn down. Writing this is somewhat emotional; but for me, it is the byproduct of a long spiritual quest culminating in this essay in some ways. Is my idea of God entirely right? I do not know. Again, I only know that He left us to ourselves and that we are our own best hope - not some woeful cry to the unknown God. Better we accept that God is not known to us in a specific way than we embrace a specific idea of God that allows us to give to Him responsibility that is really ours. What is the cost of my idea of God? For me, it is rejecting much of the ideas about God within contemporary Christianity. I am not willing, as some are, to set aside the idea of God entirely. I am willing to set aside any and all parts of the Christian God that gets in the way of us taking responsibility for making situations in Rwanda never happen again.
http://www.amnesty-usa.org/group/rwanda/index.html
Folded neatly within this movie is a historical element that needs to be noticed. The world is full of pockets of violence that flare up from time to time. This violence knows many causes. Some is the naked pursuit by evil men of complete and total power. A reasonable analysis of how and why these events happen invariably draws out the role of the powerful playing with the fortunes and futures of the powerless. Best understood, in most cases where despotic regimes take root, they take root because of the abuse of legitimate power. This happens at the hands of bad men who want power for its own sake and of bad governments who view the rights of non-citizens as only a strategy they feel will ensure stability that accommodates their particular economic, political or military needs. America is no “Great Satan” any more than other past empires that came to power by the ebb and flow of history advancing. But absolute power corrupts absolutely, and it has corrupted us. How often is it that a powerful person or nation interacts with someone drastically less powerful and treats that other entity as a full equal? When we do something because it is in our best interests we accept a pre-determined ethic which argues that above all else, we will be dictated to and make decisions only on the basis of that which is good for our interests. What interests might those be? Again, we return to economic, political and military interests. Rarely do these hydra-headed Medusa’s come together to the benefit of the powerless. What can we learn from the history of places like Rwanda? Namely, that when we engage with the powerless we must put first and foremost precisely those things which are not in our best interests, at least as long as we can not accept that our best interests might be other than those measured by our wallets.
Most people who watch the movie Hotel Rwanda will miss the third point - the political dimension. I call what is political that which is best exemplified in the purest sense by law. Law forces the powerful to bow to the dictates of an agreed upon code of conduct. It is agreed upon only at such time when the powerful have recognized the value, perhaps only when they see the necessity, of accepting that within the legal institutions they will be seen and valued as equals to the powerless. Law, at its best, is an equalizer, and it should be more than a European or American equalizer, it should be a global equalizer. But for law to do globally what it did for every country who was forced to embrace it, people within powerful nations must accept that their interests will no longer be above the best interests of those who are powerless. The powerful must be willing to set aside their ability to simply make things as they wish, and accept that a body of law will adjudicate based on as close a sense of justice as we tarnished human beings are capable of. Our vision of the world should be one where the powerful and the powerless legitimize a body of international law which provides for global enforcement of globally agreed-upon standards. Were we to see that such a set of standards would ultimately benefit commerce we might more willingly embrace this, and possibly commerce is where international law should first begin. But never far from this should be our willingness to elect politicians who will stand for international law, even if it means forcing us to understand that our rights as Americans do not supersede anyone’s rights as a human being. I fear greatly that we may only find this willingness to walk with the powerless when we ourselves have been robbed of the privileges we as Americans are so fond of. I would hate to think that the price of international justice will be a wounded and reeling America.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1288000/1288230.stm
Weep with me over the raw emotion the million murdered Rwandans gives you. But leave the theatre willing to throw away ideas about God that get in the way of your own responsibility. Sit down in your car and drive away committed to finding and electing leaders who view American power as having a purpose outside of our own safety and security. Walk through your door committed to an idea of justice that views your native rights as an American as no greater than the inborn rights of a human being. Make a difference. God has no one but you to speak for Him, and your silence is His silence.
previous post: The Political Movement of Tomorrow
next post: February 2005 Bookshelf
2 Responses to “Hotel Rwanda”
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About MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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February 23rd, 2005 at 2:18 pm
Dear Ben,
I am new to your site. It was brought to my attention by your Mom. We are in a bible study together each week. She is an awesome lady and speaks so highly of you.I have to admit I am a bit intimidated by your articles. I have been out of the “stream of ideas” place for a long time. My focus has been turned to raising my two children for the past 15 years. I have recently been wrestling with making my personal faith in Jesus Christ more relavant to the world around me (locally & globally). I am intrigued with your ideas and hope to stay up to date. Thanks for the dialogue.
Judy
February 25th, 2005 at 6:52 am
Judy - Thank you for posting! Mom’s are always very trustworthy and reliable sources for down-played perspectives on their children’s abilities … you will have to decide for yourself if the materials here are worthy of her praise!
Your challenge to make your faith personal is, I would suggest, one of the critical parts of our indidivual journey’s. In one direction lies the world of political involvement which gives us some form of meaning but without the hope of changing people’s hearts; on the other side is real change without power. One should be most familiar to Christians but is not. The reason why suggests much about the church and its future.