“Us vs. Them” in Hotel Rwanda

Recently, I had the experience of spending a night at the Hôtel des Mille Collines, the very hotel where Paul Rusesabagina saved over 1,200 lives during the genocide. Walking through its corridors, I felt the weight of history pressing down on every step. I spoke with locals and listened to survivors’ courage, fear, and resilience stories. What shocked me most was how, despite the lingering trauma, Rwanda has emerged as a united nation—not Hutu or Tutsi, but as one people. Today, the deadly “us vs. them” divide has given way to a shared “us,” a collective identity that underscores the resilience of the human spirit.

Hotel Rwanda is based on the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who sheltered refugees from the Rwandan genocide. In 1994, over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were brutally murdered by Hutu extremists in a meticulously orchestrated campaign of ethnic cleansing. For Tutsis, their very identity became a death sentence.

In the movie, the young child’s plea—“I promise not to be Tutsi anymore”—reveals the unbearable weight of this reality. It is a moment of pure survival instinct, an attempt to escape danger by shedding the identity that has made them a target. This scene captures the human cost of the “us vs. them” dynamic, showing how deeply such divisions can penetrate even the most innocent and vulnerable minds.