shake hands with the devil

My university has done a fabulous job of celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day the past five years or so. Previous to 2001 or 2002, I can't remember which, my school didn't even give students and professors the day off. I guess they're making up for it now, as they put on special programs, seminars, concerts, and invite such notable speakers as John Perkins and Efram Smith. This year, the day's events ended with a screening of the documentary, Shake Hands With The Devil, a film which follows General Romeo Dallaire upon his return to Rwanda 10 years after the genocide. Though I was slightly confused as to why such a film would be shown on MLK Day, I tend to be interested in all things African, and was therefore only too eager to attend.

Let it be known that I have seen a host of disturbing films. I haven't made concerted efforts to shield myself from the brutalities of life, unlike some of my family members, who protest that they cannot watch violence because "it's too disturbing." I've sat through Passion of the Christ, Schindler's List, Band of Brothers, Blood Diamond, The Constant Gardener, Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland (James McAvoy made this film so much more pleasant, however), and a host of other Hollywood portrayals of non-fiction violence, tyranny, and general mayhem. I write this not to sound callous, although I surely am so when compared to an individual who never exposes herself to such things, but to communicate that I am not naive and at least partially acquainted with the cruelties of the modern world. But none of those films prepared me for this one. There were a few points in the film, most notably when a senator from a country that abandoned and metaphorically handcuffed Dallaire criticized the General, when I wanted to stand up and tell the other viewers in the auditorium, "This is shit." However, I generally don't swear, and wanted to avoid ostracism that surreptitiously lurks in some corners of my Christian university.
At any rate, though this may seem like an exaggeration, it's quite possible that viewing Shake Hands with the Devil caused some psychological damage. I slowly realized this when I thought constantly about what I had seen for the next few days, and talked about it at length with anyone that would listen to me. The other night at a dinner I started to cry when someone compared the situation in Kenya with what took place in Rwanda. When I got home and began devouring news articles and videos about the situation in Kenya, I cried some more, almost in a panicked kind of way. Other than a few isolated weeks of my life, I've never been big on the crying scene, particularly in regard to events physically and emotionally distant from me, so I feel that these moments were somewhat significant.

One of the reasons that I may have been able to emotionally respond to similar situations likely has both to do with my viewing of the film, and also my limited exposure to Africa. Being in Ethiopia for a month hardly gives anyone authority to speak upon the scope of Africa, its beauties, along with its issues, so I won't attempt to. The one thing that I do feel I can claim are a few relationships with Ethiopian children and teenagers, which has lent me perspective on African identity
and allowed me to experience befriending the "Other," that extraordinarily pretentious label of the postcolonial literature movement. During my time there, I reached some seemingly obvious conclusions about the friends that I met in Ethiopia: they may be poor, they may have little to offer to the modern world, but they are just as full of humanity and spirituality as any white man, woman, or child. Their lives do not count any less to God. Although it is counter-intuitive to a materialist way of thinking, a poor, uneducated African child is of no less worth than an affluent, educated, white American child. The death of either should not be perceived differently, nor should such deaths garner essentially different action. And yet they do. Sonafkish, Dumbelle, Yosef, Yared, Zenash, Sefeyu--my friends--each face and name carries with it personality, foibles, beauty, and mystery which binds each of us to each other. I have thought about their homes being raided, their parents taken away, other acts of violence which I do not have the stomach to write about. Those who lived in Rwanda, those who live in Kenya, they are not so different than my Ethiopian friends. Each has a life within a complex web of relationships and events. Not one is a decontextualized poor African with no identity except that he is only one of far too many tragic black faces.