Daniel Dublin International Political Economy

AB Foreign Service/ FS 302 Sir. Jumel G. Estrañero

FILM CRITIQUE: HOTEL RWANDA

and its connection to the Philippine Political Economy

In the film our class have watched entitled Hotel Rwanda, I have observed some thematic
experiences that the main characters, like Paul Rusesabagina and his wife, Tatiana experienced.
Genocide is one of the most seen thematic experiences of the Tutsi race. Hutus are trying to
eliminate the Tutsi race to the Rwanda because they believed that Tutsis are terrorists and traitors.
Hutus started to take action to eliminate Tutsis when their president was killed by some group of
Tutsis. All of the Hutus started to invade houses lived by Tutsis and killed them dramatically.
Even Tutsi children and elders are killed and abused by Hutus and left their bodies in the middle
of the road. Another one thematic experience that the characters in the story experienced was
racism. Hutus have considered Tutsis cockroaches in the whole video. They see them as pests to
their country so they believed that they have to be killed and eliminated so that the Hutu rave
will dominate the country.

Racism from white people is also experienced by the people of colour in the Rwanda. In
the midst of the calamity, white people from different organizations like United Nations are
helping the Rwandan people to survive and avoid danger during the genocide but in the middle
of it, German army came expected to help Rwandan people especially the Tutsis to survive but
they came to pull out all white people to send back to their country and left out the black people
to do their own business in their own country in surviving the calamity.

Last one of the thematic experiences is the lack of leadership in the country, since the
president of the country was killed by some Tutsi group, the political power of the government
of the Rwanda became weak and the Hutu people became wild without the authority of the
president. Their plan to eliminate and kill all Tutsis is engaged without the intervention of the
president since the president is dead. In this situation, we can see that once a country lost a leader
or a country have no leader, the country will experience a huge change in terms of peace. There
will be no one who will control or lead people who abuse their power or freedom and that will
cause destruction to human race.

In the movie, Hotel Rwanda, an issue was given more importance and attention and that
is the security. Security is the condition of being protected and safe from harm. In the context of
a state, national security was referred as the security of a nation state, its citizens, economy and
institutions and it was a duty of government to provide national security to its country. Before
wideness of the scope of national security, the government only focuses on the protection against
attacks from terrorists and other country's military attacks. But as time period changes, national
security was now widened in the scope of non-military dimensions like economic security,
energy security, environmental, food and cyber security etc. In a state, security has a crucial role
in the field of its political economy. It protects not just its citizens and the government from
future conflict; it also maintains the development of the economy of a state. In the region of
Asia-Pacific where there are countries which are striving to achieve sustainable development,
they see security as one of the most important elements in order to achieve and maintain the
political and economic development, like economic, energy, food, environment and cyber
security in a state. When one country has a weak security condition, there will be possible attacks
from military and terrorist groups, shortage in food, natural resources and energy, and there will
be a downfall on the political economic of a state. In the Asian countries that are claimants of the
islands in the South China Sea, security is one of their major concerns to improve in preparation
for any future conflicts of claimants if tension keeps arising.

In my own observation and opinion, peace should come first before the development of a
state. Peace, especially on the citizens of a state should be established first for them to be able to
develop for themselves. Peace should be established first on the hands of the people of the state
and on the other hand, a good leader to govern and guide the people to establish and maintain
peace. When the development comes first and there is no peaceful relationship between people
and states, these development will be null because it may not be useful to the people since there
is no good relationship established between people and the state and these development may be
destroyed if there will be future conflicts within the state. In the Philippine context, I can see that
it have established a good strategy in attaining peaceful and sustainable development. It started
with our current leader, President Rodrigo Duterte where he uses his iron fists to maintain peace
and lead the people. These iron fists and strong personality helped the people to really follow the
governance of the Philippine government. With its relationship to China, it has stained because
of island-claiming activities in the South China Sea but in today's government, President Duterte
have made a good strategy for them to avoid conflicts between China by making a peaceful and
stronger relationship with Chinese government despite of the issue in the South China Sea.

As a Filipino, I could recommend to the government for us to avoid future conflicts and
incidents just like what happened in the movie, Hotel Rwanda. I recommend to the leaders of the
Philippines to establish first stronger relationships among tribes, ethnics, and even religions. The
Philippines should start first from the smaller groups for it to become wide and develop as time
goes by. It is one of the major problems in the settings of the movie where there is a conflict
between the Hutus and Tutsis and that conflict became worse than before and that came to
genocide. I also recommend to our government to establish more better and effective strategies,
laws and regulations for them to maintain a peaceful and sustainable development in the
Philippines. Having a better strategies, laws and regulations, future conflicts may be avoided or
lessen when the time comes that tension between people of the state or states arises. I also
recommend that the Republic of the Philippines should establish stronger and peaceful
relationships with states like China, US, Russia and more states. The Philippines does not have a
strong military power and economic power like these three powerful states. Now, when tension
between the Philippines and any among these three states, it will be a downfall on the political
and economic power of the Philippines. Lastly, the people of the Philippines should choose a
wise and effective leader to govern the Philippines and guide and lead the people towards a
peaceful and sustainable development. With a good leader, peace may not be obtained, but good
relationships may establish and with these, development follows.