Sunday Thoughts
by Al Sturgeon
(published each week in Desperate Houseflies)
HOTEL RWANDA
I’m not on the cutting edge of the movie scene, so I’m a newcomer to Hotel Rwanda. Nonetheless, it is a powerful movie that brings the horror of genocide to our living rooms through the true story of Paul Rusesabagina.
Rusesabagina, portrayed by actor Don Cheadle, was the manager of a European-owned hotel in Rwanda in 1994 when the Hutus unleashed their atrocious rampage against the Tutsis. In essence, Rusesabagina, faced with his own death, turned his hotel into a refugee camp (it would be inaccurate to call it a safe haven at the time) that eventually saved over a thousand lives in the genocide that murdered approximately one million Rwandans.
Ty Burr of the Boston Globe reviewed the movie and said, “The twofold agenda in Hotel Rwanda is to commemorate what Paul Rusesabagina did and to shame each and every Westerner who sees the movie. On both of those counts it is successful.” I’d have to agree. I was definitely ashamed.
At one point in the movie, an American journalist risked his life to get raw footage of the massacres and sneak the video back home. Rusesabagina rejoiced, claiming, “When they see the atrocities, they will help!” To which the journalist replied cynically, “No. When they see this, they will say ‘That’s horrible.’ And then go back to their dinners.” Does that condemn anyone else? Or is it just me?
I’ve come to understand “compassion” – as defined by the Bible – to be pity punctuated by action. In other words, “to hurt so badly for someone that you can’t help but do something about it.” Think Good Samaritan. Better yet, think Jesus. Whatever you do, don’t think me. At least not yet. But who’s to say that the group I worship with in Ocean Springs, a group that claims Christ as our model, cannot become a place known for it’s compassion. That is, after all, the example lived by our life model. Plus, it took Paul Rusesabagina a while to catch on, too.
I remember a different Paul Rusesabagina early in the movie. He was a good man, but a hotel manager who worried when the refugees began arriving, saying, “I have no room!” There is a different Paul that marches toward freedom at the movie’s end, surrounded by children, answering a question on where he would find room for them with joyful confidence, saying, “There is always room!” That’s much more like Jesus. Much more like Jesus than me.
(published each week in Desperate Houseflies)
HOTEL RWANDA
I’m not on the cutting edge of the movie scene, so I’m a newcomer to Hotel Rwanda. Nonetheless, it is a powerful movie that brings the horror of genocide to our living rooms through the true story of Paul Rusesabagina.
Rusesabagina, portrayed by actor Don Cheadle, was the manager of a European-owned hotel in Rwanda in 1994 when the Hutus unleashed their atrocious rampage against the Tutsis. In essence, Rusesabagina, faced with his own death, turned his hotel into a refugee camp (it would be inaccurate to call it a safe haven at the time) that eventually saved over a thousand lives in the genocide that murdered approximately one million Rwandans.
Ty Burr of the Boston Globe reviewed the movie and said, “The twofold agenda in Hotel Rwanda is to commemorate what Paul Rusesabagina did and to shame each and every Westerner who sees the movie. On both of those counts it is successful.” I’d have to agree. I was definitely ashamed.
At one point in the movie, an American journalist risked his life to get raw footage of the massacres and sneak the video back home. Rusesabagina rejoiced, claiming, “When they see the atrocities, they will help!” To which the journalist replied cynically, “No. When they see this, they will say ‘That’s horrible.’ And then go back to their dinners.” Does that condemn anyone else? Or is it just me?
I’ve come to understand “compassion” – as defined by the Bible – to be pity punctuated by action. In other words, “to hurt so badly for someone that you can’t help but do something about it.” Think Good Samaritan. Better yet, think Jesus. Whatever you do, don’t think me. At least not yet. But who’s to say that the group I worship with in Ocean Springs, a group that claims Christ as our model, cannot become a place known for it’s compassion. That is, after all, the example lived by our life model. Plus, it took Paul Rusesabagina a while to catch on, too.
I remember a different Paul Rusesabagina early in the movie. He was a good man, but a hotel manager who worried when the refugees began arriving, saying, “I have no room!” There is a different Paul that marches toward freedom at the movie’s end, surrounded by children, answering a question on where he would find room for them with joyful confidence, saying, “There is always room!” That’s much more like Jesus. Much more like Jesus than me.
posted by Al Sturgeon | 1:09 PM
10 Comments:
Watched it in the middle of a poor country--Only increased the conviction.
Also thought of good ole' Al in S. Miss. Flattery aside, I thought of your work with H4H.
My question is how do I break from current life of comfort? I know, I know ... a rich, young ruler comes to mind.
Thanks, DeJon...
After watching the movie, I began to wonder where all the horrors were taking place in the world right now - that I wasn't paying attention to, of course - so I went to a Human Rights website, and the lead story was the country you were hanging out in (I could never spell it correctly on the first try)... So I ended up thinking about you in return.
Is this what makes us cuddly and adorable?
I don't count you in this hypothesis, but I am suspicious "cuddly and adorable" are euphemisms for "boring and trivial"... Yet I am undaunted.
Hey, don't leave me out!!! It's lonely enough here on the weekends...
Hey, look! This makes 4 comments already! Take that, Joe and Juvenal!
how can christians do a better job of making our compassion a spiritual call instead of a political one?
too many of us have been seduced by hte political answers to compassion. if we leave compassion to the world, can we be surprised when rwandas and sudans happen?
john
Thanks for the comment, John.
I think the simplest answer to your question would be for us to admit that Jesus is the Savior of the world, not the United States government - and that Jesus' solution to injustice was self-sacrificial love, not garnering political power.
Now I do think that a government has a responsibility for justice (lifting oppressed, punishing evil), and that in our country where each of us is given by birth a small slice of that governmental power, we have the responsibility to offer our voice for justice...
