FEATURES

'Hotel Rwanda' kicks off spring Foreign Film Series
Konnie Sewell | News Editor

Its tagline is “When the world closed its eyes, he opened his arms.”

Dr. Ernest Dover, Jr., with the Center for Continuing Education, will present the film “Hotel Rwanda” tomorrow at 7 p.m. as part of the Foreign Film Series.

The film will be shown at the Kemp Center for the Arts, located at 1300 Lamar St. Admission is free to everyone but donations are welcome.

Dover, Interim Chair & Graduate Coordinator and associate professor of political science, first became involved with the Foreign Film Series when he volunteered to show a film three years ago.

He’s shown “Mandela and de Klerk,” starring Sidney Poitier and Michael Caine, as well as “Amandla! A Revolution in Four Point Harmony,” a movie featuring interviews, archived footage and filmed performances to highlight the role of music in the South African struggle against apartheid.

“I wanted to show ‘Hotel Rwanda’ because I felt like many people – most people – did not see it or care to see it,” Dover said. “It’s a movie about a subject not a lot of people are familiar with.”

The film’s plot revolves around the mass genocide that took place during 100 days in 1994, which is considered to be one of the worst atrocities to take place in the 20^th century. In individual genocides, Rwanda is second only in casualties to Auschwitz concentration camp. The impact of what happened in the country continues to affect the country and the region to this day; the first and second Congo wars trace their origins to the genocide.

Rwanda, which supports one of the densest populations in Africa, is located in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania border it. Before the infamous genocide by the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi took place, it was known mostly as the habitat of mountain gorillas.

“The problem is that most people who did see the movie did not understand the causation,” Dover said. “Why did the Hutus destroy the Tutsis? They’re going to have questions about the movie that you don’t get to ask when you see just it in a movie theater.”

Rwanda is historically important not only for the nearly one million people who died, but also for the response, or lack thereof, from the first-world nations of the West.

“One of the things I’ll state in my presentation is how complex an issue this is,” Dover said. “I chose this movie because I think people in the West need to understand what really happened, and how the West completely let those people down. The United States, under President Clinton, didn’t do anything to help, though he apologized afterwards. The French and the Belgians, who colonized the area, even the British – none of them did anything to help. They allowed almost a million people to die.

“It wasn’t like any of them didn’t see it coming. And that’s one of the main things about the movie, that people in the West do not understand the affects of colonialism. Colonialism basically took two groups of people, favored one group, to some extent, pitted them against the other, and jealousy came in.”

Dover was already very familiar with the plot of the movie – he teaches a class in African politics – but he did learn something new while researching for his presentation.

“I guess, in a way, it makes you realize how often we pick fights that are the most beneficial to us, the fights that are in our best interest,” he said. “The West has low empathy with Africa. It’s all Americans, not just white or black. And Africa is the most misunderstood country in the world.”

Dover said that what the two extremist Hutu militia did to the Tutsis and moderate Hutus was on the same level with what Hitler did to the Jews.

“They wanted to kill all those people, with no discrimination against age or sex,” Dover said. “Men, women, children, little babies. And not only that, but they would kill them with no remorse. They referred to the whole group as ‘cockroaches.’ There were people on the radio saying, ‘Go kill the cockroaches.’”

The film was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Awards for Best Actor (Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina) and Best Supporting Actress (Sophie Okonedo as Rusesabagina’s wife Tatiana).

Dover saw the movie in the Angelika Theater in Dallas when it was originally released in 2004. He said it’s a very vivid movie, and probably not one for the more squeamish at heart.

“But, then again,” he said, “I will say that Terry George, the man who directed the movie, he made it explicit in that you could see the people with the hatchets and the machetes, but you don’t actually see the blows. I appreciate that.”

Dover said watching the movie is an opportunity to look at and really reflect upon what the people of Rwanda went through.

“I hope the main thing people take away from watching the movie is that we have a long way to go about our humanity,” he said. “We are going to have to become more diligent in treating each other as human beings, to reach a higher level of toleration, and also an appreciation for other cultures. And, since we are in America, I hope they look closer at American foreign policies in third-world countries, and the impact of colonialism and slavery.”

