A review by maketeaa
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Roméo Dallaire

challenging dark informative slow-paced

4.25

a mammoth x-ray into the united nations and the logistics behind peacekeeping operations in the context of rwanda. dallaire takes us through the web of the UNAMIR mission that has been pulled apart by the world following the genocide, and shows us exactly all the factors there were in the play. he skimps on no detail, bringing to the forefront every interaction, every aggressor, every moment that tied the hands of the peacekeepers a little tighter that prevented them from saving any of the 800,000 lives lost. he shines a light on the shocking lack of care the UN, particularly the united states and france, had for actual humanitarian aid, and raises the question of whether UN intervention is truly based on saving lives or rather acts like the PR department for the west. he circles back to the important point that as an international community we must stop acting as though some lives are more important than others, that the sentiment of 10 american soldiers' deaths being equal to 800,000 rwandans deaths must not persist when trying to help upheaval across the east-west border.

my only gripe throughout the book, and i honestly hesitated a little to add this because of how it sounds, is that i dont think dallaire did as good of a job as he says in the conclusion of focusing on what could be done better to not have a repeat of rwanda, at least not through the meat of the book. like i said, this is a lengthy, detailed work, but i felt like there were points where details were being added simply for the shock factor. yes, the horrors of what happened should not be ignored, but i wonder whether at some point that the descriptions extend past being used to frame the main point of the failures of the response to the genocide and instead skirts the territory of gore and trauma porn.

regardless, a very informative and harrowing read.