"Rwanda Hotel" A movie that knows a country. Just like watching "The Kite Chaser" and knowing Afghanistan, I never knew Rwanda before, or even where it was. After watching this movie, I couldn't calm down for a long time.
This film mainly tells the story of Paul resisting the pressure of death and rescuing more than a thousand refugees under the historical background of the genocide in Rwanda that killed one million civilians in three months. This true story is not far away, 1994.
Let me talk about history first. Gao Xiaosong talked about the cruelty of Belgian colonial rule. Belgium robbed the German colony in Africa after World War I, and Rwanda was one of them. At that time, slavery was continuously disintegrating, and other colonial countries adopted more moderate measures. However, the Belgian Emperor Leopold II still carried out the most brutal colonial rule in the colony, and severed his hands and feet on slack slaves. The slave did not complete the task of the day, so he chopped off his son's hands and feet and asked him to take a photo with his son's hands and feet. Hearing this description made me furious. However, Leopold has established the best social welfare system for his Belgian people like a fatherly father. This reminds me of the suffering caused by Japanese militarism to Asian people, but now the Japanese government has the best education and policies for Japanese citizens. Hitler said that inferior nations deserve to die. The law of the jungle is really scary. The history of human civilization is a history of development that gradually proves that the law of the jungle is not suitable for mankind. Because human desires and extremes are destroying the world.
Later, Belgium ended its colonial rule in Africa, but instigated separation between the two major ethnic groups in Rwanda in exchange for its best interests. A bloody civil war was about to start. Britain ended its colonial rule in India and also provoked the partition of India and Pakistan. Kashmir is still raging at war. When the United States ended the Japanese occupation, it also said that the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the Diaoyu Islands should be handed over to China and Japan. Today's European and American civilizations seem to be the center of the world, but behind them are the blood and tears of the entire world.
Marquez wrote in "One Hundred Years of Solitude": The only difference between liberals and conservatives is that the former celebrates Mass at five o'clock every day, and the latter celebrates Mass at seven. So both of them thought that the other was wrong, and looked at each other unpleasantly, and slowly they both eagerly tried to kill each other.
The same is true in Rwanda. The Tutsi and Hutu people speak a common language and share a common culture. Even many people cannot tell which ethnicity they belong to. Later, by measuring the width of the nose to distinguish which ethnic group belonged to. During the Belgian period, the relatively better-looking Tutsi came to power. After Belgium withdrew from Rwanda, power was handed over to the Hutu. So the Hutu who came to power launched a genocidal massacre against the Tutsi. More than one million people were hacked to death with a machete in three months. At that time, the entire country was more than 9 million people. The whole country fell into a state of barbaric madness.
Talk about the plot: Paul is the manager of a high-end hotel opened by a Belgian. He wears neat suits, smokes the best cigars, and uses money to build his network of relationships, which makes him feel like a fish in a circle of military officers, foreigners, and nobles. He thought he was no different from those white people, and he would live like this forever. As a Hutu, he even had no intention of participating in Hutu political gatherings. But the outbreak of the civil war broke all peace. He began to be full of hope for the white man, thinking that everything would pass soon. However, the continuous evacuation actions of various countries made him slowly realize the reality. The civilizations brought by the white people are unreliable. They belong to their civilization, not to Rwanda. When the Hutu and Uzbekistan militiamen were attacking Tutsi children, women and children with machetes bought from China for less than a dollar, when the Security Council’s major rogue countries ordered peacekeeping forces to "not interfere in internal affairs." Without firing a shot while watching Hutu rioters hack to death civilians. People cannot help asking, is justice in sovereignty or in human rights?
Paul originally thought that money could solve everything, but when money depreciated to a pointlessness, his whole person's values slowly changed. He endured various humiliations and death threats in order to save one more Tutsi. As a Hutu, he can hack to death all the Tutsi people living in the hotel and even his wife like other Hutu people in exchange for his own safety. But he did not, but chose to fight. For the glory of the last line of humanity in Rwanda. He risked his death to save more than a thousand Tutsi, but one million people died in Rwanda, including many Hutu who sympathized with the Tutsi. Fortunately, he succeeded.
There is such a story. A man was walking on the beach and saw a child throwing stranded fish into the sea on the beach to save them. There are thousands of fish on the beach. It was too late at that time and the pile of fish would die soon. This naive child made him feel ridiculous, so he said to the child: What's the point of you being so tired? Who cares? As the child threw the fish, he said: This one cares, this one cares... Paul is the kid.
Later, I read some introductions from Rwanda: Rwanda’s visionary new president cancelled the identification of Hutu and Tutsi on his ID card, and he deliberately played down the distinction between ethnic groups in his life. Rwanda is working hard to develop its economy and everything is thriving. Destiny is best only if you control yourself. This tragic history cannot be forgotten to avoid repeating mistakes in the future. This tragic history cannot be extricated. Human beings must always look forward. The Shiite Sunni of Islam, North Korea and South Korea, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they can never be tuned, everything will pass.
Thank you for the movie "Hotel Rwanda", I hope this Paul will be remembered by people, I hope the tears will not flow again, I hope that colonialism, racism and extreme nationalism will be extinct, For peace!
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