Review by scaevolaepub - Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

scaevolaepub 's review for:

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Roméo Dallaire

4.0

This was a long read. And a heavy one. But it’s the kind of book that demands to be read. Slowly, painfully, page after page. Because this isn’t just history—it’s horror. Real, lived, unimaginable horror. And General Dallaire makes sure that every single detail, no matter how small, is presented with precision and accuracy, to show readers not only what happened in Rwanda, but why it happened—and how the seeds were sown decades earlier.

Reading this filled me with anger. With hatred. With قهر (9ahr)—that deep, helpless fury that burns in your chest when you see injustice and can do nothing to stop it.

The genocide didn’t begin with machetes and gunfire—it began with colonialism. With European settlers turning ethnic groups into categories. Tutsis vs. Hutus. Privilege vs. resentment. Divide and conquer. And when things finally exploded into 100 days of blood and fire, the so-called “civilized” world looked away.

This book is a record of that betrayal. It shows how France played its part. How bureaucracy killed people. How orders and chain of command became more sacred than innocent lives. How the UN soldiers—people like Dallaire—couldn’t legally intervene even as children were being murdered right in front of their eyes.

Help was always “on the way.” But it was delayed. Deliberately. Obstructed. Paperwork. Politics. Excuses. Meanwhile, opportunistic first-world countries did what they do best: they ran away when the bullets started, then turned around and sold Rwanda defective Cold War garbage for millions. It was never about saving lives. It was about profit. It always is.

But what makes this book truly important is not just its emotional weight. It’s that Shake Hands with the Devil is more than a memoir. It’s a living index—a record of names. The people who tried to help. The people who ignored it. And the people who profited from genocide. It’s a book that refuses to let the guilty hide in history’s footnotes. A permanent reminder that these people existed, and what they did—or didn’t do—should never, ever be forgotten.

This book didn’t just break my heart. It filled me with rage. And it reminded me that the greatest crime of all isn’t hatred—it’s indifference.