Day 4: Hump Day
Tonight we screened "Flight From Death: The Quest For Immortality" in Kigali Rwanda, serving the dual purpose of addressing for the trip some root causes behind violence and reconciliation, and at the same time satisfying a personal dream to screen the film in Rwanda.
The decision to screen "Flight From Death" here was really made over a decade ago when the film was first completed. A documentary about the psychological human motivations for violence, "Flight From Death" drew it's inspiration from the times and places in history when human aggression has skyrocketed unchecked. Original footage from the Rwandan genocide was actually used in the film. I knew we needed to show the film in places where violence has been experienced on a grand scale. Thus, screenings over the years amidst previous student trips to Poland (where we explored Naziism and its origins), South Africa (where we examined racial hatred and apartheid), and Chile/Argentina (where we looked into political violence) as well as across Russia.
The film looks at fear of death as a primary motivator for human violence, suggesting that our fear of mortality causes us to connect strongly to personal and cultural self-esteem-enhancing symbolic constructs. The film suggests that while we find solace in connecting to these constructs (as we believe in their potential to outlast us and represent us after we are gone), there is an inherent conflict created when we encounter people who have perceptions of other constructs which are in opposition to or even simply different from our own. In terms of Rwanda, this theory helps us ask questions about why it might have been that two factions (Hutus and Tutsis) were in conflict. It also raises questions about how and why subjugation of others - enacted in Rwanda in terms of creating those societal / tribal distinctions of Hutu and Tutsi - was undertaken in the first place on the part of the colonizers here. When we have an enemy, we can try and prevail over them.
The question and answer session after the film explored some of these concepts while also raising questions of how we might counteract these patterns of subconscious thinking and thus lead ourselves and the world to a better future with less genocide, less violence, and ultimately more hope and reconciliation. As the mission of Rwanda as a country seems to be a sense of unification and cohesion, these are certainly issues the country will need to face as it expands its history amidst it's tangled past.
Related: See coverage of the event in The East Africanhttp://allafrica.com/stories/201604040314.html.
