The Indominability of the Human Spirit.

by Patsy Moore

Hello, friends.

At this, the five-year mark of the horrific attacks which shook our country, we find ourselves contemplating much—not least of which is the indominability of the human spirit. Throughout recorded time (and, no doubt, before), men and women have found themselves gripped by fear, by terror, by grief, by the seemingly insuperable—and, then, have lived to rise again, each a phoenix ascendent from the ash heap.

I've meant, for some time, to share with you a story that's punctuated by this very Truth. I offer it to you, now—better late than never.

"Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit."
- Bernard (Arthur Owen) Williams

Dan Savage is an absolutely lovely man who, along with his business partner Alan Rothenberg, runs SR Productions, one of the U.S.' leading organizers of speakers' series. 2006 has marked the second impressive manifestation of the Music Center Speaker Series, made possible by a collaboration between SRP and the Music Center/Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County. This season's focus has been on the weighty matters of Media and American Influence; Culture, Consensus, and Consequence; Foreign Policy and Compromise; Dissent and Judgment; and Power and National Conduct.

Dan invited me to experience a particular evening of the series: Tuesday, April 4, at Walt Disney Concert Hall. On that night, in that place, all eyes, ears, hearts and minds were trained on Paul Rusesabagina (Roo-say-sa-ba-GEE-nah), impeccably portrayed by actor, Don Cheadle in the moving film Hotel Rwanda.

By now, few of us haven't been wrenched by what happened, in Rwanda, over the course of 100 days in the spring of 1994. An estimated 800,000 people met their demise—the vast majority hacked to death by machete, the others laid waste by machine guns. Rusesabagina, then a well-liked, resourceful hotel manager with an uncanny gift of negotiation, saved 1268 of his countrymen—and women—by turning the luxury Belgian inn under his charge (Hotel Mille Collines) into a haven from senseless genocide.

It's painful to consider the atrocities which occurred in east central Africa eleven years ago, as well as the international inactivity which allowed them to flourish for over three months. It's even more painful to hear a first-hand account of that madness. Rusesabagina spoke softly and evenly, but his words packed a mean punch. In a room where one might easily have heard a pin drop, the avuncularly-visaged gentleman, clad in a simple gray suit, told of class warfare, the lack of any real distinction between Hutus and Tutsis, and the corollaries of poor leadership. He recounted cruel trickery (many Tutsis were told that they had to attend militia meetings, only to be murdered upon arrival); torture (mobs would cut off a victim's hand, return in a few hours to cut off a foot, come back later for another hand, and so forth, until the suffering were willing to pay to be put to immediate death); and refugee camps without food, water, shelter, sewage, or privacy.

Two details continue to stay with me. The first is of Rusesabagina's 15-year-old-son, who left the house to meet with a neighbor's children and discovered the entire family dead in their yard. The boy ran all the way back home, locked himself in his room, and didn't—or, perhaps, couldn't—speak for four days. The second came during the Q&A directly following Rusesabagina's speech. An angular Episcopal minister stood in the audience and asked what the Christian church had done to assist Rwandans in their hour of need. Without hesitancy, through clenched teeth, Rusesabagina responded, "Almost nothing." He said that Muslims had actually done more than any other religious group to help. The clergyman's remorse was palpable. From across the dimly-lit room, he looked the speaker in the eye, and said, "On behalf of all of us who call ourselves Christians, I express our shame, I apologize, and I ask for your forgiveness." Rusesabagina nodded slowly and solemnly in the broken man's direction.

Paul Rusesabagina makes an enormous impression, yes, because he seems free of bitterness; because it can't be easy to relive such events night after night in speaking engagement after speaking engagement, even when one feels morally compelled to do just that; and because of his plain-spoken acknowledgement of the inertia of the global community while his country—his people, his friends, his neighbors, his family—begged for their lives. But, primarily, this man's story reverberates because he is, as the title of his autobiography declares, An Ordinary Man. He was as any of the rest of us—until extraordinary circumstances called him forth to lead, to succor, to protect, to encourage, to love. Maybe it's better stated this way: He was as we all are until extraordinary circumstances call us forth to be more, the most, that we can be. And we answer.

What do we do when blood flows freely in the streets? When our pillars become ground zero? When the levées break? Hopefully, we rise again. We lead, succor, protect, encourage, and love. We see our own reflections in the faces of our neighbors, the world over. We dispense with rhetoric; scrape together, from the detritus, what may still be of use; and begin the process of rebuilding, rebirth. And when we proclaim, "Never again!", we do so with a fervent commitment to the fulfillment of that cry. Edmund Burke was correct: All that's necessary for the triumph of evil is for the good among us to do nothing.

Peace and Light!
Patsy Moore