Book review: An Ordinary Man

Ooohh, how behind I am in blogging. Please forgive me! Many life events and distractions have prevented me, both from reading and from blogging. BUT, it's a new day and a new week so here we are. Let's talk about Rwanda. 

Now, I am an introvert and probably HSP. I leave lights off where the SO turns them on, I hate loud noises and huge crowds, I can't stand scratchy fabrics [1]. Things affect me. Which is to say, I cry rather readily, for many reasons. And let me tell you, the tears were a-flowin' at this book. So you may not have the crying session/need for snuggles/nightmares that I did, but be prepared for some intense thoughts and feelings.

An Ordinary Man is the autobiography of Paul Rusesabagina, a luxury hotel manager in Rwanda who managed -- through focus, humility, flattery, connections, a telephone run through a fax line, and a general ability to read people -- to shelter 1,200 people during the 1994 genocide. 

This was not a genocide of an invading nation, of marauding bands of foreign brigands. This was neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, student against student. The pretense for the genocide was the treachery of the Tutsi (ethnic group A) - but was really, as Rusesabagina writes, about keeping the Hutu president in power (ethnic group B). In a rather unstable and corrupt government, many of the appointments being nepotistic rather than merit-based, the president & co needed someone to blame, a common enemy to make the Other. [2] So they exploited a long, though not inexhaustible, history of racial tension between the Tutsi and the Hutu - a divide invented by some British explorer, and as Rusesabagina puts it, "total European foolishness," that was then used to divide and conquer the newly colonialized African continent.

"Total foolishness," he writes. And yet, somehow, it stuck. This artificial division contributed to the slaughter of 800,000 people. All because I am I and you are Other; because the Other is not human and does not deserve to live; because killing became the new normal and shockingly easy. But still at the base, it was a fabricated separation. Those divisions we think are immutable and handed down from the heavens probably aren't. 

Somehow, during the rape and murder of his countrymen by his countrymen - by the end of the genocide, less than a tenth of the capital city's population was left (either having been killed or fled) -  this "ordinary man" manages to hang on to some simple but profound beliefs. He writes, 

1) "There is no sin so great that somebody should die for it. When you start thinking like that you become an animal yourself." The genocidaires turned animalistic when they forgot this basic notion - no matter what the history (real or fabricated), no matter what the president did or didn't do, no matter where the fault might lie, nobody and no group deserved to die.

2) "Kindness is not an illusion and violence is not a rule." [4] He writes that our worst behaviors are not the norm, nor our fate. Which leads to, 

3) "[T]he individual's most potent weapon is a stubborn belief in the triumph of common decency." 

Rusesabagina believes in humanity, decency, and above all, words. Words incited a country to extreme violence and hatred, but also, he writes, allowed him to save people. Rusesabagina fought no wars, wielded no guns, led no armies. He did not have endless supplies to feed people or endless money to bribe the militia; he had no political power or religious authority. What he had were his belief in decency, his contacts from his days of managing a luxury hotel for the powerful and involved, and his words. Words to calm the mob, words to cajole and convince, words to flatter a genocidaire, words to persuade and coax and plead and reason. 

Rusesabagina used the tools at hand - the swimming pool for drinking water, the cases of liquor in the hotel basement as bribes, his fax line turned phone line to contact the outside world. He writes of his decision to stay and "manage the hotel" of refugees, even when given a chance to leave, for his belief in decency would allow him to live with no other choice. He reminds us as he did the murderous mob that history will remember the good and bad that we do - that our lives exist in a larger context, and we must be prepared to live with our decisions forever. 

When confronting one of the leaders of the army (the opposition to the genocide) who is less than willing to help those trapped at the hotel, Rusesabagina says, " 'One day all this will be over, and on that day you and I will have to face history. What will they say about us? Are you willing to say that you denied protection when it mattered and that innocent people died because of it? Are you sure this is the answer you want to give history?' " 

May we remember to hold on to decency; to speak up when things are wrong; to reach out when situations stray from normal; and to use our words rather than violence to settle grievances.

xo, 
Devo


[1] Always have - my mother swears I would scream at her as an infant when she wore wool sweaters.

[2] "The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be." - Alice Hoffman, apparently, though I'm pretty sure I read it on a Magic, The Gathering card. Because I am a nerdface.

[3] The longer context of this quote is incredible and worth reading: "We have a tendency to believe that the horrors we are seeing are the unvarnished real state of mankind...Six thousand years of civilization somehow becomes nothing but a painted shell covering up an ugly 'truth' about man. ...[C.S. Lewis] disagreed with this view of reality, and I disagree as well. Kindness is not an illusion and violence is not a rule. The true resting state of human affairs is not represented by a man hacking his neighbor into pieces with a machete. That is a sick aberration....In the total scope of man's existence collective murder is a rare event and should never be considered the 'real' fate of mankind."