[afroman_colt45]

if u have ever seen the movie hotel rwanda you will feel a sense of leadership in one single man this ia excellent movie u should watch it it is about genocide between blacks and whites

[emersonbiggins]

if u have ever seen the movie hotel rwanda you will feel a sense of leadership in one single man this ia excellent movie u should watch it it is about genocide between blacks and whites

Actually, it was about Hutus and Tutsis, both tribes of black Africans. Whitey did skip town, though. But, you're right, it is a good movie.

[PenultimateManStanding]

This was my thoughts on this interesting and sad movie, posted a while back:

I watched Hotel Rwanda a couple nights back. What a sad and chilling movie. The Rwandan manager of a high class hotel in Rwanda had a good life managing the hotel for its Belgian owners. The Belgians had picked a group of Rwandans during the colonial period to run the colony for them. These were the Tutsis. They were taller with sharper noses and lighter skin color. They were resented by the Hutus. The hotel manager had a nice family that lived a regular 'modern' middle class life. Nice house. The kids drew pictures with crayons and had nice toys. This manager wore nice suits and had 'style' and gave out Cuban cigars to business associates. When the social situation fell apart and the Hutus were killing millions of Tutsis with machetes that they got from China at ten cents apiece, refugees were staying at the hotel awaiting rescue by the French Army. Well, the French troops show up, but its only to take the European guests to safety. The Rwandans were to be left to be butchered. The hotel manager has a serious identity crisis as he realizes that his whole life was an illusion, a lie. He has no identity. This is exactly what is about to happen to millions of people living in the West. No identities apart from their possessions and 'lifestyle'. Nice clothes, fancy cars, amazing consumer gadgets, non-stop 'entertainment'. Its all a bubble of illusion, a lie.

[rockdoc123]

Actually, it was about Hutus and Tutsis, both tribes of black Africans. Whitey did skip town, though. But, you're right, it is a good movie.

Actually the last man standing was Romeo Dallaire who was a French Canadian commanding the UN forces. If you want to really understand what went on back then read his book "Shake Hands with the Devil". He was basically powerless to do what he knew needed to be done to stop the genocide. A very moving book....and Nick Nolte portraying him in the movie was an insult at best.

[emersonbiggins]

Actually the last man standing was Romeo Dallaire who was a French Canadian commanding the UN forces. If you want to really understand what went on back then read his book "Shake Hands with the Devil". He was basically powerless to do what he knew needed to be done to stop the genocide. A very moving book....and Nick Nolte portraying him in the movie was an insult at best.

And herein lies the problem with watching a movie and not reading anything.

[holmes]

LOL. Whata bout hotel americana. Hehe. Kill.
The images the media dont want u to see. This is the majority. sorry to hurt your feelings. rather humorous yet chilling.

http://www.wehategringos.com/index2.shtml

[UIUCstudent01]

LOL. Whata bout hotel americana. Hehe. Kill.
The images the media dont want u to see. This is the majority. sorry to hurt your feelings. rather humorous yet chilling.

http://www.wehategringos.com/index2.shtml

That's a hilarious site...

[holmes]

This was my thoughts on this interesting and sad movie, posted a while back:

I watched Hotel Rwanda a couple nights back. What a sad and chilling movie. The Rwandan manager of a high class hotel in Rwanda had a good life managing the hotel for its Belgian owners. The Belgians had picked a group of Rwandans during the colonial period to run the colony for them. These were the Tutsis. They were taller with sharper noses and lighter skin color. They were resented by the Hutus. The hotel manager had a nice family that lived a regular 'modern' middle class life. Nice house. The kids drew pictures with crayons and had nice toys. This manager wore nice suits and had 'style' and gave out Cuban cigars to business associates. When the social situation fell apart and the Hutus were killing millions of Tutsis with machetes that they got from China at ten cents apiece, refugees were staying at the hotel awaiting rescue by the French Army. Well, the French troops show up, but its only to take the European guests to safety. The Rwandans were to be left to be butchered. The hotel manager has a serious identity crisis as he realizes that his whole life was an illusion, a lie. He has no identity. This is exactly what is about to happen to millions of people living in the West. No identities apart from their possessions and 'lifestyle'. Nice clothes, fancy cars, amazing consumer gadgets, non-stop 'entertainment'. Its all a bubble of illusion, a lie.

