Today’s the 10th anniversary of the start of the massacre in Rwanda, an atrocity that beggars description.
Over the course of 100 days, nearly one million people were murdered, which means almost 10,000 people were killed each day because of their ethnic/tribal descent. International response was minimal, and leading to after-the-fact hand-wringing about how the developed world just doesn�t care what happens in Africa (unless oil or other strategic resources are involved). This man did all he could to stop it.
When I think about what happened there, I’m filled with shame. It isn’t shame at being an American, because many other institutions completely failed to do anything while the massacre went on. I guess it’s shame at being part of the civilized world in general, where this sort of thing never truly enters my life, in a sense.
The biggest personal shame I have about what happened there is that I can’t tell you if it was Hutus massacring Tutsis or Tutsis massacring Hutus. I know how pathetic that sounds, but it’s just never meant so much to me that I bothered to remember it. And it’s that very mindset that shames me the most.
Samantha Power implores us not to let it happen again.