What about Sudan?

Rating: Null/10 (29 January 2005)

I do think people should see this film. Don Cheadle's performance is stunning, perhaps reaching its apex when the film's script seems to take a page from Franz Fanon. Paul Rusesabagina realizes that the he spent his career working for a group of people who ultimately care little about the fate of Africans. In his European suit and tie, he stands in stark contrast to the bright-clothed Hutus threatening to kill his family and their Tutsi neighbors. His connections to Europe, however, provide him only with tenuous protection.
My critique of the film is echoed in one of the message board comments, one that suggests that 'the West' should stay out of Africa, given the problems created by colonial and post-colonial interventions. Very little historical context is provided in the film for the Hutu aggression against the Tutsis, and as such, it's possible to read the entire film as another example of violent African tribalism. In other words, it's possible to suggest that the West, having made a big enough mess of Africa already, should just leave people there to their own devices.
On the other hand, the 60-year anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz has just passed. Many commentators on that anniversary stressed the necessity of ensuring that such a massacre never takes place again. It is precisely the same kind of massacre that took place in Rwanda in 1994, and is now taking place in Sudan. My greatest hope for this film is that people see it and realize, first, the terrible mistake made by the US in abandoning Rwandan Tutsis to their murderers, and second realize the importance of intervening in Sudan in a way that actually makes a difference.
My last comment, somewhat disconnected from the main purpose of this post, is simply that one of the most affecting portions of the film features a radio broadcast from the Hutu militants, enjoining Hutus to "cut down the tall trees" and "squash the cockroaches," referring to the Tutsis. I heard a recording of the Hutu power broadcasts during my first visit to South Africa in 2002, and I remember the fear they produced in me even then, in a bright, sunlit room on a university campus. Hearing the broadcasts again in the movie theatre only heightened my awareness of the terrible obstacles the Tutsi faced during the genocide.