Beyond the Gates

I was watching television with my brothers and came across the film Beyond the Gates (2005). The film depicted a particular massacre that occurred in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994 and starred the still-wonderful John Hurt and the emerging Hugh Dancy as westerners caught in the chaos.

I only saw the last hour of the film, but that portion of the movie was brilliant. I'd need to see the rest of the movie first, but what I saw was possibly better than the great Hotel Rwanda. The film was directed by Michael-Caton Jones, who also directed Rob Roy, The Jackal, and the GREAT Basic Instinct 2 (I don't why he directed that movie?). Despite the unevenness of his career, I was very impressed by with his work in Beyond the Gates.

Much like Hotel Rwanda, the film highlights the supreme moral failure of the United Nations and the United States in preventing in any of the genocide in Rwanda. Every time I watch something about the Rwandan genocide, the same question invariably comes to mind:

"Where was the United Nations?" I know this seems like a capricious and useless question. After all, we can question all we want but that doesn't make any of the 800,000 dead come back to life. But I actually think this question is relevant for today. Has the UN changed significantly since 1994? Obviously not, since thousands of have been killed in a similar genocidal event in Darfur, Sudan.

Listen... I strive to be a citizen of the world, so I support the United Nations. I thought Bush's decision to invade Iraq-without substantive international support-was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. That is not the way major powers should further their interests in the world, and unfortunately it was a case in which we caused the genocide. But part of me also understands the argument that the UN has in many ways been in an ineffective institution. How I differ from the neo-conservative hawks is that I think the remedy to that arrangement is to STRENGTHEN the United Nations. And, in cases when the United Nations is not strong enough, then the United States should step in.

I know that statement might surprise some people, considering my general foreign policy views, which stress international negotiation over force, but in cases of genocide it is morally imperative that some power take the initiative. This is actually an area in which I differ with other liberals, who believe the United States should leave Iraq, Afghanistan and recede fully from non-domestic involvement in the world. While I do believe we should leave Iraq, and possibly Afghanistan, it is not because I disagree with the principles of a global activism.