wandering_reads 's review for:

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch

3.0

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After just over a month, I've finished it. This is an intense book, one that can't be sped through without considerable thought. It was difficult not to feel outrage at the lack of attention from the wider global community ("Rwanda does not have oil", says one survivor), and it was difficult to read through the litany of reasons why the killing continued well past the genocide in 1994. It was difficult to keep everyone straight, from where people fled, to when they returned, to the leaders and military/militia/aid groups all scrambling about during and after the genocide. It was difficult to imagine people returning home and being expected to co-exist peacefully with the people who had murdered entire families - sometimes even their own. The story of Rwanda is not finished. There is a long road ahead, and Gourevitch examines why that is the case - and why, even though we promise "never again", it does happen - again. Be prepared for a very thorough, very intense look at Rwanda beyond the premise of "Hotel Rwanda." If you think you know the story - look again. Very closely.

Primo Levi, survivor of the Holocaust, is quoted rather poignantly at the start of chapter 18: "If there is one thing sure in this world, it is certainly this: that it will not happen to us a second time" (1958, Survival in Auschwitz).

And then, he is later quoted, "It happened, therefore it can happen again; this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere" (1986, The Drowned and the Saved).

The question now is: will we do something about it next time?