Torn between two worlds, part of neither

The first time I watched "Hotel Rwanda" a few years ago, there was too much to absorb. As I remember, my overwhelming feeling was one of sadness that people, especially people with a common heritage and culture, could treat each other so inhumanely.

When I watched it again recently, since I didn’t have to concentrate on the plot, I was able to take in different elements that had nipped at the edges of my mind before:

• The Hutu war dances that both intimidated their enemy and whipped up their aggression
• The dehumanizing techniques the Hutus used to make it easier to kill and rape their neighbors
• Paul’s Westernized family from their clothes to their hula-hoops
• The artificial, Belgian-created class distinctions that distinguished the Hutus from the Tutsis
• The friendships/love between Hutus and Tutsis who were not members of either army
• The subservient role that the Africans accepted as the natural order
• The universal acceptance that all things Western were better than anything African

Whereas initially, I was overwhelmed by man’s inhumanity to man, the second time I saw the movie, I became angry at the damage colonialism had done to Rwanda and its people. The divisiveness it sowed in order for the Belgians to control the people left a legacy of chaos and civil war. The same thing has happened in Sudan, Liberia, Uganda and other countries that were created to suit European interests without concern for the people who lived there.

With the exception of the children dancing by the pool and in the refuge camp, and the Hutu rebels dancing and chanting menacingly, I didn't see evidence of African culture. There was no storytelling, no art, no rituals or ceremonies that I noticed, not even instances of the ahshe (imminent energy) that Alan Cook says is part of everything. Even the dress looked quasi-Western. I learned little about Africa or its people, so it didn’t affect my view of them. Even the fighting didn’t real seem to be about territory, but about revenge for previous mistreatment. In fact, the Africans I did get to know, Paul, his family and members of the army, had learned informally, if not formally, how to behave as Europeans. The culture with which they were born had been overridden by a new and “better” one.

Although “becoming” European may have been an evolutionary cultural change to survive while the Europeans were in power, those who embraced Western ways became almost countryless when the Europeans left. They belonged neither to Europe nor Africa as the Hutus reclaimed their country – and their culture.