The Catbird and her school watched Hotel Rwanda in school today. Hotel
Rwanda is the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan hotel manager who saved
some 1,200 people from the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.
She was understandably upset about what she saw during the
film, and about the fact that things like that are still happening today, as they happened in the former Yugoslavia, and in Europe in World War II, and
on and on, back seemingly forever.
It's terrible to think that human beings have an
almost-infinite capacity for brutality, that there are people who will order
the deaths and torture of others simply because they don't look the same, or
don't share the same race, religion, color, you name it. Yet, at the same time,
it's uplifting to think that there are always people like Paul
Rusesabagina—men and women who will stand up for the victims, who will put
their lives on the line to protect others, who will risk everything to stop the
brutality. That's the message I told the Catbird to focus on.
I hope there will always be people like Rusesabagina, even
as I hope that someday, we won't need them.
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