Book Review - We Wish to Inform You...

Write and post a brief review (500–100 words) of the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. Focus in particular on your reaction to the reading and on any changes you might make to the film Hotel Rwanda based on your reading of the book.

As he tries to understand what happened in Rwanda in the summer of 1994 Philip Gourevitch explores the historical roots of the Hutu/Tutsi coexistence. He traces the cultural, social and political development of Rwanda weaving colonial intervention with biblical stories to help explain how the Rwandans see themselves and each other.

His search for answers in Rwanda is a courageous tale. Gourevitch’s book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda gives testimony to the atrocities that took place and forces us to recognize the complicity of the West in one of the most heinous acts in the past 50 years.

The individual stories are the real power of this book. Gourevitch interviews survivors, those accused of genocidal acts and military commanders from all sides. His interviews bring us face to face with the horrors of the genocide. We sense the helplessness and bewilderment of those who experienced it first hand and still can’t believe it. Reading these first hand accounts allows the reader to feel the desperation of the Rwandans who were abandoned by all their supposed allies.
Gourevitch relates the history of this genocide through the eyes of Odette Nyiramilimo. She recounts her life in “a hopscotch fashion…sometimes skipping several years when they knew no terror, sometimes slowing down to name the months and the days” (p.64). Her story describes Hutu/Tutsi actions against each other through the years. At one point, in a foreshadowing of the future, a schoolteacher employed by the United Nations “described the massacres…as a veritable genocide and he accused European aid workers and church leaders in the country of an indifference that amounted to complicity in the state-sponsored slaughter” (p65).

The book lays a thorough groundwork for the movie Hotel Rwanda. There is ample information to build a story that is marketable to the world yet still powerful enough to do this story justice. Using Paul Rusesabagina as a focal point for the movie shows the horror of the events that surrounded him as well as the power of one man to make a difference.

As a whole the movie balanced these themes exceptionally. One of my few questions or additions to the film would have been some reference to the timing of the genocide. During the movie we get no real sense that just a few months passes between the time the refugees begin arriving at the hotel and the time the UN ushers them over the RPF lines. To realize that this entire event took place over just a few short months makes the entire story even more appalling.

Another point that Gourevitch focuses on in the book that is not stressed in the movie is the role the French played in provoking and arming the Hutu leadership. Besides one mention of the French arming the FAR the film overlooks the historical significance of the French involvement in Rwanda.

We wish to inform you…is one of the most candid accounts of the Rwandan genocide. This book holds no punches in laying blame for the inexcusable actions (or inactions) of the West. Gourevitch builds a substantial case against all the developed countries that should have responded including the Belgians who helped create the ethnic disparity, the French who, as mentioned above, incited and armed the Hutus, the United Nations who stood by and watched while the genocide happened in front of them and especially the United States who refused to admit that acts of genocide had occurred and dragged their feet when they finally agreed to assist.