Shooting Dogs

I saw this film for the first time last week. As in the case of most good films it is difficult to say that the short trailer above truly does it justice. Nonetheless it gives a brief flavour of the film.

It must surely be one of the most powerfully moving films ever made and covers so many important subjects in under two hours.

To summarise briefly it is the tale of an idealistic young English gap year student who volunteers to work in Rwanda for a year. He works in a school run by a rather weary but humane Catholic priest played by John Hurt.

What would have been a familiar tale of a year working in a poor country before going to University becomes something far more and immeasurably more daunting due to the outbreak of genocidal violence against the Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority.

The speed and brutality of the violence often commited by former neighbours is shocking. The school that is also used as a base by Belgian UN peace keepers quickly becomes a sanctuary for thousands of terrified Tutsis.

The outcome of the story, as told by history is sadly obvious. The UN is tied up by its mandates and unable to do anything, while the Clinton regime in power in 1994 becomes caught up in characteristicly irrelevant legalisms such as the difference between genocide and "genocidal acts" as a justification for not getting involved. Other powers no doubt used similar excuses. The UN peace keepers ultimately fail to keep the peace or even save lives. They are reduced to simply "shooting dogs" who feed on the thousands of dead in the streets as a futile attempt to maintain "public health".

The film is a reminder of the world's failure to stop the slaughter of up to a million people in 100 days while it watched daily on its televisions. It is reminder of humanity's propensity for evil as well as its capacity for amazing courage and self-sacrifice.

It is a most disturbing watch but also a powerfully moving one. With Africa again in the news as Mugabe's regime intimidates those who seek to challenge it, one has to wonder could such horrific events again play out on the world's television screens while we are powerless to intervene ?

Finally, the one message of hope is the film itself. Unlike the equally acclaimed "Hotel Rwanda" (which I have not seen but hope to) the film is largely shot in Rwanda in the same locations that genocide occurred barely a decade earlier. Many of those who appear in the film are survivors of the genocide. The last thing the film shows is the capacity for forgiveness and hope amongst those who have suffered so terribly.

I commend this film to all who are interested in Africa and in humanity in general.