Model of Faith: Paul Rusesabagina

The roots of the genocide can be traced back to European colonial times when Belgian rulers favored the tall Tutsis over the short and squat Hutus. They put Tutsis in positions of power and authority and did very little for the Hutus. The Hutus could do nothing about it and bitterness built up between to two groups. When Rwanda became an independent state in 1962, a dictatorship run by the Hutus was set in place. This only split the two groups even further. The Hutus were angry over years of being treated unfairly and blamed everything that went wrong on the Tutsis.

When the president of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana, who was a Hutu, was killed after his plane was gunned down, the Hutu led government blamed the Tutsis for his death. With help from a radio station which spread the word and provoked violence among the two groups, a militia of Hutus, the Interahamwe, or "those who work together," filled the streets in outrage. They began killing wealthy Tutsis and soon moved to killing any Tutsi or moderate Hutu who had any ties whatsoever with a Tutsi. If you weren’t with them, you were against them. And they were out to kill you.

The genocide continued for about 100 days and almost 1 million lives were lost. Almost no help was given from the West while the slaughter continued. They turned a blind eye and refused to call it genocide, which would oblige them to intervene.

Paul was born on June 15, 1954, in Rwanda. He was a successful businessman and was the assistant manager at a hotel called the Hotel des Mille Collines. He wasn’t necessarily a man of great ideals. Being the manager of a hotel he learned how to keep local authorities in his pocket by slipping them some scotch or money under the table.

This is Paul in a photo with Don Cheadle who played Paul in the movie Hotel Rwanda



Paul has been awarded several awards for his heroic deeds in Rwanda, including the Immortal Chaplains Prize for Humanity in 2000, shown here presented by Bob Dole.

When the genocide started, Paul moved his family to the hotel for protection. He was a Hutu, but his wife was a Tutsi. If the Hutu extremists caught up with him, they would murder him and the rest of his family. Even after international peace-keepers abandoned him, Paul was cashing in on ever favor that he had ever earned to help protect him and those he was sheltering in his hotel. Things became very desperate to the point where people had to drink out of the hotel’s pool for water. But Paul, his family, and over 1,000 other people survived the hundred days of slaughter outside the walls of the hotel.

Paul had no intention of becoming a hero. All he wanted was for his family to be safe. The test of his faith came when he was confronted with complete strangers standing at the door of his hotel, begging for protection. Paul had neither the means nor the manpower to ensure these people protection. All he had was a hotel and the help of some friends who owed him favors. He put his own life on the line to save these people. If the Interahamwe had caught Paul and found out that he was harboring Tutsis and moderate Hutus, they would have killed his family, everyone in the hotel, and they would probably torture him and make him die and terrible death for trying to defy them. It was more than just dying, it was excruciating pain and agony, (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) and then death. But this did not keep him from doing what he knew and believed was morally right.

He can be compared, in a bizarre way, to Marwan the suicide bomber in Iraq, whom most of us agreed was a man of great faith (even though we might also agree that his belief system is a little out of whack). They both give their lives up and put something which they believe is bigger than themselves before their own lives. Whether it is for the greater glory of Allah or to save thousands of innocent people from death, they stand up for what they believe in, and this is one of the crucial components of faith.

Today Paul's legacy lives on with the movie Hotel Rwanda staring Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina. To learn more about the video and the events themselves, click on the picture below.





Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rusesabagina
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1209_041209_hotel_rwanda.html
http://www.immortalchaplains.org/Prize/Ceremony2000/Rusesabagina/rusesabagina.htm












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