I fear ur right. and it will be like a thief in the night. thats how these overshoot things usually work. especially with the high flash gunpowder we have embedded in the west. Im not sure they will be warrior ready. You will need to have the killer instinct. No regrets. no remorse. even if u have to kill a 13 year old gang banger. girl. boy. man. woman. child. Its either u or them. No second thoughts as u are pointing the firearm at the usurper. That second could mean your life. Personally i am not going to have a problem doing these things. It will be when I stop and think about the actions after they were completed. But if soemone is coming to hack me with a machete. lead will be flying.

[Doly]

Im not sure they will be warrior ready. You will need to have the killer instinct. No regrets. no remorse. even if u have to kill a 13 year old gang banger. girl. boy. man. woman. child. Its either u or them. No second thoughts as u are pointing the firearm at the usurper. That second could mean your life. Personally i am not going to have a problem doing these things.

It is people like you that will turn America into the sort of Mad Max nightmare that everybody else would like to avoid.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Im not sure they will be warrior ready. You will need to have the killer instinct. No regrets. no remorse. even if u have to kill a 13 year old gang banger. girl. boy. man. woman. child. Its either u or them. No second thoughts as u are pointing the firearm at the usurper. That second could mean your life. Personally i am not going to have a problem doing these things.

It is people like you that will turn America into the sort of Mad Max nightmare that everybody else would like to avoid.

I can see why you would say that, doly, but it sounds to me like he is speaking in this context of the genocide in Rwanda. There was also what happened in Cambodia, where it was kids that were responsible for the killing fields. You did leave out this part of his post, "But if someone is coming to hack me with a machete, lead will be flying." A big danger in a chaotic situation will be the 13-16 year olds who band together in predator gangs. I don't think, though, that loners will fare well in such a situation. Preserving order will be important and it will have to be the level headed and more mature people who work together to keep the violence-prone kids in check.

[holmes]

PMS dot dont sweat it bro. "They know not what they do." Dazed and confused. That old cheap energy has made many delusional and drunk with utopia. As my Nutritional Anthropologist friend PHD freind says: "The U.S. is due for a massive dose of reality." They also think little of their offspring. These offspring will be like newborn lambs led to the slaughter. Its called living in denial. Not the river. If they dont get the dose our children will. Funny shit this stuff. While people get hacked with machetes in other countries they are telling me im the one to keep away from as I try and protect us from the atrocities. Fucked up delusional thinkers based on cheap energy live within our walls.
Doly Im sorry for your condition. seek help. Your children and family will thank u later on down the road. peace.

[holmes]

PMS is absolutely right. These "extra throwaways" we are spewing out and that are pouring in are going to be the most nasty and brutal. Children are raising children. children do not have rationality. See liberia (I think thats the one with 8 year olds and RPGs hacking and stacking the adults). Where are the adults. sucking back a 40 or working nonstop making that bling. lets get real here folks. Our irresponsibility and greed are not going to have consequences? Really now. cmon. unfocused and lost hate is growing like a weed worldwide. also the ones screaming nazi are becoming what they scream against.

[holmes]

also the most important aspect of all:

Machines are raising children.

[Nickel]

This is kind of interesting.

As Anglo exiles take reins, Rwanda bids French adieu

STEPHANIE NOLEN
The Globe and Mail
October 17, 2008

KIGALI -- In Bourbon Coffee, Kigali's hippest gathering spot, well-dressed young Rwandans lounge on the comfy couches, eat burgers and chat. They speak in Kinyarwanda, they speak in French, but more and more these days, when they call out to friends, when they order lunch, when they flirt - they speak in English.

It's all about English in Rwanda these days: Land at the airport, and the immigration staff say "Welcome to Kigali!" Grab a taxi, and the driver says, "Where to?" The road signs are in English, the government ministries that dot the hills around the capital are labelled in English, the beer billboards and cellphone ads and condom commercials are in English. One of the most popular newspapers in town, and some of the most successful radio stations, are English.

