An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina

From The Week of January 03, 2010

Later developed into a 2004 Hollywood film starring Don Cheadle, An Ordinary Man is Paul Rusesabagina's recount of his life in Rwanda, from his chaotic youth to his stint as manager of the Diplomate hotel, a popular, prestigious establishment based in the country's capital of Kigali. It was from this position of moderate influence that Mr. Rusesabagina saw the 1994 Rwandan Massacre unfold, a genocide which he summarizes in effective and painful detail here. Though Mr. Rusesabagina is a Hutu, the ethnic majority which instigated and carried out the massacre, he is at pains to debunk the differences between the Hutu and the Tutsi, arguing convincingly that these are little more than conceits ginned up by radicals set on slaughter as the means of righting historical wrongs. This is a tragic fact which both illuminates the massacre and makes it all the more painful to watch unfold.

Mr. Rusesabagina has to essentially tell two stories here, his own history and that of the genocide, and it's a credit to his abilities and his charisma that he manages this remarkably well. Interweaving fables from his youth with scenes of refugees from the massacre hold up in his hotel -- they resorted to using the hotel's pool for drinking water --, he paints a picture of the siege mentality he was forced to adopt during the massacre in which he took in and protected dozens of at-risk Tutsi. Though one is left with the impression that Mr. Rusesabagina is glossing over some of his less pleasant connections to a regime which authorized the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, there's more than enough painful honesty here to lend his account the weight of authenticity.

Mr. Rusesabagina was an entrepreneur just trying to live his life and raise his family when the world, or fate, intervened and presented him with an opportunity to become an oppressor or a voice for the oppressed. Bravely, Mr. Rusesabagina chose the latter, even though it could have cost him his life. And in that sense, his story is an illustration of the age-old morality problem of speaking out at risk to ones health, or staying quiet in the face of injustice. There's little doubt on which side Mr. Rusesabagina comes down on. (4/5 stars)