An Ordinary Man Analysis

C. Introduction The Rwandan genocide lasted three months and in those three months it is said that 1 million Tutsis were killed. The Holocaust lasted 4 years and 6 million Jews were killed. Bearing this in mind it would be expected that The Rwandan genocide should be extremely well known because of the loss of lives, impact and brutality of the event and the similarities it holds with The Holocaust. The fact is that the Rwandan Genocide is not very well known and is not thought to be in the same category as The Holocaust, where in fact it is.

leaders, and U.N. officials that the U.S. ulti- mately could have done a lot more to help the genocide in Rwanda. Power has most definitely impacted my thinking and views on this topic as I did not realize the U.S. had such an immense role in the genocide of Rwanda. This assignment has provided me with an interesting insight and that is, I did not realize how effective evidence and the use of appeals would help an argumenta- tive piece of writing so much. Davami 4 Work

In the story “An Ordinary Man,” Paul Rusesabagina talked about how his resources help him to help save over 1000 people from being killed during the genocide. He said, “I had a five-story building. I had a cooler full of drinks. I had a small stack of cash in the safe. And I had a working telephone

“What connects two thousand years of genocide? Too much power in too few hands.” (Simon Wiesenthal) Genocides have been going on for years and years to come, the murder, the starvation, the manipulation, and, the constant fear. During the time of the Holocaust, genocides were striking and seemed to never come to an end.

During a time of war and crisis, there are only two types of people: people that live or people that die. Both Night, by Elie Wiesel, and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah, are set in a time of war and crisis. The theme “hope and fear drive human behavior” best fits these two novels. During tough times, such as war, many people get into a mode of self-survival; fear can be a great motivator and has the ability to take away one’s humanity and to turn a once loving human being to a selfish monster. During the book Night, Elie faces many life changing challenges and is endeavoring to survive in the Holocaust.

1: Linda Jacobs Altman, Genocide: The Systematic Killing of a People, Enslow Publishers) To

The unacceptable decision to neglect, and the failure to intervene and terminate, the Rwandan Genocide, falling into a trap of indifference, only led to continued genocidal violence. The world must overcome this indifference, because “to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman… in denying their humanity, we betray our own” (Wiesel 2). Therefore, the international community has an obligation to take action and help the Congolese, to prevent ignorance towards future annihilations; this responsibility falls upon the world not only because the growing

No, the shooting down of President Habyarimana’s plane did not initiate the genocide but rather, the genocide was affected by the deep rooted tensions between two groups who inhabited Rwanda, the Hutu’s and the Tutsi’s. These two groups had gone through a long period of power struggles which will be explored throughout this essay. Showing that the genocide did not occur as a result of one assassination. “It is buried too deep in grudges, under an accumulation of misunderstandings...’ . Although it is argued that the plane crash did indeed initiate the genocide and that the genocide was merely a reaction to the plane crash.

In the book “An Ordinary man: An Autobiography” by Paul Rusesabagina, the author faces many bad problems and experiences distasteful moments throughout the whole novel. The author uses quotes the explain the significance of the 1994 Genocide in his own eyes. Near the middle of the story, as Paul explains the harsh treatment and taunting of RTLM against them, he tells us about a teacher who brainwashed her students into hating the “Hutus.” “It always bothers me when I hear Rwanda’s Genocide being described as the product of ‘ancient tribal hatred.’ I think this is a easy way for westerners to dismiss the whole thing as a regrettable but pointless bloodbath that happens to primitive brown people (Rusesabagina Chp.4 Pg.53).”

Land mines. Suicide bombing. Sectarian violence. Sexual abuse. Children stacked up like cordwood in refugee camps around the globe” (King,8).

Hotel Rwanda directed by Terry George and released in 2004, is one of the films that most accurately depict the reality of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. This genocide marks one of the most bloody and abrupt in the history of genocides where the Tutsi began slaughtering the Hutu. The story is told through the main character Paul Rusesabagina’s heroic acts as a hotel manager and his dedication to his family and people. The story centers on him and his family sheltering Hutu refugees at the Mille Colline Hotel in Kigali, resisting the Tutsi rebels as they began the massacre of Hutu families almost overnight. The film clearly portrays how and why the genocide began and it is through this that theoretical concepts such as ethnic violence and ethno-political mobilization can be drawn.

“The convection on the Prevention and Punishment of Crime of Genocide” a treaty by the united nations explains how genocide is a broken crime, will be stopped, and discipline

The Rwandan genocide was a mass murder of thousands of Tutsi people by the Hutu people, they were viciously killed and scared out of their country, partly due to the rumor that a Tutsi man ordered the death of the Rwandan President. To begin, from April to July 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic group in the East-Central African nation murdered 800,000 men, women, and children from the Tutsi ethnic group. During this period Hutu civilians were forced by military soldier and police officers to kill their neighbors, friends, and family (“10 facts About the Rwandan Genocide-Borgen”). Radio stations encouraged ordinary civilians to take part in the killings (“10 facts About the Rwandan Genocide-Borgen”).

Why were they so few? Why was there a greater effort to save SS murderers after the war than to save their victims during the war?” Unfortunately, Wiesel’s speech remains relevant to this day. Mass genocides are still happening around the world and the people remain indifferent to their problems. One

In The Gathering of Old Men, by Ernest J. Gaines, and The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, the authors follow the story of different black communities and how they are affected by oppression. In The Gathering of Old Men a white man, Beau, is found dead in a black man’s yard, Mathu. Mathu’s ‘daughter’ brings together all of the black men in the surrounding neighborhoods to say that they were the ones who shot Beau. In The Bluest Eye a black child, Pecola, is oppressed in many ways throughout the story and near the end is raped by her father. The most substantial part of the story however, is afterwards and how she eventually becomes insane from the onslaught of oppression she faced.