Hotel Rwanda: Is Nationalism Satan's Ideology?

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on September 13, 2005.

A former professor once told me that one of the dangers of any ideology is its potential to become totalizing, to erase the nuances and idiosyncrasies of real human beings in an attempt to implement an overly abstract vision of the good society. She implied that this was a danger inherent with any ideology — yet, are there some "abstract visions" that are worse than others? What about nationalism, the belief that one's overriding motivation should be the advancement of his/her "nation," however that is defined? Is that not, somehow, more dangerous, more prone to violence, thuggery, and in the most extreme cases, genocide?

Terry George's Hotel Rwanda (2004) touches upon these broader questions, though its main purpose is to portray a people suffering under irrational, brutal hatred. Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, and a man who initially doesn't want to get involved in the political firestorm about to engulf his country. He just wants to run a world-class establishment, catering to wealthy Westerners. However, when the president of the Hutu-dominated government is killed shortly after signing a peace accord with the Tutsi rebels, the bubbling tensions between the two ethnic groups boil over into something Paul cannot ignore.

You see, Paul is Hutu, and his wife Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo), is Tutsi, which puts both of them at odds with the rising Hutu nationalism all around them. Armed Hutu militias begin massacring both Tutsi civilians and Hutu "traitors": raping and hacking in a rampage of genocidal bloodlust. Because of both his "traitorous" indifference to ethnic diversity and his status as a middle-class professional, Paul almost inevitably becomes both a mediator and rescuer. Bribing both bloodthirsty militiamen and corrupt government officials, he manages to shuttle hundreds of would-be victims into his Belgian-owned hotel. Though he never intended for his workplace to serve as a "refugee camp" (since he believed that the United Nations would intervene to stop the bloodshed), it became precisely that. The Westerners were evacuated from the country, and Paul and his fellow Rwandans were left stranded with a pathetically small cadre of U.N. peacekeepers to protect them.

On an individual level, what struck me most was Paul's courage and resourcefulness. While initially concerned with his family's welfare, he later took great risks to protect those who managed to find their way to his hotel. Though he occasionally experienced moments of emotional breakdown, he generally kept a level head, which allowed him to adjust quickly to changing circumstances and to find avenues of escape when all other roads were blocked. His strength of character and quick thinking both impressed and humbled me.

So, is nationalism the worst ideology of all the ones we humans have devised? Terry George's political criticism is reserved largely for Western nations, conventionally seen as indifferent to the fate of dying Africans (in the mid- to late-90s, critics of Western foreign policy railed against the disparity between the response to the breakdown of the former Yugoslavia—one that included sizable numbers of peacekeeping troops—and the response to African crises, such as Somalia and Rwanda); however, because he focuses on the case of Rwanda, George cannot avoid the question of nationalism.

The concept of "nation" is slippery because it is not limited to a particular country's borders, nor does it require a state. It often is linked to "ethnicity," though social scientists largely regard "nation" and "ethnicity" as separate categories. "Nation" also has a primordial aura, since it is often seen as having arisen before the modern institution of the state. In fact, a current preoccupation of modern states around the globe is the suppression of nationalist movements.

Nationalism as an ideology almost intrinsically resists states that refuse to recognize the existence and "rights" of national groups. Another professor of mine, one sympathetic to some types of nationalism, argued that such movements helped to undermine the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe, states which considered national groups an impediment to both "class consciousness" and the international "class struggle." (Originally from Romania, she understandably had a vested interest in movements working to overthrow strongman Nicolae Ceausescu.) However, while nationalism is a helpful tool for countering certain forms of totalitarianism, it is also a dangerous tool, fomenting civil strife and, ironically, other forms of totalitarianism. (Nazi Germany was, in part, a nationalist endeavor.) When we play with nationalism, we play with ideological fire.

While European and African cases are different (an old-fashioned, impolite term for African nationalism is "tribalism"), the basic dynamics are the same. In Rwanda, we saw a Hutu nationalism that tired of modern institutions like multi-ethnic states and internationally brokered peace treaties. The militias (and their sympathizers within the government) wanted nothing less than the eradication of a rival national group that was, somehow, "different." Even though we learn in Hotel Rwanda that there is no real difference between the two groups, that the divisions are actually a product of a caste system imposed by Belgian colonial rulers, the perception that there existed "essential" Hutu and Tutsi identities was all that mattered.

On one level, I have to agree with my professor who warned of the totalizing effects of all ideologies. Any human system of belief can be become an idol, detracting us from the Greatest Commandment (Mt 22:37-8). However, it appears that nationalism is especially pernicious as it not only detracts from the Greatest Commandment but seems to work directly against the Second (Mt. 22:39). Rather than "Love your neighbor as yourself," nationalism would counsel "Love your neighbor as yourself so long as your neighbor is of your nation. Otherwise, you may kill your neighbor if he/she gets in the way of our national greatness."

While other ideologies certainly can work against the love of neighbor, nationalism is the one most readily available to large swaths of the world: populations seeking to overthrow corrupt, centralized governments or looking for scapegoats (i.e., other national groups) to blame for their woes. As Hotel Rwanda reminds us, nationalism can degenerate easily into violence and even genocide. 'Tis better to avoid it altogether.