We wish to inform you....

"What distinguishes genocide from murder, and even from acts of political murder that claim as many victims, is the intent. The crime is wanting to make a people extinct. The idea is the crime. No wonder it's so difficult to picture. To do so you must accept the principle of the exterminator, and see not people but a people."
- Philip Gourevitch, We wish to inform you that
tomorrow we will be killed with our families (201-02)

"An animal will kill, but never to completely annihilate a race, a whole collectivity. What does that make us in this world?"
- Edmond Mrugamba, in We wish to inform you that
tomorrow we will be killed with our families (239)


Philip Gourevitch's We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families is a masterfully written account of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (genocides in Rwanda, we learn from him, have years attached to them). By compiling and combining information about Rwanda's history and especially the effects of colonization, its culture, its geography, first-hand accounts of victims, interviews, conversations, anecdotal information and records, and what he saw himself, he has produced a book that can be trusted as to its truth and its integrity. Unfortunately, it also leaves one with the feeling that 1994 won't be the last year in which Rwanda will experience genocide.

Gourevitch does a wonderful job of mixing the above in a way that informs us and pulls us along. He starts with his first-hand account of what he saw in a church a year after a massacre had occurred there; the bodies were left as they were at the time of the massacre (15), establishing its reality. He also draws us in to the importance of conformity: "Conformity is very deep, very developed here...In Rwandan history, everybody obeys authority," says a lawyer Gourevitch questioned (23). Early on, we are given a key to the seemingly senseless behavior tht follows. The "Hutu Ten Commandments" (including "Hutus must stop having mercy on the Tutsis") (88) are particularly chilling, but worse is the Hamitic theory of John Hanning Speke, which would have ramifications more than a century later. Under this meaningless theory, simplified here, Tutsis are seen as stately and superior, while Hutus are seen as dark peasants (50). Even though Rwandans themselves admit they cannot themselves tell a Hutu from a Tutsi, the Belgian colonizers exploited the differences, favoring the Tutsis (55). It was only natural that the ensuing Hutu resentment (Hutus being the majority population) would result in backlash. In a brief paragraph, Gourevitch says much:

"Apparently, Hutu and Tutsi identities took definition only in relationship to state power; as they did, the two groups inevitably developed their own distinctive cultures--their own set of ideas about themselves and one another--according to their respective domains. Those ideas were largely framed as opposing negatives: a Hutu was what a Tutsi was not, and vice versa. ... Rwandans who sought to make the most of these distinctions were compelled to amplify minute and imprecise field marks, like the prevelance of milk in one's diet, and, especially, physical traits (50).

Gourevetich lets others tell their stories through him, such as Odette, the Tutsi doctor, who had numerous harrowing encounters as she and her family survived death threats and moves around and in and out of the country. She later learns that another doctor, a Hutu who has the same name as hers, was imprisoned, tortured, and executed because she was though to be Odette the Tutsi (84). When it is over, she says, "This life after genocide is really a terrible life...the trauma comes back much more as time passes..." (236). Bonaventure Nyibizi relates how he tries to save his family by taking sanctuary with in a Catholic church, only to be betrayed by a priest who lets the interahamwe--the brutal and lawless Hutu bands of killers--massacre many of the thousands seeking refuge there (124-25). Many pages later, he returns to his hometown of Kigali, and finds few people he knows left (230). Particularly poignant is the story of Laurencie Nyirabeza, who must face the fact that the Hutu man who killed most of her family, most of them her children and grandchildren, is back in town Ironically, she has lost her home, while the killer has returned to his (303-05).

I'm sure most of the reports will cover the historical and political background Gourevetich gives us and the shameful behavior at all levels (he gives a good concise listing of reasons for the genocide on page 180): the ethnic manipulation of the colonizing Belgians, themselves a split country because of language; the willingness of the Hutus to kill without question their neighbors, friends, and even family members; the deliberately orchestrated powerlessness of the United Nations and is forces; the unbelievable meddling and misguided behavior of the French; the consequent displacement of the Hutus, with the same genocidaires and interahamwe carrying their mission of death with them to the camps; the attitudes of the aid workers, who flee at the first sign of trouble; and, most shameful of all, the lack of willingness of the United States, through Madeleine Albright and Bill Clinton, to acknowledge what was happening in Rwanda. Although they make the appropriate apology later (350-352), they have hundreds of thousands of possibly preventable deaths on their consciences.

It is hard to do justice to all the aspects of Gourevitch's book in such a short space, so I'll just focus on a few more things before closing. First, the symbolism of the radio and the machete cannot be overlooked. Going back to the statement above about the cultured obedience of Rwandans, the power of the voices on the Hutu Power radio is stunning in its implication. Visually reinforced in the movie Hotel Rwanda, we see how it is the single most important determinant in starting and maintaining the genocide. Gourevitch gives it its full due in his book. The machete, horrible in its simplicity, effective in its murderous intent, accomplished more than bullets could--and more cheaply, also. These two things remain singular to me; among the complexity of the many names and places and dates and people and events that Gourevitch lays out for us to digest, they to me are the symbols of the genocide.

Also, I was surprised when, at the end, Gourevitch mentions the book McTeague by Frank Norris. I read this for a class years ago, and its movie version can be seen from time to time on movie channels. However, it is for the most part obscure now--it's very old--but worth looking into, even though Gourevitch has revealed the ending. Its symbolism is appropriate here.

Finally, after several hundred pages of being emotionally pushed and pulled and having to stop reading from time to time to get away from the horror, I thought that the height of Gourevitch's accomplishment with this book was its ending: a simple tale of the courage of school girls, "those brave Hutu girls who could have chosen to live, but chose instead to call themselves Rwandans" (353). Gourevitch deserves the prizes he has received for his writing about something so large and incomprehensible and putting it together in such a readable way; his tribute to a few girls who would not give in to the madness around them perfects and completes his efforts.