Tuesday, 15 November 2005
I recently saw the movie Hotel Rwanda for the first time. I thought the movie was so well made, I decided to watch it two nights in a row.
What I appreciated most about the movie was how real it was. The movie depicts the very real conflict between the Tutsis and the Hutus in a very bloody period in Rwanda during the early 1990s.
Unlike most movies, there was little resolve for me after watching it, because I could not stop thinking that the events I watched, although some probably loosely based, really did happen.
I came away from the movie awestruck, feeling guilty even for how safe I feel here in America, and in my house here in Boone.
I started thinking how my life would be radically different if I had grown up in a place that appeared to completely disregard moral standards and the preciousness of life.
I also came away from the movie feeling as though something had gone completely wrong in the world for atrocities like this to occur, and in varying degrees, occur fairly often.
It seemed to me that somehow things were not always supposed to be this way.
What I mean by this is, what are we to think about the reasons for atrocities such as those depicted in Hotel Rwanda, and what about the constant struggle we all seem to have in staying within the lines of the law, or of moral standards?
Is this struggle merely relative to our surroundings, or upbringing, or is there a natural tendency within each of us to struggle to do what is right?
I believe that we as humans are capable of doing great things, like revolutionizing, and being activists in a society that needs much change.
But whether something so foreign to us as genocide, or something more familiar to us like choosing dishonesty over telling the truth, it seems we continually come up short in producing in ourselves, and in others the type of change that is both continuous and contagious.
In his book “Blue Like Jazz,” author Donald Miller writes, “I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group think, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself.”
One of my favorite sections of the book is when Miller writes about how after he protested a speech for the president, he realized, “I am the very problem I had been protesting.
I wanted to make a sign that read ‘I am the problem.’”
While I have never been much for rallies or protests, I can honestly relate to Miller’s feeling that beyond problems with policies, legislation, administrations, or politicians, lays a deeper problem within my own heart.
I so often overlook my own shortcomings in loving those around me and constantly pass out excuses and judgment like raffle tickets.
Although I may not commit atrocities in my lifetime like those depicted in Hotel Rwanda, the desire to place myself above others and my failing to treat others the way I want to be treated is nevertheless there.
So in that respect, I am hardly different in matters of the heart with those who committed the heinous crimes in Rwanda.
Miller says in his book, “It is hard for us to admit we have a sin nature because we live in this system of checks and balances. If we get caught, we will be punished.
But that doesn’t make us good people; it only makes us subdued.”
I have come to the point where I know that all the goodwill I can muster up within me to love others better can not produce a change of heart in my own life or in others.
I believe however there is someone who loves me relentlessly, even in my shortcomings, and in that truth my hope is found.
Michael Beahm, a junior journalism major from Greensboro, is a news writer.
(I thought I'd post this on my blog, even though it is from last year... because the only other place it is, is on the archives of The Appalachian newspaper online). Hope everyone has a good weekend. Be thinking of me Sunday morning if you would, as I will be running in the Wilmington half-marathon with my roomates. - MB
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