Book review: Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure Of Humanity In Rwanda

Most of my reading is typically pretty light fare. Starting back as an undergrad, I tended to pick escapist stuff when I read for fun to couteract textbooks and other academic works. I do enjoy some deeper stuff from time to time and recently read Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Roméo Dallaire.

Back in July, I blogged on a series of articles on Africa. It was a rather harsh and non-typical look at the problems occuring there and it prompted some fairly strong responses. I didn't entirely agree with the author, but I thought he made some good points, but I readily admitted that there is plenty about Africa that I don't know anything about. I still contend that the problems facing Africans are huge and that simply caring or pledging money are not productive solutions. I asked if anyone had any ideas, but no one did. I found this book at the library and though it was a good opportunity to correct my ignorance.

Shake Hands with the Devil details the account of Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian, who was head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Rwanda ended a bitter civil war in 1993 and UNAMIR was charged with overseeing the transition to the new government that came out of the peace accords. The transition never occured and fighting broke out between tribal factions. Between April and July of 1994, Hutu (one of the main tribal factions, along with the Tutsis) militias and elements of the military killed some 800,000 men, women and children.

There is plenty of blame to go around and lessons to be learned. From the UN, who was slow to react and unwilling to offer any substantial support, to the western powers who either ignored what was happening or actively interfered with the peacekeeping mission. Gen. Dallaire believed that a well equipped force of around 8,000 could have prevented the genocide and there are other experts that believe his analysis is correct. So often we hear "never again," but genocides have occured since WWII and are occuring today. This book offers hope that they can be prevented or stopped, if other countries are willing to make the effort.

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A Harsh Look at Africa

Kevin Myers, a columnist for the Independent, published 3 essays on Africa that were very thought provoking:

Africa is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS

Writing what I should have written so many years ago

Is this the tolerance that our thought-police take pride in?

Some quotes:

This dependency has not stimulated political prudence or commonsense. Indeed, voodoo idiocy seems to be in the ascendant, with the next president of South Africa being a firm believer in the efficacy of a little tap water on the post-coital penis as a sure preventative against infection. Needless to say, poverty, hunger and societal meltdown have not prevented idiotic wars involving Tigre, Uganda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea etcetera.

I am not innocent in all this. The people of Ireland remained in ignorance of the reality of Africa because of cowardly journalists like me. When I went to Ethiopia just over 20 years ago, I saw many things I never reported -- such as the menacing effect of gangs of young men with Kalashnikovs everywhere, while women did all the work. In the very middle of starvation and death, men spent their time drinking the local hooch in the boonabate shebeens. Alongside the boonabates were shanty-brothels, to which drinkers would casually repair, to briefly relieve themselves in the scarred orifice of some wretched prostitute (whom God preserve and protect). I saw all this and did not report it, nor the anger of the Irish aid workers at the sexual incontinence and fecklessness of Ethiopian men. Why? Because I wanted to write much-acclaimed, tear-jerkingly purple prose about wide-eyed, fly-infested children -- not cold, unpopular and even "racist" accusations about African male culpability.

To say that I was uncomfortable reading these is an understatement.  Like many, I am appalled at what is occuring in Africa, but I have always wondered if what the rest of the world is doing is helpful to Africa.  Do our policies encourage some kind of improvement or do they alleviate our guilt as Africa slips further into barbarity?

I can certainly understand some of the motivation for Western guilt.  European colonial practices have contributed to current problems.  Unfortunately, the past can't be changed, but we certainly control how we act towards Africa.  While I may not agree entirely with the essays, the author is clearly knowledgable on Africa and he raises some good points that are worthy of discussion.  The fact that some are suggesting he be jailed is sad and does little to help develop some useful policies.  So, ATK readers, what did you think of the essays and what do you think can be done?

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