Last night I saw one of the worst films I have ever seen. It wasn't because it was bad. Far from it. In fact the story was accurate, the acting too real and the scenery entirely on location.
So, what was the matter?
I say it was one of the worst because the story was a tale of profound human misery - of man's inhumanity to man.
This film was called Shooting Dogs - about a particular and desperate episode, during the Rwandan genocide, when thousands of Tutsis were massacred at famous school in Kigali known as L'Ecole Technique Officielle.
I happen to know this school, having visited the buildings and walked around the classrooms. I have seen the markings of Machetes on nearby trees. The trunks were used for weapon sharpening, before the Interahamwe (the extremist Hutu Militia) went into into the school to slaughter the Tutsi innocents.
So I knew the backdrop to this film and I was aware of what had happened.
We were watching the film at the Solace Ministry in Kigali - which many members of Project Umubano are staying at for accommodation. Accompanying us were some survivors of the genocide. One in particular was an eye-witness whose oral evidence is at the Kigali Memorial Museum.
Broadly the story of the film - and what actually occurred is follows:
L'Ecole Technique was an excellent school run by a Catholic Priest. The school had been protected by the United Nations Peace Keeping Forces. When the Genocide began in April 1994, thousands of Tutsis fled to the school, knowing that it had some kind of protection from the United Nations. A number of Westerners, caught up in the conflict were also taken to the school for protection.
Meanwhile, as the Genocide continued apace, hundreds of Interahamwe (the extremist Hutu Militia) gathered outside the school, high on banana beer and waving machetes at the UN soldiers. After some days, lorries and French Troops arrived - amazingly, not to assist the terrified Tutsis - but to merely transport the Westerners who were at the school to the Airport, so they could get out of the country. A few days later, the UN Force announced it was withdrawing from the school - as it had no mandate to assist the Tutsi refugees. Despite anguished pleas from the Tutsis - begging the UN Forces to at least take women and children, the UN left the school taking only the remaining Westerners. Some of the Tutsis had even urged the UN to shoot them dead with rifles, rather than face death by machete.
A short time after the UN Forces left, the Interahamwe were given the orders by a Government official to charge the school and murder every Tutsi with a Machete. Barely anyone survived bar a few, who were able to recount the massacre, the UN fiasco, the indifference of the French troops and the astonishing ignorance of the outside world of the true nature of the genocide in Rwanda.
As the film ended, the reaction of the audience said it all. Andrew Mitchell, Shadow International Development Secretary who had organized the event, was comforting those who were most distressed.
Almost everyone left the church hall silently. I myself felt tears that never came - in fact I just felt blocked, my spirit a little crushed as I wondered just how such things could happen.
I kept thinking and asking myself not about the extremist Hutu Regime that had organized and directed the genocide, but how it was they had managed to persuade millions of ordinary people to participate in the carnage that occurred
There is an episode in the film which shows a former Hutu assistant in the school, whom after the genocide began, became a willing participant in the slaughter.
I came to the conclusion that the worst thing about dictatorships is not even the police apparatus or the suppression of freedom and other instruments of state control. It is that dictatorship can ensure that many people become evil. Only by implicating individuals in their own desparate schemes such as genocide, can the regime buttress it's own power.
A bleak evening. But my spirits were restored today, after another round of teaching. My class learnt the song, Lord of the Dance. It was uplifting to see how the students treasured the words and message of the song. Many began shouting Hallelulah. The demons of the night before had been replaced by hope and love.
Other blogs from Rwanda: Andrew Mitchell, Alistair Burt and Nick Hurd. Robert has also been Twittering and writing on his personal blog.
