Judgemental

WatchingHotel Rwanda


A flower does not smell as sweet as they say it does. It has, in fact, an alien scent.

The most shocking thing I learnt from the movie Rwanda Hotel was that the two peoples, the Hutus and the Tutsies, were originally one people - they had no racial difference at all! That is, until the Belgium colonists decided to separate the people into two races according to the way they looked. They chose people who had lighter skin, taller physique, and taller noses to be Tutsie. And the rest were Hutu. While they were there, they had the Tutsie in ruling class jobs, and when they left, they left the country in the hands of the Hutus. Recipe for disaster. It was a very sad movie.
How changed can a country's people be by generations of brainwashing? Can they be so callous as to deny the utility of certain policies that would make their government more efficient and less corrupt?
Perhaps it is the brainwashing and nationalism combined. Seeing as the country contains a fourth of the world's population and at least 3000 years of history, the people have something to be proud of, and many to back their claim. Or perhaps it is because those who can see reason do not usually get to go abroad. Can there be a facility where they quizz all people who are going to leave their country to be assured that all those who wish to travel abroad have a firm rooting in their brainwashing. For I've only met half a dozen Chinese who were reasonable, and they all either came from Hong Kong or were ABCs. My English teacher also says he has had bad impression of Chinese whenever he was abroad. It seems that they believe by persistently telling us we and China are one would be sufficient to win us over. It is tactless and has bad taste. I believe there are many wonderful, intelligent and peaceful people in China. I have yet to meet them, that's all.
Frustration steeps in when trying to reason with these people. They do not have a global view, they have a China view.