And that's all a little surprising, since Rwanda was colonized by French-speaking Belgians, is a long-standing member of the Francophonie and runs its schools in French.

Or rather, it did until last week, when Kigali announced that, after the first few years in Kinyarwanda, students would be taught in English - sealing the decision that English, not French, would be the language of the country's future.

It's a bold move - perhaps the first time that a country ever switched languages (and all of the cultural and political associations that go with them) overnight.

The change had been brewing for a while, and it has its roots in Rwanda's tragic recent history. Around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered by Hutu extremists and their supporters in the 1994 genocide, which was ended after 100 days by a Tutsi-dominated rebel force led by Paul Kagame.

He quickly took office as the new president, and surrounded himself with advisers and ministers who are, like him, Tutsis whose families had fled previous episodes of ethnic-based slaughter to the neighbouring countries of Uganda and Tanzania, and so grew up as English-speakers. They were profoundly angry with France, whose military had trained and armed the Interahamwe, as the Hutu militia was known, who carried out the genocide.

Just three months after the end of the genocide, they made English an official language - even though very few people in Rwanda then spoke it. It joined Kinyarwanda, which remains the mother tongue of Rwandans of all classes, and French, introduced by the Belgians 90 years earlier.

But hundreds of thousands of Tutsi refugees came home in the years that followed, and many took up new positions of influence in the public sector or business. French-speaking Rwandans began to learn English; private English tutorial companies sprang up all over Kigali and the other major cities. Then the country's leading technical institute announced that English would be its primary language. Rwanda joined the East African Community - a zone of political and trade co-operation that includes English-speaking Kenya and Uganda - and applied to join the Commonwealth.

The decision about the country's schools is simply the latest, most decisive and formal step. "Look at the advantages of Rwanda being strong in English," enthused Yisa Claver, director of policy in the Education Ministry.

"English is now the business language. Rwanda is trying to be a knowledge-based economy. English is the language of research. We're trying to be a regional hub of ICT [information and communications technology] and English is the language of ICT. Rwanda is now in the East African Community, where the official language is English. Rwanda is trying to have a service industry as a priority - we don't have diamonds and minerals and all those things, we want tourism and all those guys speak English . . . China! The World Bank! The UN! Their first language is English. For God's sake, this is a noble decision."

Many tech-and-media-savvy young Rwandans had already decided that their future lies in English. "I grew up speaking French," said Jean-Pierre Niyitanga, 25, who manages a media training project. His parents still speak to him in Kinyarwanda. But these days, he goes by J.P. and when he chats at Bourbon Coffee, it's in English.

Yet many people detect more than practical motives for the language shift. "I think it's politics," said Hajji Sadiq, a Kigali tax consultant in his 50s. Far more people speak English than French, and there would be no reason to make the abrupt official change if a larger point were not being made, he said.

The French Cultural Centre in Rwanda has been shuttered and abandoned - like the French embassy - since relations with the country were severed in 2006, amid competing allegations about France's role in the genocide and a move by France to indict Mr. Kagame for the murder of the previous president.

"Some people will believe this is a continuation of the deterioration of the relationship between France and Rwanda, that Rwanda is 'doing whatever it can to humiliate France,' " acknowledged Jean-Baptiste Rusine, the director of the language department at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology.

Mr. Claver, of the Education Ministry, firmly denied that. "English is not the end result - it's an instrument to get better business, and if French would do this for us we'd [be teaching in French] - but we're not getting anything out of French."

Across from Mr. Claver's office at the ministry sits a room full of British and American advisers from the World Bank and Britain's aid agency, who are helping to rewrite Rwanda's curriculum.

Regardless of motives, the language shift will be complex and costly. "The number one challenge is the number of qualified English language trainers. Who is going to train the pedagogic and educational population?" Prof. Rusine asked, speaking excellent English in an accent with hints of Inspector Clouseau. "What of our professors of social or applied sciences - they've got PhDs, yet although they can communicate in English, they will have great difficulty to teach in it. So the policy is there but in practice the shift may come gradually."

