A few years ago, I traveled to lower Manhattan, getting off near the ruins of the World Trade Center. Periodically, local newspapers discuss ongoing disputes on the memorial, which is still in the planning stages. It is unclear how long things will take when it takes around five years to start a memorial. Personally, I find it atrocious that we still have a big hole in the ground ... dust to dust, I guess ... after all these years. Things take time, surely, but five years?*
Still, there was the question of money -- a lawsuit, for instance, had to determine how much insurance would be obtained. So, maybe it is not so long ... though that memorial thing smarts. By the way, unless one lives/works down there, it is unclear how much the WTC is in our consciousness. Deep down, perhaps (any form of the number "911" still makes me have a quick thought), but there seems to be a sense of forgetfulness there. Perhaps, that is a good thing? On the other thing, it seems to further the tragic misconstruing of our priorities. So, instead of focusing on truly 911 sort of issues, we go on to Iraq. And, so forth.
The reason I was down there was to a multiplex within view of the river, in a relatively isolated sort of area, to see Hotel Rwanda, though the actual hotel was a French version of the country's nickname -- "land of a thousand hills." The hills were alive with the sound of screaming. Pardon the outputting reference, but the insanity of the situation requires a bit of absurdity to comprehend. Long lasting class and political hatreds, channeled through largely artificial racial divides, led to hundreds of thousands of deaths by ordinary citizens, "doing their duty" by killing their family, friends, and countrymen with machetes. The bloodshed was remarkably quick and efficient, a couple months or so necessary, much of the genocide occurring within days. The groundwork, of course, took a bit more time, inertia, and cynicism. We can call it insanity, but life cannot really be written off that easily.
Horror, as suggested by a quote from The Plague on the opening pages, also brings forth chances for humanity. My view about horrors, small and large, is that one needs to do the best one can with them. Thus, I do not (or try not) focus on how things are "meant to be" (or wondering why things happen under the aegis of a benign creator ... life is not quite as fair as your average election), surely I believe it is a moral imperative "to flight the plague. There [is] nothing admirable about this attitude; it [is] merely logical." Well, maybe a bit harsh, Albert, but this is a good bottom line. Humans have certain limitations, but when we consider goodness too heroic, we are in trouble. It should be a given. I know we must honor it ... perhaps, this underlines the problem -- as long as humanity, in an idealistic sense of the word, is heroic, it means too many simply are not humane.
The movie concerned, to quote the title of a recently published autobiography by real life person involved, "an ordinary man" ... a mixed race (Hutu because such things went through the paternal line; in slavery days, things went through the maternal line in this country ... in some cultures it is done as well) hotel manager, married to a Tutsi, who did not join the madness. Instead, he used his total and managerial connections/people skills, to save over a thousand people (of both "races") in the hotel. In his culture, children were given different last names, names which certain meanings. Paul Rusesabagina is really a combo of chosen names. The last name means "warrior that disperses enemies," while the first is his confirmation name ... Paul ... with means "small." An apt metaphor.
The book is also a very good companion to the fan. Years ago, when insanity did not quite hit our shores except to target presidents for bjs, I read Philip Gourevitch's We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (Samantha Power's A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide also provides a shorter account). A friend of the family, who is not someone who generally seemed to be interested in such things, read the book afterwards and was quite amazed by the whole thing -- it suggests the broader audience for this sort of thing. The matter comes to mind in part because she is no longer alive, dying from cancer a couple years ago. Things like that lead one to remember the world continues up close, as the river of history flows past us. [I first saw that metaphor years back ... too bad the water is so often polluted.]
And, some of us get caught in the current. The book is truly an autobiography, telling of his life and culture. The picture on the book jacket is all so ordinary -- he looks like an ordinary, nice man, not too tall (small head), who enjoys the simple pleasures of life such as drinking banana beer with friends. He is an educated man, training some for the ministry, and knowing three languages (English, French, local), so PR is not totally ordinary ... though coming from rural origins, even his father was a big man in his community. This is suggested by some of his philosophical asides. And, he became a member of the middle class elite, of sorts, suggested by his ability to start anew in Belgium later on with a nest egg to start a new business.
Still, bottom line, Paul Rusesabagina comes off a truly ordinary sort, who faced horror and was able to retain "the true state of human affairs ... as it ought to be lived." His story is worth reading ... a lot is in those 200 or so pages. Ultimately, this concern for humanity -- while realizing that securing it is not always pretty and requires dealing with bad people, sometimes by doing all you can to touch the better side of their natures, -- is his bottom line. It should be ours as well. I saw a pigeon recently and wondered why anyone would needlessly kill such a creature of life. But, in reality, human well being is not secured all so often.
Often enough it is secured, in small ways and big. Such is our goal as members of the human race. In some core way, our true nature. Yes, this is still something of an ideal, but so it goes.
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* SNY has on a "Mets Classics" game today that fits this discussion -- the first game played at Shea after 9/11, appropriately against the Braves ... their rivals and due to end their great comeback in the last month and a half with two blown saves by the usual suspects of the time. One was by John Franco, whose son's little league coach died that day, and who always wore a NY Fireman's tee shirt under his uniform in honor of his dad.
A well pitched game -- by Bruce Chen of all people -- turned in the eighth. After breaking a 1-1 tie, the Braves blew the lead in the bottom of the inning via a two run homer by Mike Piazza. One could not script the game much better. Btw, no one is left from that team, except Steve Trachsel ... who wasn't on the 2000 team.