Thoughts: Shake Hands With The Devil
Last year, during my year dedicated to getting stuff done, I made a conscious decision to not plan to do a lot of reading. I've gone most of my life with a massive "to-read" list -- I think most of us do. Every time we hear of an entertaining or worthwhile book, we sort of mentally put it on our list (which is easy) until we have this massive, unachievable mental list that we couldn't ever possibly read our way through. A few years ago, I found something called the "Lifetime Reading List" which is a list of 100+ "must read" books, which forced me to add a whole bunch of books to my reading list that I had never even heard of, simply because they were on someone else's list.
Insanity. I'm a busy guy and I don't have time to do a lot of recreational reading. I tossed out my list and set myself a reasonable goal: one book a month. I don't get a ton of time to read, but I figured I could handle that, so last January, I made myself a list consisting of some of the stuff from previous reading lists, some popular/well-publicized stuff, and -- because I've always wanted to read more Canadian literature -- I picked three winners of the previous year's Governor-General's awards as likely worthwhile Canadian literature. I actually ended up with a list of 13 books, but I figured I might be able to sneak the extra book in, since some of them were pretty short.
No such luck, of course. Things come up -- for example an ex-colleague of mine wrote and published a fantasy novel, and I simply had to read that (one line review: I looked forward to reading it every night in bed), and other things came up besides. Plus, I spent months working on some particularly good/thick/tedious stuff (Neil Stephenson) and well, by the end of the year I had only cleared about half my list.
This year, I updated my strategy -- stuck with the dozen book goal, but left some empty slots for incidental titles that would force themselves into the list, plus I determined to finish last year's list. Which brings us to Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by L. Gen Romeo Dallaire.
I think that everyone needs to read a book like this every now and then, just to come face to face with the reality of life in some parts of the world. Gen. Dallaire was the Canadian Force Commander of the United Nations' UNAMIR mission to Rwanda, during the genocide of 1994, where 800,000 people were murdered -- most of them absolutely horribly -- in the space of about 100 days as a rebel force of exiled Rwandans fought government forces for control of the small central African nation.
Dallaire is not a great writer. He dwells on seemingly insignificant details, takes far too much care to give credit and kudos to everyone who could possibly deserve any and lays out the day-to-day of his mission in a manner I generally found quite dull. But the story he tells is compelling nonetheless: a tale of viciousness, inhumanity, bloodthirsty tyrants, courageous soldiers, military genius, bureaucratic incompetence, Western indifference and malice.
The book leaves me with a few matchbook-cover thoughts: (a) The high-level structures that run our planet -- the UN, national governments and the like -- are almost entirely ineffectual, corrupt and largely incapable of dealing with an atrocity like this, (b) I have a more respect now for those who devote themselves to military service than I did before. Gen. Dallaire has my respect and admiration -- there's no way that I could have put up with the conditions he and his staff worked in. About twenty times during the narrative I muttered under my breath "Why don't you just leave? Quit! Go home". But he didn't. He stuck it out until he was literally mentally ill from the stress and horror of dealing with that situation with next-to-no support from his organization (c) the book's subtitle "The failure of humanity in Rwanda" is a misnomer. I don't think the events in Rwanda represent a failure of humanity, but simply an example of what humanity is all about. We flatter ourselves impossibly when we use the word 'humanity' as a synonym for 'kindness' or 'benevolence'. Humanity is a vicious and unforgiving lot. In terms of sheer numbers, the Rwandan genocide is tied for only 21st place in the top 30 atrocities of the last century.
Anyway. Heady stuff. Worth reading.
Insanity. I'm a busy guy and I don't have time to do a lot of recreational reading. I tossed out my list and set myself a reasonable goal: one book a month. I don't get a ton of time to read, but I figured I could handle that, so last January, I made myself a list consisting of some of the stuff from previous reading lists, some popular/well-publicized stuff, and -- because I've always wanted to read more Canadian literature -- I picked three winners of the previous year's Governor-General's awards as likely worthwhile Canadian literature. I actually ended up with a list of 13 books, but I figured I might be able to sneak the extra book in, since some of them were pretty short.
No such luck, of course. Things come up -- for example an ex-colleague of mine wrote and published a fantasy novel, and I simply had to read that (one line review: I looked forward to reading it every night in bed), and other things came up besides. Plus, I spent months working on some particularly good/thick/tedious stuff (Neil Stephenson) and well, by the end of the year I had only cleared about half my list.
This year, I updated my strategy -- stuck with the dozen book goal, but left some empty slots for incidental titles that would force themselves into the list, plus I determined to finish last year's list. Which brings us to Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by L. Gen Romeo Dallaire.
I think that everyone needs to read a book like this every now and then, just to come face to face with the reality of life in some parts of the world. Gen. Dallaire was the Canadian Force Commander of the United Nations' UNAMIR mission to Rwanda, during the genocide of 1994, where 800,000 people were murdered -- most of them absolutely horribly -- in the space of about 100 days as a rebel force of exiled Rwandans fought government forces for control of the small central African nation.
Dallaire is not a great writer. He dwells on seemingly insignificant details, takes far too much care to give credit and kudos to everyone who could possibly deserve any and lays out the day-to-day of his mission in a manner I generally found quite dull. But the story he tells is compelling nonetheless: a tale of viciousness, inhumanity, bloodthirsty tyrants, courageous soldiers, military genius, bureaucratic incompetence, Western indifference and malice.
The book leaves me with a few matchbook-cover thoughts: (a) The high-level structures that run our planet -- the UN, national governments and the like -- are almost entirely ineffectual, corrupt and largely incapable of dealing with an atrocity like this, (b) I have a more respect now for those who devote themselves to military service than I did before. Gen. Dallaire has my respect and admiration -- there's no way that I could have put up with the conditions he and his staff worked in. About twenty times during the narrative I muttered under my breath "Why don't you just leave? Quit! Go home". But he didn't. He stuck it out until he was literally mentally ill from the stress and horror of dealing with that situation with next-to-no support from his organization (c) the book's subtitle "The failure of humanity in Rwanda" is a misnomer. I don't think the events in Rwanda represent a failure of humanity, but simply an example of what humanity is all about. We flatter ourselves impossibly when we use the word 'humanity' as a synonym for 'kindness' or 'benevolence'. Humanity is a vicious and unforgiving lot. In terms of sheer numbers, the Rwandan genocide is tied for only 21st place in the top 30 atrocities of the last century.
Anyway. Heady stuff. Worth reading.
posted by Brent at 11:05 PM
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