Officially French will continue to be taught as a school subject but will no longer be a medium of instruction; in practice, only a small number of teachers can now teach in English. Prof. Rusine also noted that the great majority of Rwandans are subsistence farmers who are literate only in Kinyarwanda, if anything, and speak neither colonial language.

Mr. Sadiq, the businessman, who learned French at school and knows no English, said he would like to learn, so he can deal with the foreigners pouring in here - but he fears the policy switch is going to produce a nation that speaks neither language well, adding parallel English and French instruction would have been a better approach.

But Mr. Claver said that is simply not feasible for Rwanda.

"Maybe you Canadians don't see the need [to switch from one to the other]," he said. "But it's very expensive to have both."

[Kaj]

Also this:

English language taking over the world

But the reasons are not just imperial; I read that there are linguistic reasons too that English tends to dominate other languages. Being a nuanced bastard language had something to do with it, as did the fact that the English language is very noun-based. So, for instance we very quickly turn nouns like 'email' 'phone' and 'text' into verbs that are easy to pronounce and become global phenomenons.

[Nickel]

we very quickly turn nouns like 'email' 'phone' and 'text' into verbs that are easy to pronounce and become global phenomenons.

I think the way words can cross the boundaries of the parts of speech fairly easily in English is one of its strengths... it means someone who doesn't know the finer points isn't hampered by having to remember too many word endings to adapt the words. You just kind of throw them out there and if the subject and object are where people expect them, you can usually get your basic point across.

Where we fall down is the spelling. It's really chaotic. That's because we often adopt words from other languages without adapting the spelling; just accept them as-is, because that's how we took words from French. One day, I suppose, we might all get together and try to work out a common spelling system, but I kind of doubt it. Whose pronunciation would trump? Would we lose touch with what had been written in our own language before? Tricky. But this is what we've got to work with.

[galacticsurfer]

I think "Globo" or simplified English can become a widespread form of communication across the world. Like Lingua Franca of Mediterranean traders it oculs serve its purpose and like latin preserve modern culture for a thousand years.

USA has lost control of USD and now of its language. English is becoming a global culture different than in Anglosaxon countries and a tool for peace hopefully.

[Nickel]

I think "Globo" or simplified English can become a widespread form of communication across the world. Like Lingua Franca of Mediterranean traders it oculs serve its purpose and like latin preserve modern culture for a thousand years.

I'm surprised by how frequent the use of English is in some parts of Europe. It seems that an awful lot of people in Scandinavia and the Netherlands can use it pretty freely. I read recently that some people in these places now construct compound words on the English model (separated by spaces or hyphens), rather than linking them together as is more common in most other Germanic languages, and that the trend is called "the English disease". Cute.

[Kaj]

A quasi-geopolitical question: I wonder if the trend benefits anglophone countries more than it benefits other countries?

On the surface it appears that it does: the strength of English perhaps allows for cultural hegemony. And I'm guessing that there are benefits to be had in possessing an anglophone major city such as New York or London in this gloalised world, to act as financial nerve centres, for example.

On the other hand, does this not encourage linguistic sloth in Anglophone countries? At least relatively--much of the rest of the world is struggling to become bilingual, while we have much less desire or need to learn any other language. It has been demonstrated that bilinguals have improved intelligence and statistically are much better paid (even in jobs that don't directly need these skills). So surely they have us at a disadvantage there.

Being bilingual helps your brain in old age

Welsh speakers earn more

[kam3Oen]

On the other hand, does this not encourage linguistic sloth in Anglophone countries? At least relatively--much of the rest of the world is struggling to become bilingual, while we have much less desire or need to learn any other language. It has been demonstrated that bilinguals have improved intelligence and statistically are much better paid (even in jobs that don't directly need these skills). So surely they have us at a disadvantage there.

You're on a peak oil site. Might I remind you that in the years to come, it really doesn't matter what people in Rwanda are speaking. We won't be going there, and they won't be coming here.