But the solution to the problems of the world do not depend on "my" voice winning out at the ballot box. I say my piece, trust God to deal with such matters, and go about laying down my life for others in love.
I'm just saying that I'm good at saying my piece, getting better at trusting God for the political results, and a long way from laying down my life for others in love.
Okay, I didn't mean to assemble such a long response, but...
My two fears in this arena:
(1) Thinking government is the solution to the problems of the world (discussed mostly above)...
but also...
(2) Thinking government should stay out of the people-helping business altogether. Any political state has an inherent responsibility to its citizens' welfare. And if I have a voice (which I do), I will speak up for helping others through government as well. Not as the ultimate solution to the world's problems, but out of basic decency.
"how can christians do a better job of making our compassion a spiritual call instead of a political one?"
I think the very last thing Christians need to do is make their compassion even more spiritual than it already is.
"if we leave compassion to the world, can we be surprised when rwandas and sudans happen?"
It would be much more appropriate and historically accurate for an irreligious person to ask your question: "If we leave compassion to the churches, can we be surprised when Rwandas and Sudans happen?"
What little efforts that have been and are being made in those troubled countries have been primarily by "the world" and over the opposition of churches, especially in this country.
At the time of the Rwandan genocide, American Christians were not calling for our government to help put a stop to it. Quite the opposite. The same goes for the genocide in Bosnia; American Christians were loudly opposed to our intervention there. Nor did they support the decision to try to help end the similar violence in Somalia. Nor do I hear compassionate choruses of "Intervene in Sudan!" from the churches today.
It is very disingenuous for Christians now to talk as if those tragedies happened because of some failure of compassion by "the world," when the world had to overcome not only the conspicuous absence of Christian help (with the exception of a few NGOs), but active Christian political opposition, in order to show what compassion they did.
American churches lack the moral standing to think or speak of themselves in messianic terms when it comes to the compassion of "the world" on the Rwandas and Sudans.
(I understand that your comment's main point was to be critical of the churches for their lack of compassion. However, it also contained the embedded notion of church superiority to the world, and in this context, I really don't think that's appropriate. In this context, the world has been vastly superior to the church.)
juvenal,
i think we may be working with some differing definitions - which is unfair on my part since it your blog...
however, some quick comments:
You interchanged churches and Christians several times –I do not think that this is one of those discussions where we can make them equivalent. I have a call to mercy and compassion and justice and love, as you do also. We cannot abdicate that call to a church, to a government, to an NGO, or to a ministry. The story of the good Samaritan was told to an individual asking “who is my brother?” The lesson for us it to “go and do likewise”. I believe that our willingness to let others “do” compassion for us has made these human tragedies worse than they could have been. It has also led many of us to pick and choose among the tragedies, looking for those we choose to raise our voice about.
I find embedded within the gospel story, not that “churches” (again the equivalence of an organization with an individual) are superior to the world: but that we christians are to be known by our love, that we are to ministers of reconciliation, that we should live at peace with all men, and that our lives should bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are fruits of the Spirit, not fruits of the world – and that is our great failure: to live these out and to shine them into a dark world.
Frankly, I don’t think either “the world”, christians, or churches or any identifiable group can claim any kind of victory or superiority in their response to Rwanda. But that doesn’t mean that I will quit believing that we should be better than we are or that we cannot have an affect through a passionate living as Christ in the world.
perhaps, it is also disingenuous to act as if calling christians to live out compassion in the world is somehow a “messianic” claim of superiority. or that because we have, for a great part, failed to do so means that we cannot lay claim to that call. Or that because there are those in the world who have behaved as Christians should, the world is superior to Christ’s body.
On some other responses – to ask our governments to act justly is certainly the realm of a Christian. Notice, however, how we disagree on what that action should be. The politically conservative Christian believes that it is improper and dangerous for the politically liberal to engage the government. And the politically liberal Christian believes that it is improper and dangerous for the politically liberal to engage the government. So who is right?
And to all: I am really embarrassingly bad at living these thoughts out in my life.
john
I'm not sure we so much disagree on definitions, John, as we're talking about 2 different pieces of Christian compassion: theory and practice.
I absolutely agree with everything you said about the Christian calling. That's the theory. Sadly, the practice looks very little like that; however, that doesn't stop Christians from patting themselves on the back for their fine theory, while using the phrase, "the world," as a way of demeaning and patronizing everyone who doesn't share their theory (even though "the world's" practice is often superior).
Contemporary Christian use of "the world" has become an unfortunate inheritance from Paul, not unlike Jesus' command to be like little children. I often think he must be smacking himself in the forehead over that one.
As for the distinction between churches and Christians, I'm not sure it's all that meaningful in this context. Churches are [more or less] organized voluntary associations of Christians. Churches do whatever Christians do through them, and nothing else.
"The politically conservative Christian believes that it is improper and dangerous for the politically liberal to engage the government. And the politically liberal Christian believes that it is improper and dangerous for the politically [conservative] to engage the government."
I don't know if the first statement is true or not, but the second one is certainly a misstatement of liberalism. Liberalism holds that it is politically dangerous for any religious group to have too much influence over the government, because history teaches us that such influence invariably leads to state interference in matters of conscience, which inevitably leads to civil strife or, very frequently, all-out civil war. People -- all people, regardless of whether their creed is popular with the majority or not -- must be free to practice their faith, or lack of it, so far as is possible. That means all, including the majority, must allow everyone else the same freedom they enjoy. They must not use the machinery of state to impose their beliefs on others.
That, in much simplified form, is liberalism's beef with the Religious Right.
This movie touched my heart too. It was a valuable lesson. But then we havent learnt from it. It's only a matter of time before we another wave of hate killing people.
Post a Comment
<< Home