Newly created Red Cross Club affiliated with city organization
Cassie Daley | Opinion Editor

Devastating hurricanes, floods and out of control fires; three forces that man has little or no control over, all of which have seemed to combine forces to deliver a basket full of devastation onto the un-expecting doorstep of the south.

From one disaster to the next, there is one nonprofit agency that has been going full-throttle trying to keep all the bases covered, the American Red Cross (ARC).

The ARC headquarters are located here in Wichita Falls, and has a faction on campus called the Red Cross Club. Although the Red Cross emblem is most widely associated with blood services and the many blood drives that sprout up all over town, there is a whole other wing dedicated solely to disaster response and services.

It is this wing that responds to all disasters, from weather-related emergencies to a single family fire sparked by a candle-flame gone awry.

“Everyone knows if there was no Red Cross, who would do the work, who would respond?” stated Peter Flynn, the director of disaster services and the only paid employee working for the disaster services side. “We probably have 30 concrete to 40 concrete volunteers. We need more of those people who come in routinely and get absorbed into the Red Cross and get the experience –  they are the ones who wind up becoming managers who can then turn around and so they can supervise all untrained volunteers that might show up at a larger disaster.”

Although, many people do not have time be a full-time volunteer, once a volunteer has the 20 hours of basic training, which is offered free through the Red Cross Club, they can act as a reserve volunteer. This role requires little or no time commitment, but allows them to serve on what is called a “strike team,” which responds to national and local disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Among the courses required are First Aide and CPR, which could be useful in many settings.

“We took 15 untrained volunteers into New Orleans the day after the hurricane hit as a disaster relief effort, and a couple of the volunteers stayed behind for an extra month,” Flynn explained about the nature of a strike team.

When Katrina and Rita hit so close to one another the usually calm Red Cross building looked something like a community center. That chaos, however, was nothing compared to the chaos caused by the recent fires.

“We had 24 clients in the Ringgold, we spent almost $30,000 in Montague County because we also responded to the Bowie fire,” Flynn said. “We’ve spent our entire year’s budget in 60 days.”

On top of the heavily publicized fires the Red Cross has also been responding to the normal fires that have broken out in the 16 counties that this division serves.  There were 16 clients in December and they have served 10 clients in January.

The Red Cross is not only strapped in man-power, but in money as well.

“The fiscal year doesn’t end until June,” explained Cynthia Thompson, in charge of event coordination. “And we have already depleted all that budget and now we’re right in the beginning of tornado season and flood season.”

Right now the employee and volunteer staff at the Red Cross are anxiously awaiting Taste of Town in March, a fund-raising event for the local Disaster Services.

“That would be a nice sort of segue-way into Red Cross Month, which helps us promote Red Cross right before the spring season hits, which is when we will have to beef up,” Thompson said. “But it will be nice to have the money, plus be a little bit more prepared. Considering our circumstances for the entire year, we can’t expect less than weird.”

The Red Cross will be making several changes to their programs and will be putting new strength behind both volunteer and donation recruitment. The recent development of the Red Cross Club on campus is one such program aiming to increase the volunteer base as well as the community’s knowledge about the Red Cross and what they do.

“[The Red Cross Club] can do a number of things; it can be there to use as a sounding board to promote preparedness and it gives us an opportunity to train,” Thompson said. “A lot of [students] didn’t realize that the Red Cross would be there for them as students and that they can learn how to help other people and help their fellow students.”

As far as donations, the Red Cross is aiming at getting more steady donors, to support the training and changes needed to better prepare the organization and the community for future emergencies.

“If we’re talking about an increase in the donor base in general, yeah, that was going to happen because of the disasters, but for regular day-to-day functions, no. It’s the incremental donors, the smaller consistent $10 and $20 a month that grease the wheel and keep things going. It’s these times in between those disasters that really count,” Thompson explained.

For more information on the Red Cross or the Red Cross Club contact Cynthia Thompson at 322-8686.