Gourevitch Book Review....

Blog: Write and post a brief review (500–1000 words) of the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. Focus in particular on your reaction to the reading and on any changes you might make to the film Hotel Rwanda based on your reading of the book.

I read this book before watching the movie Hotel Rwanda and was glad I did. It puts the movie in a clearer context and gives a detailed history of the events that led up to the mass killings in 1994. Gourevitch is a great writer and did a thorough job of detailing not only the events of the actual genocide, but the history of Rwanda leading up to massacres.

The book explains the role of ordinary citizens, including medical professionals, religious clergy, and peasants that were involved in the butchering of their neighbors. One of the more disturbing images from reading was the part that Pastor Ntakirutimana played in the Mugonero Massacre. Talk about an abuse of trust. The pastors story was told in great detail and gave the reader a good idea of how serious these issues were.

Gourevitch spends a couple of pages talking about his brief relationship with Dian Fossey while he was studying at Cornell University. Her death, by machete, not having anything directly related to the plight of the Tutsi, does indicate the corruption that was in place in the Rwandan government.

An important and helpful part of the reading for me was the explanation behind the stratification system in Rwanda. How the European fad of race science played a role and planted seeds in the minds of Rwandans that would slowly grow and bear some ugly fruit in the form of death and destruction. The movie never touches on John Hanning Speke's Hamitic Hypothesis. Basically, what Speke's myth means is that the Tutsis descended from Caucasoid tribe of Ethiopian origan and was superior to the native (Hutu) negroids. This Hamitic myth plays a role in defining how Rwandans see themselves. The book references a speach given by Leon Mugesera, a Hutu Power ideologue. During the 1992 speach he called on Hutus to, "send the Tutsis back to Ethiopia" by way of the Nyabarongo River, a tributary of the Nile. Hutus clogged the river with thousands of dead Tutsis.

One last point about how much more depth and explanation the book gave. While viewing the movie during the scene where the hotel was being evacuated of foreign dignitaries I noticed a lady with a dog on the bus. This scene would lead you to believe that dogs were valued more than the Africans who were left to work out their problems. The book explained the lack of canines in respect to the killings that were taking place, something the movie didn't address. Dogs were killed by the RPF and Nato forces due to the dogs eating corpses and posing a potential health threat.

These are all small details that the book mentions, but essential in giving us a clearer picture of what was really going on and the severity of the atrocities involved. I think the movie could've added another 10 minutes of footage that would have given the viewer a much greater look at what was going on in Rwanda during this grotesque time.