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Paul RusesabaginaA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Rusesabagina introduces himself as the man who risked his life to save the lives of over 1,200 people by sheltering them in the hotel he manages in the mist of the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
Rusesabagina rues the failure of Rwanda to rise above hatred between its two main ethnicities, Tutsis and the Hutus, since the idea that these are identities are in conflict is a baseless “leftover from history” (x)—a divide installed and exploited by 19th century European colonizers and 20th century Western democracies. Nevertheless, in the late spring and early summer of 1994, this division becomes “the difference between life and death” (x), as Rwanda descends into genocidal chaos.
Rusesabagina describes horrors like the injured dying slowly from wounds and “perhaps looking at their own severed limbs” (xi). He explains that he is able to protect 1,268 people because of the skills he developed during his career in the hospitality industry. Relying on hotelier knowledge and his own personal charm, Rusesabagina reasons with marauders the same way he would calm unhappy hotel guests. He asks his large circle of professional acquaintances for help. Ultimately, he writes that “the only thing that saved those 1,268 people in my hotel was words” (xv).
The introduction centers on three themes: the power of words, the non-heroic nature of Rusesabagina, and the ways Rwanda’s colonial history still impacts the country.
For Rusesabagina, the only reason that he manages to survive the Rwandan genocide is his ability to talk his way through a situation: “words are the most effective weapons of death in man’s arsenal. But they can also be powerful tools of life. They may be the only ones” (xv). After turning the Mille Collines, the luxury hotel he manages, into a harbor for Tutsi and moderate Hutu refugees, he courageously utilizes a combination of mediation and pleading, or trickery and lies to protect them.
At the same time, Rusesabagina classifies his heroic actions as standard and unexceptional:
I am nothing more or less than a hotel manager, trained to negotiate contracts and charged to give shelter to those who need it. My job did not change in the genocide, even though I was thrust into a sea of fire. […] I did what I believed to be the ordinary things that an ordinary man would do (xvi).
The introduction expresses Rusesabagina’s disappointment at Rwanda’s failure to get beyond the ethnic divide imposed by its white colonizers. He also blames Western democracies and international organizations such as the United Nations for failing to help avert the catastrophe.