Post by minx on Sept 25, 2022 11:35:34 GMT -5
Just finished this book. It's about the genocide in Rwanda in the early 90s. The book is a series of interviews of a group of men who are in prison for their roles in the slaughter of their neighbors.
The author asks them to describe things from their vantage in the events - why did they do this? What were their thoughts at the time? What was it like?
The book simply left me feeling a little chilled and queasy. At no time is there graphic detail, but the way these men describe what happened in such matter-of-fact tones is what got to me. Pretty much all in a day's work.
And yes, that's how they describe it -they get up in the morning, report to the soccer field for instructions. Grab their machetes and go to the marshes to hunt. Around 4, knock off for the day, go home, clean up, sharpen the machete for tomorrow and have some dinner and relax. None of them seem too disturbed by the fact that they were hunting their fellow humans and killing them. And they all seemed to believe that when they were released from prison, things would go back to normal, and the survivors would forgive them and understand that it was just one of those things.
Mind you, they understood that what they did was evil and heinous. But even the most repentant of them didn't seem to feel any personal shame. They just did what had to be done. Many of them said that anyone who felt shame felt it because they had not finished the job - the Tutsi's were still there after all.
The author did promise that he wouldn't publish the book until after their trials and sentences were pronounced, and also promised that nothing they said would be released to the courts either as the conditions for the men talking with him.
It was interesting to see things from their perspective. The author himself has no explanation as to how this happened and why otherwise normal people so happily turned to killing their neighbors and friends like this.
The author asks them to describe things from their vantage in the events - why did they do this? What were their thoughts at the time? What was it like?
The book simply left me feeling a little chilled and queasy. At no time is there graphic detail, but the way these men describe what happened in such matter-of-fact tones is what got to me. Pretty much all in a day's work.
And yes, that's how they describe it -they get up in the morning, report to the soccer field for instructions. Grab their machetes and go to the marshes to hunt. Around 4, knock off for the day, go home, clean up, sharpen the machete for tomorrow and have some dinner and relax. None of them seem too disturbed by the fact that they were hunting their fellow humans and killing them. And they all seemed to believe that when they were released from prison, things would go back to normal, and the survivors would forgive them and understand that it was just one of those things.
Mind you, they understood that what they did was evil and heinous. But even the most repentant of them didn't seem to feel any personal shame. They just did what had to be done. Many of them said that anyone who felt shame felt it because they had not finished the job - the Tutsi's were still there after all.
The author did promise that he wouldn't publish the book until after their trials and sentences were pronounced, and also promised that nothing they said would be released to the courts either as the conditions for the men talking with him.
It was interesting to see things from their perspective. The author himself has no explanation as to how this happened and why otherwise normal people so happily turned to killing their neighbors and friends like this.
