viernes, 26 de junio de 2009
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Datos personales
- Adriana Jimenez
- Profesora de Literatura Inglesa, amante de zagutes y zagua-gatxs, rescatista independiente, madre, vegana, activista ecofeminista y lgbtq, amante del yoga, enamorada de los libros...
Ethnic conflicts have always been there in history: it is Nazis against Jews, whites against blacks, Hutus against Tutsis, the Homosapiens against the Neardenthals (although here someone may argue that they were different species). However when conflicts are empowered by interests over one or more peoples, they are by no means justified. Hotel Rwanda and the documentary Breaking the Silence couldn’t explain that better: the first tells how after the Belgians took and did what they wanted with the country, they left all the power to the Hutu causing a chaotic conflict with the Tutsi. The other confirms the consequences that genocide had on human rights: rapes, orphaned children, blackmails, racial discrimination. It was interesting to see in Hotel Rwandathe poor and inefficient action of the UN (the self-proclaimed "peace-keepers", not "peace-makers"). The questions immediately arise to this organisation: How long does it take for them to stop this? How far must human rights be taken to? Like the documentary, this song says to the UN that "The price of silence is much too high": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONLMhwCO6EI
ResponderEliminarEgotism-nationalism-xenofobia.
ResponderEliminar"Conflict" begins at the struggle between the powerful and the powerless in every society. It is not merely racial (moderate Hutus were also targeted in Rwanda, not just Tutsis), and not merely gender-based (rape in the DRC is another weapon of war). I believe the origin of all conflict, ethnic and otherwise, is human nature. As humans we all begin life egotistically, focused on self-preservation and caring only about our own interests and needs. After being properly raised, we are told we are all one flag, and so the myth of a nation is created; a nation whose best interests we all have to look out for, since its welfare equals ours. From then on it is an easy path to segregate and demonize any person or group that does not adhere to our form of nationalism; that is, anyone who is not part of the "nation" as we understand it. Finally it all comes down to US versus THEM, where US does not care to produce communication with THEM at all. At this point, THEM effectively becomes an evil construct, in struggle with US who are good and righteous. But we do not need to go too far, just look at the way we treat Nicaraguans in Costa Rica.
It's a cultural war baby,
and we're winning.
Both, the genocide and the situation of raping on the Democratic Republic of Congo, are ways of maiming human being integrity for they are ways of violence imposed by one group over another. One may ask whose false is this? Men, women, the Government, nations or economic power? That question is so difficult to answer because each group has its own arguments. What is true is that this violence affects people in general. “This is a war against women” states the medical doctor in the documentary. Women and children are the first to pay the bill. While ancient culture based on moral values (take a look to Indian code of woman protection) promoted the protection of the most vulnerable groups, today’s culture moved by money and hegemonic interests take advantage of their lack of social power. The worst part is that the people with power justified their destructive and hatred behavior by using justifications that show their selfishness. What they do not take into account is that when a human being suffers, the entire “race” will suffer the consequences. It`s not only women who are being rape but the entire history of the world.
ResponderEliminarOne of the facts that has impacted me most about ethnic conflicts in Rwanda and DRC is that they are originally based on lies. In the case of Rwanda, the notion that Tutsi people were taller, thinner, and have lighter skin was only a myth created by Europeans to gain control. Similarly, in the DRC, soldiers still hold the believe that raping women will help them gain some sort of immunity to win their battles. Both ideas are absurd for us, as external spectators, but they have caused tremendous pain for these cultures. This reminds me that we must get critical about these sick beliefs that crawl up into the minds of people and contaminate societies. How often have we found ourselves or the people around us trying to find lame excuses to justify unfair judgments that would place us on a higher level. For example, how many of us have ever thought that the UCR is "the best" university in Costa Rica? and, thus, "we will" be better professionals than the rest? Notice here that these ideas have been repeatedly confirmed to us by our own professors and friends. Furthermore, notice how they often get us in trouble as we try to defend this "absolute truth" in the presence of students from other universities. Obviously the consequences of this attitude can never be compared to the atrocities caused in Rwanda and the Congo, but we must open our eyes and realize that all of these assumptions equally ill-founded.
