Robert Arnold
Hotel Rwanda Microtheme
4/16/12
“They are disguised because no one wants to carry the individual responsibility for murder. The instant of murder requires collective responsibility, and this requires a mask. The mask is what makes it impossible for them to recognize good and bad. For each individual to have clean hands, everybody has to be dirty, to share in the same communal guilt” (Interview with Djibril Diop Mambety) As this quote illumines, there are remarkable similarities between the themes of Hyenas and Hotel Rwanda in their portrayals of mass violence and collective responsibility.
The violence begins in both movies, instigated by constant speeches by people in authority, over the radio and in the public square. In Hotel Rwanda, it appears that many are originally against the violence, but that is uncertain – certainly it is true in Hyenas. In both movies, collective opinion begins to turn, but not until they begin to dress alike and chant do they begin the violence. The constant repetition of chanting stirs up the crowd by promoting a mob identity and creating a communal ‘truth,’ convincing each other by their own repetitions of a falsehood which they believe. This sense of community is furthered by dressing alike. Although in Hotel Rwanda they are still recognizable (hardly true in Hyenas), still the mob takes on an “us” identity – ‘are you a good Hutu?’ – that separates them from “the others” not worthy of life. And then, once the instant (or age) of murder is past, they all share the guilt. It is a stain on all hands, and therefore, in the moment, not as much a stain on any one hand.
There is something about a crowd. The
unity of purpose, the mindless ‘truths,’ the collective responsibility create a
unique environment for all kinds of atrocity. Normal people in aggregate do
things normal people singly would never dream of – under the right compulsions
of revenge or greed or apathy. Both Hyenas and Hotel Rwanda carry this theme.
