Shake Hands With The Dallaire

I got to meet Romeo Dallaire today. For those who that means nothing to, Dallaire was the Force Commander of the United Nations Mission to Rwanda during the genocide. He wrote about his time there in a heart-wrenching honest book called "Shake Hands With The Devil." His book basically asked the question, "Are all humans human? Or are some more human than others?" It was one of the hardest things I've ever read and one of the most rewarding. It really an honour to hear him speak and to meet him. My job has really great perks somedays.

This post was going to be a lot more inspired, but I'm really tired and I'm going to go to bed instead. I'll leave you with a really cool excerpt from the book in my place...

What I have come to realize as the root of it all, however, is the fundamental indifference of the world community to the plight of seven to eight million black Africans in a tiny country that had no strategic or resource value to any world power. An overpopulated little country that turned in on itself and destroyed its own people, as the world watched and yet could not manage to find the political will to intervene. Engraved still in my brain is the judgment of a small group of bureaucrats who came to “asses” the situation in the first weeks of the genocide: “We will recommend to our governments not to intervene as the risks are high and all that is here are humans.”