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i am pleased to see that this asshole was sentenced.
but it's not as though the genocide sprang full blown from his individual head and then just happened--there was an extensive apparatus--particularly radio---that was fully complicit in shaping, setting into motion, encouraging and directing this. are they all innocent now that this guy's been convicted?
from this two things: first that fascism has relied on modern mass communications to provide a sense of real-time co-ordination of opinion, collectivity, motivation, etc.---in the 30s it was radio---over the past 7 years of fascism-lite in the states, it was television. you'd think that rwanda would be a horrific stark reminder of just how dangerous these communication systems can be once frames of reference are collapsed and total mobilization becomes a comprehensible goal. so there are things to be learned from rwanda in the early 1990s---it's a kind of limit-condition that highlights possibilities which are continually available. the need for critical distance as a fundamental element in education follows from this.
second, on the weasel-y use of the word genocide--if you saw hotel rwanda, or if you've followed parallel contortions relative to darfur or, more recently, the massacres which are happening in eastern congo, you already know that once genocide is used to describe a massacre or pattern of massacre, the international community is bound to intervene. so there's tons of mealy-mouthed nonsense, dancing around--because we all now know that human rights are not universal, that some lives matter more than others. just as some are more equal than others.
it's disgusting.
it really is.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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