So this weekend I went to an international movie, Munyurangabo, hosted by BYU. It was about Rwanda. An earlier blog of mine talks about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I figured it would directly cover the war and the horrors of the genocide. It didn't. It was still based off of actual events but it was filmed years later and focused on the aftermath of the war and what it is like to live there now.

A young, orphaned Tutsi boy, MAYBE 15,  travels across the country looking for the man who killed his father. Other than the machete he carries in his backpack he seems like a very normal young teenanger. He has a sense of humor and shows love for his best friend, travelling companion- not stereotypical traits of a killer. I have to say the ending, when he finds the guy, is very touching.

After I the movie I went home and I was thinking about all this. My roommate started telling me about her day, and about this movie she watched the night before. It was about this father who's son was killed by a gang member. He found the gang member began beating him up, something went wrong and unintentionally killed him. The gang member's brother and friends killed either the dad or the dad's family, i forget which. My roommate then said, "If I killed anyone it would be gang members and rapists."

It's interesting to see that my roommates reaction to a MOVIE was similar to the boys- they both wanted to kill. I think the movie has application beyond these extreme examples. Hate and prejeduce don't just go away. The Rwandan Holocaust killed between 500,000 to 1 million people. Obviously, the people doing the killing are still around and it's not like they all of a sudden decided they like Tutsi's. Also, that much killing is going to leave a tremendous amount of emotional damage to the survivors. Wouldn't you want revenge? Somewhere along the line someone's just has to turn the other cheek, or the hate cycle continues.