ResponderEliminarFor me, the most shocking aspects that this documentary and the movie presented are the facts that nobody is capable of stopping these acts of barbarism since the same government is protecting these crimes. It is almost impossible to believe that this kind of genocide among people of the same culture is happening just to show that some people are more powerful than the others. Moreover, it is incredible how the human rights, in this region, are not respected and how rapist are walking in the street without any kind of punishment. This war is affecting just those innocent people that are the ones that need protection. Children, women and poor innocent men are there just waiting to be killed and rape while those who have power are justifying these killings without thinking about the destruction and damage that their people are facing.
ResponderEliminarControl... who owns it? Both, movie and documentary, clearly present the suffering and atrocities that people (mostly women and children) can face because of the search of power and control from many selfish group of people that cares about their own well being (in the case the rapists of the Democratic Republic of Congo)or revenge that was foment by lies as Silvia said before. What is more shoking in the case of the DRC is that the rapists can be the ones who supposely protect the people (including women and chindren) of this nation. In the case of Rwanda, the victims (Tutsis) might not have even been born when the discrimantion towards the Hutus took place, so the killing of many Tutsis cannot being even justified. In fact, any killing and rape cannot be justified in any circumstance.
ResponderEliminarIn this particular case, the most shocking part is that this conflict keeps perpetuating historical mistakes based on now (supposedly) outdated racial theories. And I do also believe that this particular conflict could have been less of such rooted issue (easier to begin to understand and address, eventually) if the conquest by the Belgians had been slightly planned: I don’t mean to say that this issue could have been avoided because given the nature of human beings, it would be very pretentious to say and impossible to achieve, something else would have come up eventually. I mean that if such different groups of people had been a little analyzed before conquered (I know, that would have required some brains and consideration and…) the fragmentation of the whole place could have been less shocking for the people whose cultures were mixed inside the same boundaries and forced to coexist in a struggle to survive.
ResponderEliminarEthnic conflicts have always existed but not all the people is aware of what is really happening in our world. The documentary Hotel Rwanda and the documentary Breaking the Silence show us interesting facts about the Etnic conflic in Rwanda and the raping of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The first caused by a powerful country over a powerless. Belgians did everything they want to the poor country causing a mess in it. The second documentary reveals the atrocities commited against women by soldiers in the DRC that are obvious a violation against human rights resulting as repercusions of genocide.
ResponderEliminarFor me, after getting over the inicial shock of seeing the violence (well getting over it as much as possible), I think the truly horrible thing is that so many of people involved, both the guilty ones and the victims, have come to accept the violence and the rape as normal, acceptable, and essentially inevitable. Many of the attitudes of the interviewed soldiers who had raped women were basically 'well, we're men and it's war, what do you expect?' and 'well, others do it too, why shouldn't I?' Similarly, many of the Hutus saw their dominance and the resulting violence as entirely normal and acceptable, and their victims were essentially helpless to stop it and felt almost resigned to the fact that it was only a matter of time before they were killed, such as when the hotel owner told his family to commit suicide if the Hutus came to surely kill them. One of the hardest but most telling things from the movies was the sense that the people involved had basically resigned themselves to the fact that violence was a part of their everyday lives and that the victims felt basically powerless to stop it.
ResponderEliminarPowerful countries resort to violence to achieve more power; that is the way in which they have always done things, with positive results for them. They cause great instability in their “colonies”. Such is the case of Rwanda and Congo, where they established arbitrary boundaries to determine their possession over them. When these countries were “freed” from their control, they were left in a state of confusion and anarchy; this is reflected in the internal conflicts that are devastating these countries.
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